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Supernatural: Remember the Titans (2013)
The writers should stay away from the gods.
It never works when they bring in a god as a monster of the week. What mythology makes out to be an cosmically powerful and significant being that's been around for thousands of years invariably ends up being presented as something so dim you wouldn't expect it to survive its teen years -- and lo and behold, they seldom survive the episode.
Worse, they pretty much never even make interesting characters. The only one that managed that was the Trickster, who turned out not to be a god at all.
Also, Zeus' complaint in this episode didn't even make sense. Prometheus is why they weren't worshiped anymore? But they *were* worshiped, for at least a thousand years after the theft of fire could have happened. State religion, huge temples dedicated to them, epic poems that are still studied today, and then the Romans even copied the pantheon. By pretty much any measure, they were incredibly successful for a long, long time.
Babylon 5 (1993)
The best TV SF so far.
I know there's some ::ahem:: spirited debate on this between Star Trek and Babylon 5 fans. Without intending to fuel that, this show forever ruined me for Trek. Next Generation was still running while Babylon 5 was, and every episode seemed to me like one more example of what was wrong with the former.
First off, it had some of the best acting going (Notably the chemistry between Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas). It did not assume that real-world issues had been magically left in the past; it didn't ignore religion or (relegate it to McGuffin/alien flavoring), and poverty and political corruption were still ever-present. Perhaps the single most quantifiable departure from Trek is that it has a continuing storyline, rather than basically standalone episodes connected in at most a short story arc.
Having a continuing continuing storyline rather than closed-ended episodes had several beneficial effects: First, character development was consistent and directly related to events in the script. Second, problems did not have to be neatly solved in an hour. Third (and this comes from the previous), they did not just use jury-rig some technological solution in the last ten minutes. Also, general continuity is nice; an important discovery that saves the day one episode is not conveniently forgotten the next time it might be useful.
The only thing keeping it from rating 10 stars is the "Notable Exceptions" category. Plot-wise, I was not terribly satisfied with the series ending. Acting-wise, I found both Bruce Boxleitner and Patricia Tallman to be a drag to an otherwise outstanding cast. Finally, a few episodes had some silly stuff that looked like it has just "sounded cool" to the episode's writer; the Techno-Mages, for example, seemed like something out of an SFRPG.
Barnyard (2006)
No Shrek, but not bad.
The beginning was a disappointment, and the story meandered a bit, but this wasn't too bad. The characters were well-acted and sympathetic, and weren't just vehicles for the actors (like Shark Tales). There were some good laughs. Interestingly, the best characters, in my opinion, were the humans -- in particular Mrs. Beady (voiced with hilarious subtlety by Maria Bamford), who was worth the price of rental all by herself.
The resemblance to The Lion King is largely superficial; in fact, it's arguably opposite, in that Otis is not a born leader, but chooses to live up to the role after leadership is forced upon him. There's no ring of royalty or anything more politically relevant than a barn full of animals almost unanimously electing him leader.
The coyotes are all teeth and menace, and *might* scare some younger kids, but the violence is beyond bloodless; a character supposedly lying horribly mauled doesn't have a mark on him.
There's a lot of Far-Side-esquire humor, and the animation suits it; it isn't super-realistic -- maybe a bit more so than "Wallace and Gromit" level -- and it doesn't matter. We are, after all, talking about "male cows" with udders; the suspension of disbelief asked for is minimal. (Incidentally, I got past the udders in about 15 minutes.)
On that note, this was, udders notwithstanding, decidedly male-centered. The female roles (except Mrs. Beady) are few and consist mainly of hens to be rescued, a cow to listen patiently to be pregnant and listen to male problems, and a best-friend cow to be abrasive and in-your face (which seems to be Wanda Sykes' specialty). Oh, and one female coyote, who gets scared by a mouse and screams.
Overall, pretty good. The kids will probably love it, and you'll probably get some good laughs as well. Expect no more and you'll not be disappointed.
It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown (2000)
It's a Cash Grab, Charlie Brown!
Why? Charles Schultz couldn't have been this hard-up for cash, could he?
Peanuts conventions are thrown to the wind: Adults are shown in plenty, with lots of lines -- no "wah-wah... wah-wah-WAAH-wah" here.
Contrived storyline -- Snoopy is the Pied Piper. Has nothing to do with the Peanuts setting. Granted, this is apparently supposed to be a story Charlie Brown is relating to Sally, but still.
Complete lack of the clever irony that made Peanuts funny. All dialog is forced, and usually a cliché, especially the adults (reminding us why they were "WAH-wah"ed out in the first place).
A Barbershop quintet singing as filler.
Oh. And the dancing mice. Was this an attempt to find the Woodstock Formula? Idunno.
There was just no good reason for this video to be made
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005)
Not bad, if you keep it in perspective
First off, remember it's a movie called "Sharkboy and Lavagirl" -- you shouldn't be expecting a serious, logically tight story. It's based on the director/writer's kid's dreams. Once you accept that dream-logic is at work, it begins to make more sense.
I wasn't expecting much from this movie; it looked, frankly, like it had been made specifically to be a McDonalds tie-in. But I found it took itself lightheartedly enough that most of the plot holes are easy enough to overlook. The acting was spotty, but not atrocious (I wasn't a fan of Max, but both Sharkboy and Lavagirl were fun, and Linus was the perfect little a**hole kid). The score was good, excepting the overly literal closing song. The CGI was only a bit better than TV series quality, but that fits in with the childhood-dream motif. What really surprised me was the impressive fight choreography, esp. where Sharkboy was concerned (and I thought the plug hounds were kind of inventive).
The weakest spot was Max's home life. I've seen parental troubles done better in plenty of kid movies. Not sure what David Arquette as thinking. The whole "You're my best friend!" scene looked like a walk-through for both of them. I found George Lopez's performance spotty as well, but that may have been a reflection of the dialog he had to work with. Yeah, the dialog was kind of stilted sometimes, but it seemed to happen in conjunction with people trying to put on airs.
Oh, don't get me wrong, there were some plot holes. Why did they tell Sharkboy to swim away from the eels when he could have gotten out of the water? Why did the ice king say the thing would work i it wouldn't? Idunno. But it was fun.
Vampires: The Turning (2004)
You take the good, you take the bad...
...and you kill an hour and a half. Despite the low score on IMDb, this movie is not a 4-out-of-10 vampire movie. Anyone who thinks it is does not know the depths to which vampire flicks can sink. This was a (mostly) competently acted movie with good production value and fun martial arts. Rather than lots of bad SFX, we get a few okay SFX (mostly freaky contacts, fangs and dead-vampire-melting) a net gain in my book. It's predictable, but most vampire movies are, and there are no gaping plot holes, or at least not larger than in most movies.
That said, it's not Hamlet, at least not well-acted Hamlet. The main actor isn't particularly charismatic, and seems to have one basic expression throughout the movie, which I read as "fierce determination," but at least he *has* a facial expression (try van Helsing in "Way of the Vampire" for the alternative), and it fits with his mental state for most of the stuff. Stephanie Chao is no great shakes either, but she's pretty, and has a natural sincerity to her voice that makes up for some of her lack of emotion. They should have given Meredith Monroe more to do.
This is, too, only a bastard step-child (yes, that's what I meant) of John Carpenter's Vampires. It has a new origin of vampires that is not really compatible at all with the original. It does keep the winch, but it looks like they put it in just to prove some kind of family resemblance. If the producers actually paid anything to get in on this franchise, it was a waste of money, since they didn't bother to put in any element (other than the winch) from the original.
Overall, It's far from the worst such movie, but not nearly among the best. If you like vampires and kung fu, and movies with a photogenic cast, this is a good way to waste 84 minutes, especially if you've got some kind of unlimited rentals. Just don't go out of your way unless you're a genre fan.
Rose Red (2002)
Rose Wretched
I cannot fathom how this movie has so many rave reviews. I say this not out of a sense of snobbery, but out of genuine puzzlement. It cannot be solely die-hard Regiphiles that have caused this, can it? And the votes seem to be nearly homogeneous across age and gender groups. It's downright weird.
Anyway, this is, I must say it, drivel, and I am no horror aficionado. I liked *Sleepwalkers*, for Christ's sake. But this is a nightmarish hash of all Stephen King's favorite ideas (which, watching seeing this, I now think of as obsessions). The Bad Place (The Shining), psychics awakening and powering the Bad Place (ditto), psychic kids who go berserk (Carrie, Firestarter), domineering mothers (any number of short stories and novellas), gardens that come alive (The Shining) -- just when I thought it couldn't get worse -- vampires. For no reason at all, vampires! (Superficially similar to Salem's Lot, but more in line with his Chtulu-esqu short story with "Die Vermis Mysteriis"). And of course, the whole plot of a bunch of psychics being gathered to stir up the supernatural menace of the place is ripped whole-cloth from The Haunting of Hill House.
Everyone is a cliché. There's the fat, creepy nerdy guy (with the domineering mother); the dashing-but-sensitive British guy; the professor tampering with stuff man was not meant to know; the emotionally unbalanced Psychic Kid(tm); the hottie-who-can't-help-how-good-she-looks... the list goes on.
There was really nothing much in the way of a mystery to be solved (not one that mattered to the plot), no weakness of the villain to be overcome. There was some overcoming-one's-personal-demons stuff, especially to redeem the fat, nerdy guy, but apart form that there was no sense of personal triumph other than "look, the "good guys" can smash the bad guys with big rocks from space! I watched this movie because (up until this) I've been willing to take a chance on him for a good creepy story that doesn't take itself too seriously. But this was not particularly creepy -- or, rather, it was *all* creep, with lots of gloomy CGI corridors and sneaking camera shots, but no scare. But it was just a waste of my time.
Bump in the Night (1994)
This was great!
This show didn't last, more's the pity, but I have to put it up there near The Tick as one of the most brilliant, hilariously postmodern "children's" TV shows. The quotes there mean that, yeah, it was theoretically marketed to kids, but I and, I suspect, many other 20-somethings of the day who happened upon it made a point of watching it ever after.
A smelly-sock-hole-eating hero, his honest but squishy friend (never figured out what he was... a mold?), the control-freak comfort doll, and of course the closet monster composed of laundry, all animated in *genuine claymation*, not crappy CG effects!
The musical Christmas special, as Mr. Bumpy plots to voyage to the North Pole to steal Santa's bag of toys, was particularly great.
- Sean
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)
The perfect movie.
That's all I can say, really. There is no one magic element. The magic, the being of this movie, is in the interworking of all its aspects, in the completeness of which the elements dissolve.
The movie is somehow both perfectly real and perfectly magical. In fact, if there can be said to be a quantifiable purpose to this movie, it is to show the magic hidden of everyday life -- something to which American Beauty aspired and at which it so horribly failed. The difference seems to be that the makers of American Beauty clearly had no idea what beauty *is*, while the makers of Amelie clearly do.
I've tried to write more and just deleted it; anything else I say will not do the movie justice. Just watch it.
- Sean
Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2003)
Funniest Talk Show. Ever.
We watch this religiously. If a particular night leaves us shaking our heads in disappointment, it's only because we've been spoiled by its usual brilliance.
Kimmel seems born to do a late-night talk show. I didn't like the Man Show, and I didn't like this one when it premiered, but I tried it a few months later and it was suddenly hilarious; the more ABC lets Kimmel have his lead, the funnier he is.
Non-intellectual without Lenno's cheese (when there is cheese, it's so obviously, self-consciously cheesey that it's satire), sardonic without Letterman's bitter edge, he's the perfect combination of no-bs and master bs-er.
I don't think he attacks his guests, as someone mentioned (maybe that was in his less-funny, starting-out phase), but he doesn't kow-tow to them, either. Kimmel can talk frankly with anyone. He can spot the silliness or pretense in anything, and point it out whether he's talking to his uncle Frank, Britney Spears or, I would imagine, the President of the U.S.
ABC, leave him alone, you'll only do yourself a world of good.
- Sean Miner
Dracula 2000 (2000)
A little scary, a little funny, a bunch of cool.
Leonard Maltin once said of a movie, "As dopey vampire movies go, it's not bad." Well, as dopey vampire movies go, this one is pretty damn good.
This will never be a classic (in a sane universe), but it's a fun way to pass the time. The acting isn't bad at all, no absurdly bad lies jump out, and there's a sporadically wit to some of the dialog. The scares are mostly of the "Booga-Booga!" or "Eeew!" kind rather than lingering creepiness, and vanish once you turn off the VCR, which may be a plus for some. It also has a cast of hotties to make it easy on the eyes -- Jennifer Esposito and Jeri Ryan slinking around in evening gowns is always a plus, and the ladies can dig Gerard Butler as the dark-and-sexy Prince of the Undead.
It suffers from a number of the cliches that plague most vampire movies (including the necessary half-wits who don't know enough not to open a spooky coffin and thus start the movie) but it gives just enough interesting new ideas to the Dracula mythology to keep you wondering what's going to happen next. The origin of Dracula, revealed at the end -- and how it ties in with traditional vampiric weaknesses -- is particularly clever.
All in all, if you dig dopey vampire flicks with a hot, hip young cast, this should be an enjoyable couple hours.