THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT [2004] review
August 23, 2008
The grave and dark tones in THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT were not at all what I was expecting of this movie. I both like it when a movie is not what I expect it to be tonally and don’t like it…because I always pick a movie on purpose based on its expected tone to match my mood at the time of viewing. That said, even though BUTTERFLY was much darker than my expectations for what it would be, after the very grim first act, I settled in and went along for the ride the dual directors sent me on.
THE KARATE KID [1984] review
August 18, 2008
In the summer of 1984, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts I went to see THE KARATE KID with my grandfather. The only moment I can remember clearly is walking out of the theater into the parking lot, at twilight time, seeing other kids doing the crane pose. Like all the other kids who just saw it, I was totally stoked to try karate. I believe every single kid who saw THE KARATE KID that summer left the theater doing some kind of karate motion.
Few movies have achieved such iconic status as THE KARATE KID. Pieces of dialogue from the movie are burned into pop culture. No doubt everyone knows “wax on, wax off.”
THE KITE RUNNER [2007] review
August 8, 2008
I value loyalty above almost all else. The character Hassan in THE KITE RUNNER personifies true, absolute loyalty. His loyalty stems out of purity. His loyalty is to Amir, and he may not exactly be worthy of such loyalty. The two boys are growing up in Afghanistan right before the Soviet invasion. In their carefree lives, there is no hint of this coming threat, save for the times the adults mention “the communists.”
A kite runner is not what I could have ever imagined. I will not describe what a kite runner is here. I will only say that boys in Afghanistan have a unique game involving kite flying. The kite flying scenes are filmed beautifully. It is good to sweep out of the rather harsh landscapes and up into the sky for awhile.
This is a movie where characters have secrets you never thought such a person could have. They are revealed unexpectedly in the story. There are surprising coincidences that clever scriptwriters like to employ. Yet nothing felt too gimmicky.
On the contrary, THE KITE RUNNER has a lot of heart, a lot of purity, and all of that stems from the childhood loyalty of the boy Hassan. Even I, not often moved by children, wanted to hug the boy and take care of him. His loyalty touched me deeply and I feel great affection for him, even now. To have such a loyal friend would be blessing.
The movie touches on the recent political situation in Afghanistan with the Taliban. The grip upon the country by the Taliban is revealed slowly, first only with facial hair rules, but then the ultimate laws are shown. And they are baffling to a person living in the modern world. In an excellent piece of editing, the director, Marc Forster, shows us the ludicrousness that in the year 2000 in certain places people are being stoned to death for adultery, by cutting to another place where such a thing is mentally and physically a world away.
The movie can make you emotional, and angry at characters and countries. Yet the kites continue to fly, not necessarily as they used to, but still they fly.
(I often mention about watching movies in HD. I watched THE KITE RUNNER via some manner of blu-ray, and it was stunning. I don’t want to say if you are not watching movies in HD you aren’t watching movies, but rather that watching a movie in HD is a whole other experience entirely.)
THE DARK KNIGHT [2008] review
August 3, 2008
WARNING: SPOILERS
Right after the Joker was captured at about the half-way point of THE DARK KNIGHT, I was already thinking to myself, “the most badass film, ever.” Then the film totally changed gears and became an incredible psychological thriller and statement on the effect of terrorism on modern society. I was not prepared for this dual-genre film, and it blew me away leaving me walking out of the theater knowing it will enter my pantheon of unforgettable movie going experiences.
DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS [2001] review
July 22, 2008
In the past three months I’ve probably watched more documentaries than I have in the past three years. This streak started with DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS. I’m a big fan of skateboarding and surf culture, and prefer to live the surfer lifestyle myself, which stems from my love of the Sea and need to live by the Sea. DOGTOWN is a slightly pretentious documentary that sheds light on how skateboarding evolved from just doing handstands on a board with fragile wheels, all the way to the modern skating style. I found the detail and clear points showing how the Z-Boys aped moves of a surfer to be able to do never-before-done moves on a skateboard to be fascinating.
The inevitable personal and group crisis segments were tolerable and I guess needed inclusion, but I’d like to have a documentary for once not have to involve this kind of thing.
The ingenuity and boldness these early skateboarders employed in order to just be able to skate brought out the rebel in me. Seeing them hop fences in suburban neighborhoods to ride in empty pools at risk of being discovered by the police was something I would have liked to of joined in on. Describing the hierarchy of these rare, and thus valuable, skating places showed the badass spirit of skateboarding as well. If you were some punk just joining the group, don’t expect to be allowed entry into the pool!
I think RIDING GIANTS and DOGTOWN make two great companion documentaries on the origins of big wave surfing and California street skating. I recommend watching them on successive weekends. Watch DOGTOWN first though.
TOUCHING THE VOID [2003] review
July 19, 2008
I had of course long heard about TOUCHING THE VOID, but only finally watched it tonight. I didn’t even know if it was a documentary or a feature film until I checked IMDB right before starting it. I would call VOID a mixture of documentary and feature film since there is so much dramatic and amazing reenactment mixed in with just the right amount of talking head scenes.
VOID describes the harrowing tale of two young British mountaineers attempting to alpine climb the face of a mountain in the Andes that had never been done before. Obviously since they made a documentary out of the story, it was not a cakewalk to the summit and back down. However, as you see the two actual men some 20 years later, you do know they survive right from the get go, but not until the very end do you actually let yourself believe it. Countless times I thought, “how the F is he going to get out of that?” Countless times. This happens in most action movies, and then some gimmick happens making it easy to see how they will survive.
There are no gimmicks in VOID.
Just pure, ultimate display of the human spirit’s will to survive and what a Man can accomplish if his will is strong enough.
I found myself relating to the survival techniques used. Recalling an internal voice mercilessly telling you to keep carrying on, I heard that voice at times in the past when out hiking myself (in particular climbing out of the Kaibab trail in the Grand Canyon). In my case, it was only for a few hours, not days.
Truly amazing and truly inspiring story.
And I’ve written this in past movie reviews—watching a movie in HD is an entirely different experience. I watched a 720p version of VOID and it was stunning and helped me feel totally immersed in the snow, the vistas, the glacier, the crevice, the mind of the two men.
RIDING GIANTS [2004] review
June 25, 2008
It was yet another rainy Sunday afternoon when I finally watched RIDING GIANTS, a movie given to me by Brady long ago. This is a documentary chronicling the surprisingly long history of big wave surfing. It takes us from the very origins of surfing, 1000 years ago in Hawaii, to the origins of big wave surfing in the early 20th century. Who knew people were surfing huge waves in the 1940’s and 1950’s?
The stories and footage of these early pioneers in surfing was fascinating to me. It’s no doubt the 1950’s are my favorite decade. Seeing footage of Hawaii in those times was just so wonderfully analog.
The things these early surfers did on boards without fins or even leashes, and no 911 to call in case of emergency was truly fearless. There are interviews with some of these guys and they are characters, but not overly so. I was also surprised by just how much footage there was of them surfing, given how poor they said they were, basically living off the land and just surfing all the time!
As the documentary progressed to the 80’s, the most amazing thing to me was that one guy surfed what would come to be known as Mavericks all alone for 15 years! No one would go out with him. Then one day suddenly it became incredibly popular with the big surfing crowd, though not without tragedy.
The film closes with big wave surfing as it is now, and as one might expect it is light years ahead of what the guys were capable of doing in the 50’s thanks to modern technology.
If you are into surfing, or surf culture, or just the Sea or the beach, this movie will make you totally stoked. Even if you are not, this is a thoroughly entertaining documentary. Watch it on a rainy afternoon when you can’t, yourself, get out to the beach.
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL [2008] review
June 22, 2008
Just got back from watching INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, the climax of 7 weeks spent in the Indiana Jones universe. It was a good enough climax. I think CG is the ruin of all modern films, and it definitely lessoned my liking of CRYSTAL SKULL. As compared to the analog action glory of RAIDERS, the CG ants and groundhogs and monkeys and human characters brought me out of the realism.
That said, the mostly analog opening 30 minutes of the film were all pure Indy. I loved Indy’s introduction in the film, the way he outsmarted a whole outfit of Russian soldiers, how he just used his brain and his fists, which I believe is the essence of Indiana Jones. He’s always at least one step ahead, and if not, he’s got the guts to get ahead.
The entire diner scene was classic Indy. It was also damn, damn funny. I ha-ed twice, once when someone was confused for being a mailman and another time referring to a knife. Great comedy. I like Shia LaBeouf. I like his gimmick. Every time he pulled out his comb, that was gold.
As I had heard, the ending was a bit ludicrous, and the characters did seem a bit indestructible, and as I mentioned before, the entire CG ants I could have lived without, but otherwise there were enough classic Indy moments to make it a good adventure, especially the first half.
I liked the pause the film gave for Indy to acknowledge the passing of his father and Marcus. If only Sallah could have somehow made an appearance or at least gotten a reference!
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE [1989] review
June 21, 2008
I can’t say enough how much of a great time I had watching INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE. I think it was because the actors in the film were all having such a blast shooting those scenes, the audience can see that and feel that and I totally felt like I was completely along for the ride with them. I felt, like Sallah, I had been picked back up and brought on one more of Indy’s adventures.
What really stands out in this installment I think is the humor. Lots of laughs. And good ones. Not cheap one-liners, great banter between Indy and the senior Dr. Jones. This mix of humor and the always outstanding Indy adventure moments added up to a true movie experience.
And the surprise opening where we learn of how Indy picked up a lot of his trademarks was very inspired.
As in RAIDERS, we find Indy uses his book knowledge and adventure skills to their utmost, a return to form of sorts from the somewhat diversion TEMPLE OF DOOM took.
At the end of the movie, I felt as giddy as Indy and Dr. Jones and Sallah did, and that’s a rare thing.
I re-watched all three Indy films at two-week intervals in preparation for tonight’s viewing of KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.
INDIANA JONES & THE TEMPLE OF DOOM [1984] review
June 4, 2008
Having established a format in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK that we’d later see again in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, one realizes just how large a departure from the Indy formula INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM is. This is not to say that the movie isn’t good and a successful action film, but I can just imagine who jarring it must have been to fans who saw it in 1984. I have no memory of seeing it in a theater then, so I can’t say. While in the first and third Indy films, Indy is sought out specifically by other parties to retrieve an object, which forms the structure of the film, this time Indy literally stumbles into his retrieval assignment.
While I commented in my RAIDERS review that nothing really implausible happened in that movie, right away in TEMPLE OF DOOM does the implausible happen. Landing a life boat on a snowy mountain top after falling countless feet from a crashing airplane? Not believable. Fun to watch, but the touch or reality of RAIDERS was lost.
Yet the movie is very memorable. I have no idea when I saw it last, maybe over 10 or more years ago, but I totally remembered the very memorable dinner scene where an assortment of bugs and eyeballs are brought out for sampling.
TEMPLE OF DOOM is almost literally non-stop, and in that way it’s a totally satisfying action movie. The rope bridge climax is particularly visceral and tense.
And as always, John Williams iconic score punctuates it all helping to continue and maintain the essence of Indy, though the script structure deviates from the norm.
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