Sunday, July 20, 2003

Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

An odd little movie. I think I enjoyed it. All the way through the watching I kept thinking, "Is this good or is this stupid? I can't tell yet." It definitely had some entertaining moments, but I would have to say the highlight of the whole movie was seeing Harry getting a kick out of Bedtime for Bonzo. I started going, "Oooh! I know that movie!" :-) 2.5 stars.

Funny Face (1957)

Not a very memorable movie. Even though I generally enjoy Gershwin, I only liked a song or two from this. I would never own this film... not interesting enough for that. But for a mild evening of singing and dancing... sure, I'd take it. OOH! We should have a musicals marathon and rent a bunch of musicals and watch 'em all! :-) But who would join me? Not many people. 2 stars.

Equilibrium (2002)

Awesome movie. Very Matrix-style . . . lots of mind-bending plot twists and cool martial arts bits and nifty shooting scenes. Oh, wait. Matrix didn't have any nifty shooting scenes. Just one long boring shooting scene. The shooting scenes in this *are* really cool, however. It's awesome because they're doing fancy sidesteps and stuff as they're shooting. In general, a great movie. 4 stars.

Musical Theater Person Sighting: That's Taye Diggs as the main black bad guy... and of course Christian Bale also did the musical Newsies.

Thursday, July 3, 2003

Hoosiers (1986)

Pretty good for a sports movie. Sports movies tend to bore me to death but this one actually managed to hold my attention for awhile. I was a little creeped out by the romance relationship though. I mean, he looks about thirty-five years older than her. Ick. 2.5 stars.

Holes (2003)

I've been a big fan of the book for a long time, so when I heard there was a movie in the works I was a bit leery... I was unsure whether Disney could keep the utter goofiness of the original story - but thank goodness, Louis Sachar wrote the screenplay as well, and what we ended up with was this charming, almost identical-to-the-book, children's film. It could almost be compared to a Roald Dahl story, except a bit more cheery. Way to go, movie peoples! I have more faith in the movie industry now! :-D 4.5 stars.

Hart's War (2002)

It's a war movie. Some war movies are good, some war movies are bad, some war movies are weird. This one was weird. It failed to hold my attention for very long, and to tell the truth, I didn't see much of a point to it. Maybe I'm just dense and didn't get it, but it seemed to me to be disjointed and sort of splayed everywhere. 1.5 stars.

Blue's Big Musical Movie (2000)

"Who's clues? Blue's clues!" Before I write this up, I have to say... I think Blue's Clues is the cutest kids show of all time. So I was bound to like the movie. They stretched one episode out for an hour and a half and still managed to keep it cool. Even my dad commended it (for its great song-writing scene featuring Ray Charles). If I'm going to watch a Blue's Clues video with my siblings, this would be the one to watch. 3 stars.

Bedtime For Bonzo (1951)

One of the sillier classic comedies. I never saw any of the sequels to this, but really, you couldn't get a whole lot farther than this. One of these movies goes a long way. 2.5 stars.

A Goofy Movie (1995)

Plot: When Max makes an preposterous promise to his girlfriend, his chances to fulfilling it seem hopeless when he is dragged onto a cross-country trip with his embarrassing father, Goofy.

I got this not knowing if it was going to be stupid or cute. It was a little bit of both. It was incredibly corny in places but still managed to keep me laughing. 3.5 stars.

Domestic Disturbance (2001)

Ehhhh... okay. Not much as far as thrillers go, there was only a little bit of suspense that was held out all the way through. I did like how they portrayed the villain though: as a very normal person. Not some psycho who kills people because he loves to kill, or because he's bored... but a very sane gangster who wouldn't just randomly hurt anybody. And... the big shocker... the victims were actually smart in this movie! Some very smart moves in here... 3 stars.

Conspiracy Theory (1997)

This is one great movie. I'm not a huge fan of Julia Roberts, but she was great - very practical, very down-to-earth... and Mel Gibson was fantastic. That one scene where he's in the wheelchair and trying to get away had such an eerie nightmarish feel that it thoroughly freaked me out. And I did NOT see the end coming... Great build-up, great humor, great everything. 4 stars.

Cinderella 2 (2002)

Who, who, WHO agreed to make this movie? I think I am just completely against making sequels to movies so old that none of the original actors are alive. Not only did the voices sound completely different from the originals, the plot seem incredibly constrained, and the soundtrack become reduced to a pop diva sound, but they didn't even pronounce their names the same! Jacques became "Jack." Apparently becoming a princess made Cinderella much more English. 0.5 stars.

Charade (1963)

One of the greatest murder mysteries of all time. I totally did not have this figured out by the end. The humorous touches and delightful dialogue make it more than just a simple whodunnit, but that long chase scene is pretty darn cool. 4 stars.