Friday night we headed into Orlando to meet up with some friends at Downtown Disney for dinner and an opening night viewing of the new Johnny Depp / Tim Burton movie - Sweeney Todd.

I'm glad we had dinner first, because I don't think I could have eaten much after. It is rare that a movie leaves me feeling physically a bit nauseous, but Sweeney Todd manages.

In a movie/musical about a "demonic" Victorian London barber who slits the throats of his customers and has the bodies ground up into the "best tasting meat pies in London" - being left with a feeling of nausea is actually a bit forgivable.

But that the movie is filled with often indecipherable low mumbly heavily accented quickly spoken (or sung) dialog over loud music is not forgivable in the least. Several people after the movie commented that they wished for subtitles.

The excessive gore and spurting blood didn't impress me much either. I imagine pulling off such dramatic over-the-top deaths on a Broadway stage would be amazing to see, and an incredible demonstration of stagecraft. But in a movie, spurting fountains of blood just isn't that impressive - and it felt forced and gratuitous.

The songs are well sung, but only one or two were memorable. Some of the folks we were with who had seen the stage version were disappointed that some of their favorite songs from the musical were missing from the movie.

All in all, this movie is extremely skippable. There are much better period films, slasher films, and musicals to be seen.

I expect more from Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, they seem like such a perfect match of director and star. But I also thought Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a huge disappointment - so maybe I should stop expecting good things from this pairing...

Rating: 2 stars.

When he found out we were going to be still in town Saturday night, Sean got thoroughly excited about taking Cherie and I to the weekly Trash Film Orgy, held every Saturday night at midnight at downtown Sacramento's historic Crest Theater.

This weeks feature, the 1975 classic: Death Race 2000!!

Egads, what trash!

Set in the "far future" of the year 2000, the movie is about five racers competing in America's most revered sporing event - a transcontinental race from New York to LA. But this race has a twist - racers are not just competing for the fastest time, but for the most points. And how do you score points? Via death, of course:

Male adult: 20 points
Male teenager: 40 points
Male infant/toddler: 70 points
Female (any age): 10 points more than men in any age bracket
Senior citizen (regardless of gender): 100 points

Not your typical ESPN fare, eh? One highlight was seeing Sylvester Stallone starring in one of his first big roles, a year or two before Rocky. Imagine the Italian Stallion plowing over pedestrians making that trademark scowl and roaring his Rambo growl, and you get the idea...

Sadly, there was not nearly enough carnage to make this movie as fun, cheesy, or trashy as it could have been. The concept was way better than the implementation. It looks as if it was made on a shoestring budget, particularly the sets, costumes, and cars...

The best part though was the whole Trash Film Orgy experience. The theater was packed, a lot of people were in costume, cheering and jeering loudly was encouraged, and there were bizarre contests and skits on stage before the movie and during intermission. A wild Saturday night out indeed!

Rating: 2 trashy stars...

BTW: Wikipedia makes mention of a remake in the works. Death Race 3000 is potentially coming to theaters in 2008. Be afraid!

Wednesday night my parent's surprised me with an early birthday present: tickets for us to see the touring production of Monty Python's Spamalot being performed at the "Fabulous Fox Theater" in St. Louis.

My pop-culture radar must be getting a bit dusty - I hadn't even heard of this play even though it won a 2005 Tony Award for Best Musical.
It was a complete surprise to me - the kind of present I like best. *grin*

Spamalot is retelling of the classic movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail - "lovingly" adapted for the stage.

But as is often the case, classics are often better left alone.

Many of the original bits from the movie are copied exactly - but without the comic genius of John Cleese and the other Monty Python originals, the magic just isn't there. And the whole new self-referential thread to the play about the knights needing to "put on a broadway show" as a new challenge replacing the quest for a shrubery just felt wrong - particularly the song about needing to have a Jew in the cast to succeed on Broadway. Uhm, uh, ok.

Lancelot winding up gay however sure was an interesting twist. I liked his shiny chain mail speedo.

Even thought the play as whole was lacking, many of the songs were fun indeed. You can check out the cast recording here: Monty Python's Spamalot (Cast Recording on CD)

Overall, it was a fun night out on the town with the folks, and a much appreciated gift.

Rating: 2 stars.

Lyle and I ran out to catch The Davinci Code at the Scott's Valley Cinema on Monday night. We had to rush to make it on time, but once there we actually ended up being the only two in the entire theater. That was a weird experience - I'm not sure I've ever had an entire theater to myself before.

I could say something here about misery loving company and wishing there were more folks to share the pain, but while the movie was rather disappointing - at least it wasn't painful.

But it was far from good.

The Davinci Code book was a fun read. The best part about it was the constant sense of high stakes - the greatest secret in the world is about to be lost for all time if the heros don't prevail. But in the end, the entire secret and the chain of clues leading to it all ends up to be rather pointless. (Ask me to explain if it isn't blindingly obvious to you...) But even if the ending was disappointing - at least the chase getting there was fun.

But the movie failed to capture this sense of urgency for me. I know what it is like to stay up all night solving cryptic puzzles while racing from one amazing location to the next, and the movie does not capture any of that energy. And the puzzles guarding "the greatest secret of all time" are actually rather simple - I guess understandable considering the mainstream audience.

The other great thing about the book is the gushing descriptions of the art and locations. The movie could have easily been a celebration of art and architecture, but you only ever get the tiniest glimpses of either. Very disappointing.

And finally, the acting... *sigh* Tom Hanks does a good job acting like a piece of wood - I hope that is what he is going for. The rest of the cast was equally as dull, other than the character of Tebing (played by Ian McKellen) who is passionate and mad.

The Davinci Code could have been a great movie. It could have been a lushly beautiful movie. It could have been a kinetic adrenaline rush movie.

It could have been worth $9.

Sadly, it was not.

If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and wait for the DVD!

Rating: 2 stars.

Time to catch up on movie reviews again...

I stopped over at my friend Gloria's new house in Petaluma on May 21st. She had just bought it and was still moving in, and she hadn't seen my new house yet either.

After we finished giving each other tours - we decided to make a simple dinner and watch a movie from her collection. The choice: M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.

The Village was fairly well made, but it felt like Shyamalan was trying way too hard to copy his own "twist ending" formula from the superb The Sixth Sense, but this time around it felt both more forced, and WAY more predictable.

I love it when Roger Ebert gives scathing reviews. No one rips a movie better:
"Everyone speaks in the passive voice. The vitality has been drained from the characters; these are the Stepford Pilgrims. ... Eventually the secret of Those, etc., is revealed. To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets."

I wouldn't be quite THAT harsh, but he is pretty much on the mark.

Rating: 2 stars.

Lindsay and I went to a genuine drive-in movie theater tonight, in East Sacramento. It is set to be turned into condos soon - what a shame. Drive-ins are such a great way to enjoy a night out. I wish the sound and picture quality was a bit better, but...

First up was the new Robin William's film RV. Considering that I now live in one (though MUCH smaller!), how could I not watch this - even though the movie sounded pretty miserable based upon the one review I had read.

Fortunately - it wasn't all that bad.

RVfollows the "family road movie" formula pretty much verbatim, and is totally predictable. Family heads off hating each other - comes back bonded. Lots of gross-out humor and cheesy bits along the way, and running gags that run WAY past being funny. But in the end everyone is redeemed. Even the freakish hick family of RV full-timers turn out to be actually interesting and loving and (oh wow - you went to Stanford!) smart.

But regardless - I still laughed a lot. And Lindsay was laughing non-stop.

The funniest bit for me was when Robin Williams snuck out at night with his laptop and was climbing up on rooftops desperate to get enough signal to handle his email... Seeing as I was sticking a phone up through my roof vent just two nights ago trying the same thing, it sure was funny to see it on screen.

This is not a classic by any measure - but it is fun light family fair. Perfect drive-in fodder.

Rating: 2+ stars.

Wait - I forgot one movie from the past month!

Cinco de Mayo evening, hanging out at Lindsay's place - we watched Lords of Dogtown from her Netflix queue.

Lords of Dogtown is the fictionalized retelling of the birth of modern skateboarding in the beach-side slums on Santa Monica in the mid-1970's.

The movie tells the story of a group of friends who revolutionize the sport by inventing extreme stunts, and in particular by breaking into backyards to skate in drained pools. They eventually sell out, get rich and bitter, and go their separate ways. There is drama. There is skating. And nothing is more important than skating, right?

This move was written by Stacy Peralta - one of the "lords" who made it big skating for Zephyr Team. He also made a documentary chronicling the same story called Dogtown and Z-Boys.

The documentary sounds like it might be interesting. This movie really wasn't very. None of the characters are particularly likable. And it is hard to see what is so heroic about trespassing to skate in the drained pools of Malibu mansions.

I guess skating just isn't my thing... But this was a somewhat interesting peek into the birth of a culture and a sport that I know little about. I just think I'd prefer the non-fiction version.

Rating: 2 stars.

Still catching up on movie reviews...

Lindsay and I managed a quick movie date a few weeks ago on April 22nd. After a tasty lunch at the deservedly famous "House of Chicken and Waffles", we saw The Sentinel at Jack London Square.

"In 141 years, there's never been a traitor in the Secret Service... Until now."

Starting with that tagline - the movie is a very predictable but generally fun action thriller.

Michael Douglas plays an old Secret Service agent (he took a bullet for Reagan) who is being first blackmailed, and then set up to be the fall guy for an assassination attempt being carried out with inside help. Keifer Sutherland is his former best friend who is now the lead investigator out to bring him down before he can get to to the president. Meanwhile - the Secret Service is too distracted chasing Michael Douglas to be paying attention to the real bad guys moving in.

The movie never really tells you who the bad guys are, why they want to kill the president, or how they managed to get a traitor in the Secret Service to be working for them. All of these plot points end up feeling really implausible and glaringly unexplained...

It is also pretty darn implausible that a man being chased by the secret service as a suspect in an assassination attempt could get away from them so easily over and over when they are in hot pursuit. Michael Douglas can outrun Keifer Sutherland?!??

Anyway...

The Sentinel is simple fun, and a good afternoon time killer. Not great, not thought provoking, but not bad either.

Rating: 2+ stars.

After a fun day out to see Alcatraz (I've lived here how long and still hadn't gone?), Tuesday night with Mom was spent watching The Aviator.

The movie had such great buzz, and I was excited about the focus on Howard Hughes' passion for aviation. But in the end I was rather disappointed.

The movie never really captured for me the joy and beauty of flight and flying machines. I expected much more focus on the airplanes. This was Hughes' passion - but I felt it more strongly in the History Channel documentary on the extras disk than I did in the movie.

And Leonard DiCaprio never really convinces me in his role as Howard Hughes. Not in the way that I was convinced in other recent biographies, such as Ray or Walk the Line. And Alan Alda didn't work for me either - I kept wanting to refer to him as Senator Hawkeye.

Another thing about the movie annoyed me... The first half is filmed with the color distorted - such that greens look blue. The idea was to simulate the look of early color movies. But it is just a distracting gimmick that seems out of place in a sharply detailed modern movie.

I was going to complain that some of the major events portrayed in the movie seemed overly dramatic and overblown - such as Howard Hughes personally piloting an experimental spy plane on its first flight, and then crashing through a house in Beverley Hills, nearly dying. Or his crashing his racing plane (again on its maiden flight) into a beet field after setting the world speed record. Or the way he totally tore apart the senator and called him a liar while testifying to congress. But I looked it up - and his life really was that dramatic. The most unbelievable bits of the movie actually are the most true to life.

Howard Hughes is an amazing, fascinating man. And he had a huge impact on the development of the modern world and modern aviation. The Aviator inspired me to learn more about him, but I really wish the movie had left me as excited as the actual documentaries I watched after did.

Rating: 2+ stars...

Big developers bad.
Poor farmers good.
Old people are often funny, and sometimes talk to ghosts...

*groan*

I watched this old (1988) Robert Redford directed "classic" with Lindsay Thursday night, and was really let down by it. The movie couldn't decide whether it was a serious drama or a light-hearted fable - and it never really felt fleshed out in any aspect.

Ah well...

Rating: 2 stars.

Today was Christmas in Baltimore at my brother and his wife Aimee's new house.

And the Christmas movie we decided to watch after dinner and gifts: Polar Express.

The story was a good one, but it would have been better told in a traditionally animated fashion. The 3D was at best a gimmick, and was often distracting. The characters were too realistic, but not realistic enough to pass as real. They instead seemed like strange zombie dolls. Dead, yet alive... This is why Pixar movies do NOT attempt to feature realistic human characters. If you want an animated character to look real, then forget animation and USE REAL PEOPLE.

Also - it seemed as if the film makers were often more focused on making a thrill ride for an amusement park than a movie. Oh yeah, IMAX 3D.

This might be a fun movie to see on an IMAX roller coaster ride someday, but it is NOT destined to become a Christmas classic. Ah well...

Rating: 2 stars.

I spent Wednesday night this past week hanging out with my new dear friend Rebekah, and we watched my latest random Netflix arrival - Crazy | Beautiful.

Very formulaic story of high-school lovers from different social classes coming together despite all the pressures keeping them apart.

It could have been much worse, but it also could have been done better.

Kirsten Dunst has great energy and is super cute... And I am drawn to stories of lovers overcoming all odds to stay together. That combination is probably how this ended up in my Netflix queue a few years ago.

Not worth going out of your way to watch, but not a movie to avoid either.

At least the company was great. :-)

Rating: 2 stars.

ocelotsden  and nerfduck  loaned this "Academy Award Nominated" animated short to me a while ago - telling me that I HAD to see it.  I finally got around to watching it Monday night so that I could return it to them the next day.

Ouch.

My brain is still bleeding.  

I was home alone, and I took the time to prepare a nice pasta dinner to enjoy while watching the movie - but I hadn't realized it was only 9 minutes long.  Rejected was over before I had managed two bites of dinner.  Which was unfortunate, because it took a while for my appetite to come back.

Though I do see the artistic and absurdist merit of Rejected - take my advice if you ever decide to watch it.  Don't do it alone.  Don't do it sober.  And don't do it over dinner.  Enough said.

I will have my revenge though...  When I returned Rejected, I gave S&K the bad movie brain melter "Tromeo and Juliet" to watch. 

"What light from yon there plexiglass breaks?"

 

Rating: 2 stars.

Watched this one at Josiah's movie night last night...

I had such high hopes for this. The concept sounds BRILLIANT. A dark British comedy about Zombies, starring two drunkard losers who could almost in their natural state put most zombies to shame.

The comedic potential was immense.

And though the movie was fun, it left me feeling disappointed. It could have been brilliant, perhaps even a classic... But the script and acting just weren't up to the overall potential of the concept.

*sigh*

And how on earth could you have a zombie movie without once hearing a cry of "brains, brains, BRAINS!" ???

Return of the Living Dead remains the best zombie comedy movie ever made, by far.

Of course - how many zombie comedy movies are there? I think this is really an under-represented genre.

Rating: 2 stars.