The Moving Picture Shows
It’s spreading! My dad has now also caught the Pixar bug. It seems every other night I’ll find him watching The Incredibles. Who am I to stop him? I love the movie too.
I can’t think of a good transition statement from the previous paragraph, so I’m just going to go right ahead and plow forward. This summer movie season has been okay to me. I know I’ve said before that I was afraid once Lord of the Rings concluded I would become less tolerant to the summer bilge, knowing that there would be no epic movie in December redeem the art of cinema for me. I am thankful that it has not been so. Granted there has been no Rings since then (to take from Kevin Smith, when the credits began rolling on LoTR:RoTK I thought to myself: “Hey, I could die now, and it wouldn’t be that bad.” My life literally had that much closure to it at that time.), but that’s to be expected. Anyways, I’m droning. What movies have I seen this summer? Let me tell you…
DaVinci Code: Unfulfilling at best. It was a cookie cutter novel to movie transfer, with all the cuts and shortcomings that are to be expected.
Superman Returns: I have mixed feelings on this one, and I think I know why. They meant this move to be the “new” Superman III in that it followed the events of the first two Christopher Reeves films and ignored the original III and IV. I’m not sure if this has ever been done before as far as movie franchises go, because it presents a unique problem. It is a sequel, so by the rules of sequels we should know these characters, they should be established to us the audience and we should feel a history with them. But Superman has been out of the mainstream moviegoers consciousness for a long time, and the rules of sequels no longer apply. We do not know these characters. We do not know how Lois and Superman fell in love, why Superman left, what the world was like without him, why Lex Luthor hates him so much, so on and so forth. As majestic as the movie is (and it is quite a film to see, a must to view on the big screen) it doesn’t “begin” so much as the film starts rolling and it lacks a full sense of closure. It feels like walking into the third act of an epic opera. I still very much recommend it though.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest: Wow, this is a Disney movie? If Narnia didn’t have enough death and loss in it, Pirates sure makes up for it. Three entire ship crews die in this movie. I believe the average is one sailor every 1.5 minutes gets sent to the briny deep. I enjoyed it very despite the fact that it upped the whole pay-attention-because-the-characters-change-allegiances-and-jump-ship-switch-ships-escape-only-to-get-recaptured bit from the first movie, bringing to a whole new level of moral ambiguity. And to those that say it lacked closure (or any definable plot resolution for that matter) I say that I am always willing to give benefit of the doubt to films that I know there is a sequel planned/in production when I go into see them. You really have to annoy me to get me to frown on the entire franchise (I’m looking at you Matrix: Reloaded). Further more, I really love the way it leaves the characters at the end, with Jack finally doing something selfless only to have Elizabeth do something selfish at his expense. Delicious. Bring on PotC: World’s End!
Meanwhile, Look [BANG] an undead monkey!
P.S. I’m now a World of Warcraft addict. Look for me on the Frostwolf server. I’m a human warlock named Rahbithom.
I can’t think of a good transition statement from the previous paragraph, so I’m just going to go right ahead and plow forward. This summer movie season has been okay to me. I know I’ve said before that I was afraid once Lord of the Rings concluded I would become less tolerant to the summer bilge, knowing that there would be no epic movie in December redeem the art of cinema for me. I am thankful that it has not been so. Granted there has been no Rings since then (to take from Kevin Smith, when the credits began rolling on LoTR:RoTK I thought to myself: “Hey, I could die now, and it wouldn’t be that bad.” My life literally had that much closure to it at that time.), but that’s to be expected. Anyways, I’m droning. What movies have I seen this summer? Let me tell you…
DaVinci Code: Unfulfilling at best. It was a cookie cutter novel to movie transfer, with all the cuts and shortcomings that are to be expected.
Superman Returns: I have mixed feelings on this one, and I think I know why. They meant this move to be the “new” Superman III in that it followed the events of the first two Christopher Reeves films and ignored the original III and IV. I’m not sure if this has ever been done before as far as movie franchises go, because it presents a unique problem. It is a sequel, so by the rules of sequels we should know these characters, they should be established to us the audience and we should feel a history with them. But Superman has been out of the mainstream moviegoers consciousness for a long time, and the rules of sequels no longer apply. We do not know these characters. We do not know how Lois and Superman fell in love, why Superman left, what the world was like without him, why Lex Luthor hates him so much, so on and so forth. As majestic as the movie is (and it is quite a film to see, a must to view on the big screen) it doesn’t “begin” so much as the film starts rolling and it lacks a full sense of closure. It feels like walking into the third act of an epic opera. I still very much recommend it though.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest: Wow, this is a Disney movie? If Narnia didn’t have enough death and loss in it, Pirates sure makes up for it. Three entire ship crews die in this movie. I believe the average is one sailor every 1.5 minutes gets sent to the briny deep. I enjoyed it very despite the fact that it upped the whole pay-attention-because-the-characters-change-allegiances-and-jump-ship-switch-ships-escape-only-to-get-recaptured bit from the first movie, bringing to a whole new level of moral ambiguity. And to those that say it lacked closure (or any definable plot resolution for that matter) I say that I am always willing to give benefit of the doubt to films that I know there is a sequel planned/in production when I go into see them. You really have to annoy me to get me to frown on the entire franchise (I’m looking at you Matrix: Reloaded). Further more, I really love the way it leaves the characters at the end, with Jack finally doing something selfless only to have Elizabeth do something selfish at his expense. Delicious. Bring on PotC: World’s End!
Meanwhile, Look [BANG] an undead monkey!
P.S. I’m now a World of Warcraft addict. Look for me on the Frostwolf server. I’m a human warlock named Rahbithom.