Starring

Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver

In Brief

In 2152, humans are mining the elusive ore “unobtanium” from the faraway planet, Pandora. Unfortunately, the resident Na’Vi, who have a spiritual and cultural link to all the life on the planet, live atop the largest deposits. The miners turn to a paraplegic marine, Jake Sulley, and the Avatar program, which uses a remote link to control living Na’Vi bodies to gain the trust of the indigenous population. But once Sulley goes in, he doesn’t want to go back.

The Beef

Do you think they’re trying to tell us something? The undertones in this movie aren’t so much “under” as “in-your-face”. It’s all one giant reflection of the displacement of Native Americans and, to a lesser extent, war in the middle east. It honestly makes me wonder whether they actually wrote the story first or just kept tweaking history until they got something cool.

Still – the end result is hard to argue with. James Cameron’s face is in the dictionary next to the word “Epic”. I can’t think of any movies off the top of my head that match this in the sheer scale of the undertaking. The entire world is animated, and animated well. It’s beautiful and foreign and fascinating. Without a plot the movie could survive on its splendor alone, but it does have a plot. It works too. Sure it’s familiar and predictable, but it’s engaging and fun to watch too.

Unfortunately the characters weaved into this story aren’t particularly likable though. They’re all dramatizations, like they were lifted from the pages of a comic book. The shrewd businessman, the “kill-em-all” general and his goons, the die-hard passionate scientist, and so on and so forth. Despite quite a lot of screen time, none of them really generate any particular depth. The story is engaging and the visuals stunning enough that it carried me through the insane 162 minute runtime, but on pure movie credentials alone I can’t put this movie up with the ratings it’s getting elsewhere.

See it, for sure, and do your best to see it in a great big Digital or IMAX theater, because the visuals will blow you away. Just don’t expect the rest of the movie to keep up.

4/5 (Good)

3D-O-Vision

Avatar was also the first recent movie I’ve seen in 3D, and I was a little apprehensive. My experience until this has been that directors use it to make things shoot out at you in obnoxious and distracting ways, but not to add any depth to the picture itself. Nothing is further from the truth in Avatar. I think there are only one or two instances where something truly jumps out at you – the effect is instead used to great effect in slow panning shots of the amazing world that Cameron has created.

Still – I never quite felt like everything was in focus when it was in 3D, and quicker shots blurred and made focusing even more difficult. I think 3D has a lot of potential, and I’m no longer as pessimistic about it as I was, but I don’t think the technology is at the point yet where it’s something that adds more to the film than it detracts.

I hope they keep working on it, because I see a lot of potential in what they can do with this.

Starring

Nobody

In Brief

A high school abstinence speaker agrees to finally have sex with his girlfriend, but falls into a coma before he gets the chance. When wakes up 4 years later he discovers that his former girlfriend is a playboy playmate and sets off across the country to find her.

The Beef

The most painful biking I’ve done in a long time. I wouldn’t have finished the movie if I weren’t stuck on a bike waiting for my 45 minutes to be up (twice). I expected it to be bad, but I was hoping I’d at least get some good boobs out of it. But no. I would rather spend 90 minutes stabbing myself with cutlery than watching this movie again.
1/5 (Awful)

Weigh In

212 lbs.

Starring

Alyson Michalka, Vanessa Hudgens, Gaelan Connell

In Brief

A high school outsider and music junkie moves to a new school overcome with Bandslam, a high school battle of the bands competition. He forms an unlikely bond with the former head cheerleader. Impressed with his musical knowledge, she makes him the manager of her band, which he quickly reshapes to compete for the glory of Bandslam.

The Beef

Lately a lot of disney and teen romp movies are leading with some awkward looking guys. I guess the idea is that it makes them easier to relate to. Michael Cera is an excellent example of what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, the guys casting Bandslam decided it wasn’t enough to find a skinny, awkward kid for their lead. No, they wanted the lead to be legitimately ugly – extra easy to relate to. To be fair, Gaelan Connell is really a pretty normal looking little geek. They put in effort to make him as ugly as possible. Just look at him in the poster up there. What the hell?

But I just wanted the little fucker to cut his hair and stop intentionally acting like a spazz for the entire movie. His ugliness actually had the reverse effect of making him difficult to relate to. He also dances like a queer bomb and is generally a goofy little fucker, and it bothered me.

The writers also fall into the same pattern of portraying teenage bullying as if it’s widely considered the ‘cool’ thing to do. They even show the entire school making fun of a kid because his dad drove drunk and was in a fatal accident. Seriously Todd Graff? You think teenagers would make fun of someone for that? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Other than that: the music is ok, but nothing special; Vanessa Hudgens is hot, but acts badly; The plot is predictable, but you knew it would be. An ok effort makes an OK movie. What a shocker.
3/5 (Ok)

Weigh In

213 lbs.

Starring

Demetri Martin, Henry Goodman, Edward Hibbert, Imelda Staunton

In Brief

I’m not sure entirely how true this story is – but it centers around a young Elliot Tiber, a struggling young interior designer doing his best to save his parent’s dilapidated motel in White Lake, NY and to figure out how to come out to his parents. When Elliot hears that the permits for the Woodstock festival have been pulled by the town of Woodstock, he extends an offer to the organizers. The infamous Michael Lang and company assemble and woodstock lives… in White Lake, NY.

The Beef

This movie hasn’t been reviewed well. I think the problem is not the movie or story itself, but in people’s expectations for the story they’re going to see. This is NOT the story of Woodstock. If you want to see that, you should shoot for the 1970s Original. This is the story of Elliot Tiber, the young man who brought Woodstock to White Lake. Indeed, you don’t even see much (re: any) music in this movie.

For a lot, I’m sure their expectations about which story they were coming to see have tainted the movie. But I think Ang Lee resisted the temptation to move the focus away from Elliot and towards Woodstock as a whole. This movie is an enjoyable coming-of-age story with a much lighter tone than most of Lee’s films. I have a tough time characterizing it as a Comedy, as it’s been billed, but it was a good film none-the-less. I think this movie effectively uses the backdrop of Woodstock to strike an odd balance – managing to survive in the no-man’s land of films that aren’t funny enough to be comedies, but are too light for the story to carry them as dramas.
4/5 (Good)

Weigh In

213 lbs.

Is it sexist that any time someone is piddling along at 5 mph under the speed limit I immediately assume it’s a woman? I think it’s mostly because more often than not that’s exactly the case. Yet every once in a while I’m shocked to discover it’s a man behind the wheel. I justify it to myself when they’re old, asian, or especially if they’re old and asian. But what I really don’t get is when I see a young man between 20 and 40 driving at less than the speed limit for no apparent reason. It’s absolutely mind boggling to me.

As those who’ve ridden with me can attest – I’m a very road ragey driver. I’ll swear and curse any idiot who’s going less than the speed limit anywhere. It’s a fault, I acknowledge it. I should be more patient, and speeding rarely gets you anywhere any faster. Still – if I eventually discover that the person whose existence I’ve been lamenting for several miles is in the aforementioned age bracket, everything I’ve thought about this person is immediately shattered. Replaced not with anger, but utter bafflement and confusion. It’s as if I’ve just discovered a small jungle cat is driving the car.

I don’t see these people often. Most of the time the culprit is exactly the fat old woman who I had channeled all my hatred towards. But once in a while… like this morning… It sets me back.

How am I going to work today?

I swear, it’s not that I haven’t been biking. I’ve been watching older movies and I have no interest in posting them. As soon as I catch a few newer movies I’ll be posting them again.

I’ve got Band Slam (wooohoo!!) and Taking Woodstock coming up soon.

Weight: 212lbs – for the record.

Starring

Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck

In Brief

An entrepreneur struggles with his increasingly frustrating business, his increasingly stressed marriage and an increasingly gorgeous Mila Kunis. Not enough? Bateman plays a reasonably successful businessman who’s forced to deal with the consequences of an unfortunate industrial accident looming over his impending business sale. To complicate matters, a young con-artist has come into town and is making him uncomfortably horny all the time.

The Beef

I had high hopes for this one. Like a lot of people I think I was hoping for more like Arrested Development. I know Mike Judge has nothing to do with Arrested Development, but it seemed like it was going to be more of that smart, sarcastic comedy. In hindsight, it may have been a lot to ask for. A lot of the comedy in Arrested Development (and sitcoms in general) comes from your familiarity with the characters, and there’s just not the time to do that in a 90 minute movie. As a result, Extract has quite a few funny moments and the story itself sounds funny, but everything is leveled throughout the entire movie and it just doesn’t produce any real laugh-out-loud moments. Overall it felt much more sedated and slow than I was expecting.

I was disappointed, but I had high expectations for Extract. I think this is a perfectly decent movie and well worth the 90 minutes of your life – if only to oggle Mila Kunis for a while.
3/5 (Ok)

Weigh In

213 lbs.

Starring

Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Mélanie Laurent, Diane Kruger

In Brief

World War II if Tarantino had a chance at writing it. Inglorious Basterds is the entirely fictional tale of a group of Jewish American soldiers conducting guerilla warfare in Nazi-Occupied France. Their methods are brutal, they take no prisoners, kill everyone and scalp the dead. When an opportunity to kill the entire German high command in one fell swoop presents itself, the ‘Basterds’, as they are known, can’t resist. They enlist the help of a German double agent, an actress with high standing amongst the Nazis. Meanwhile, a Jewish refugee who witnessed her parents being killed has her own plans for Nazis.

The Beef

Pulp Fiction is still Tarantino’s best movie. But if someone asked me to name a movie that epitomizes his style of narration and directing … I’d pick Kill Bill. Still, Inglorious Basterds is classic Tarantino. The gore, the imagery, the characters and most of all the long, tension-riddled scenes of dialogue in Inglorious Basterds are Tarantino working at his best.

This is the second time I’ve seen this movie (a first for the MMM segment) and generally it’s necessary for me to watch Tarantino (and Guy Ritchie movies, for that matter) a few times before I can decide whether I like them, but this one I like a lot.

The only down side, and it’s a big enough down side to be the only thing keeping this film from a 5th star, was Brad Pitt. Pitt’s character acting was absolutely awful. In a movie where everyone else on screen absolutely shined, especially Mélanie Laurent and Christoph Waltz, Pitt’s acting really stood out – in a terrible way. I’m sure it was mostly the absurd accent that he was tasked with portraying convincingly. He simply wasn’t up to the task. As a result, his character (who, on paper, could have gone down in history as one of film’s great badasses) is mostly just annoying.

I like Brad Pitt, but he should stick to roles where his natural mannerisms and voice aren’t stretched.

4/5 (Good)

Weigh In

214 lbs.