New-to-me Movies Watched in January
1. Rise of Planet of the Apes (2011)
2. Hoodwinked, Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011)
3. Kissing a Fool (1998)
4. Neverland (SyFy miniseries, 2011)
5. The Constant Gardener (2005)
6. Drag Me to Hell (2009)
7. A Troll in Central Park (1994)
8. Di Renjie, (Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame) (Hong Kong, 2010)
REVIEWS:
1. Rise of Planet of the Apes (2011)
At the very least this is an entertaining story with fantastic special effects. The facial expressions and movements of the CGI apes were really amazing. It's not as intellectually stimulating as some SciFi and Planet of the Apes fans might have hoped, but it worked well enough for me that I enjoyed it. (As a side note, it probably also helped that my friends and made it into a drinking game, in which we had to drink every time the movie said "ape" or one of us screwed up and said "monkey". It was quite a night.)
2. Hoodwinked, Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011)
A kids movie about Red Riding Hood and her buddy Wolf, who are partners in an agency that stops crime in a bid-city style fairy tale world. The sequel has the Granny character kidnapped with Red and Wolf needing to save the day. Relies a little too heavily on melodrama in order to get emotional impact, but it's entertaining enough to sit through if the kids are interested in seeing it.
3. Kissing a Fool (1998)
A strange romantic comedy about a guy who is so jealous that his fiancee might cheat that he asks his friend to "test" her loyalty by trying to seduce her. The friend and main character refuses to participate, turns into anxiety ridden goo, and manages to fall in love with her anyway. I've always hated this idea, of a guy who gets his friend to "test" his girlfriend. It's wrong on so many levels. But with that in mind, this movie played out less offensively than I thought it would and was at times even funny.
4. Neverland (SyFy miniseries, 2011)
I generally liked this origin story, in which Peter is a young miscreant running around the streets of London, until the ring leader of his gang, Jimmy, gets his boys to steal an orb that accidentally transports them all to Neverland. Everyone in Neverland in this case, stays young forever. While I enjoyed the miniseries as a story on its own, it doesn't exactly FIT into the rest of the Peter Pan mythology. For example, because travel between the worlds is through the orb, travel between the worlds is restricted. So how does Peter get to just fly back and forth, then? And there are other inconsistencies that bug me a bit, as well, which makes it hard to love an otherwise fun retelling.
5. The Constant Gardener (2005)
I love the understated style of this move about a man who discovers his wife had many secrets before she died. A large part of her secret life involves her trying to fight drug corporations that use African people as a cheep way to test their drugs. It's an intense movie, and a bit of a downer, but captivating to watch.
6. Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Despite it's Gypsy as villain trope, I love Sam Raimi and the tongue in cheek style of this horror movie was absolutely fun, if not exactly terrifying, and right along the same lines as Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness in tone. The main character isn't totally likable, but after all she goes through (I mean, my god, the disgusting things that end up in her mouth!), you're definitely hoping she pulls through.
7. A Troll in Central Park (1994)
My friend enjoys inflicting old, uber-cheesy animated movies on me. This one involves a troll that loves flowers instead of cruelty and so is banished to New York for being nice. He ends up in Central Park and meets two kids, one who is a little brat and learns a valuable lesson by the end. It's very corny, but not terrible. At least I didn't feel like ripping off my ears every time they broke into song.
8. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (from Hong Kong, 2010)
The Empress is set to be crowned, but many people are not happy with a woman taking power. In honor of her coronation, the Empress is having a massive statue erected. But when one of the lead architects suddenly and spontaneously bursts into flame, the Empress calls on Detective Dee to seek out the murderer. This film has been described as Sherlock Holmes meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and I'd say that was a fairly accurate description. Faced with a supposedly supernatural threat, Dee continues to argue and seek out logical explanations and bases his finding on scientific facts.
Unfortunately, due to a TV malfunction, I had to watch this movie dubbed, rather than with subtitles as I would prefer. It lessened my experience of the movie, as it lost the proper tones and made some scenes that might have been compelling ridiculous. There were also a couple of terrible translations. The First (and not the worst), was that Dee's weapon was described as a "mace", which is clearly wasn't (I don't know what you would call it, but it definitely wasn't a mace. The Second, and much more disturbing, was when the referred to the poisonous "night turtles". The whole movie I was picturing a turtle floating around in the water and when they finally showed an image of the "turtles", I was confused to be faced with images of red and black pill bugs (or rolly pollies as we called them in grade school). This caused much confusion, and it didn't help that every time the dubbed voice said, "turtle", it sounded ridiculous.
But I imagine that with subtitles this would have been a far more enjoyable movie, and I might have even loved it.
2. Hoodwinked, Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011)
3. Kissing a Fool (1998)
4. Neverland (SyFy miniseries, 2011)
5. The Constant Gardener (2005)
6. Drag Me to Hell (2009)
7. A Troll in Central Park (1994)
8. Di Renjie, (Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame) (Hong Kong, 2010)
REVIEWS:
1. Rise of Planet of the Apes (2011)
At the very least this is an entertaining story with fantastic special effects. The facial expressions and movements of the CGI apes were really amazing. It's not as intellectually stimulating as some SciFi and Planet of the Apes fans might have hoped, but it worked well enough for me that I enjoyed it. (As a side note, it probably also helped that my friends and made it into a drinking game, in which we had to drink every time the movie said "ape" or one of us screwed up and said "monkey". It was quite a night.)
2. Hoodwinked, Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011)
A kids movie about Red Riding Hood and her buddy Wolf, who are partners in an agency that stops crime in a bid-city style fairy tale world. The sequel has the Granny character kidnapped with Red and Wolf needing to save the day. Relies a little too heavily on melodrama in order to get emotional impact, but it's entertaining enough to sit through if the kids are interested in seeing it.
3. Kissing a Fool (1998)
A strange romantic comedy about a guy who is so jealous that his fiancee might cheat that he asks his friend to "test" her loyalty by trying to seduce her. The friend and main character refuses to participate, turns into anxiety ridden goo, and manages to fall in love with her anyway. I've always hated this idea, of a guy who gets his friend to "test" his girlfriend. It's wrong on so many levels. But with that in mind, this movie played out less offensively than I thought it would and was at times even funny.
4. Neverland (SyFy miniseries, 2011)
I generally liked this origin story, in which Peter is a young miscreant running around the streets of London, until the ring leader of his gang, Jimmy, gets his boys to steal an orb that accidentally transports them all to Neverland. Everyone in Neverland in this case, stays young forever. While I enjoyed the miniseries as a story on its own, it doesn't exactly FIT into the rest of the Peter Pan mythology. For example, because travel between the worlds is through the orb, travel between the worlds is restricted. So how does Peter get to just fly back and forth, then? And there are other inconsistencies that bug me a bit, as well, which makes it hard to love an otherwise fun retelling.
5. The Constant Gardener (2005)
I love the understated style of this move about a man who discovers his wife had many secrets before she died. A large part of her secret life involves her trying to fight drug corporations that use African people as a cheep way to test their drugs. It's an intense movie, and a bit of a downer, but captivating to watch.
6. Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Despite it's Gypsy as villain trope, I love Sam Raimi and the tongue in cheek style of this horror movie was absolutely fun, if not exactly terrifying, and right along the same lines as Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness in tone. The main character isn't totally likable, but after all she goes through (I mean, my god, the disgusting things that end up in her mouth!), you're definitely hoping she pulls through.
7. A Troll in Central Park (1994)
My friend enjoys inflicting old, uber-cheesy animated movies on me. This one involves a troll that loves flowers instead of cruelty and so is banished to New York for being nice. He ends up in Central Park and meets two kids, one who is a little brat and learns a valuable lesson by the end. It's very corny, but not terrible. At least I didn't feel like ripping off my ears every time they broke into song.
8. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (from Hong Kong, 2010)
The Empress is set to be crowned, but many people are not happy with a woman taking power. In honor of her coronation, the Empress is having a massive statue erected. But when one of the lead architects suddenly and spontaneously bursts into flame, the Empress calls on Detective Dee to seek out the murderer. This film has been described as Sherlock Holmes meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and I'd say that was a fairly accurate description. Faced with a supposedly supernatural threat, Dee continues to argue and seek out logical explanations and bases his finding on scientific facts.
Unfortunately, due to a TV malfunction, I had to watch this movie dubbed, rather than with subtitles as I would prefer. It lessened my experience of the movie, as it lost the proper tones and made some scenes that might have been compelling ridiculous. There were also a couple of terrible translations. The First (and not the worst), was that Dee's weapon was described as a "mace", which is clearly wasn't (I don't know what you would call it, but it definitely wasn't a mace. The Second, and much more disturbing, was when the referred to the poisonous "night turtles". The whole movie I was picturing a turtle floating around in the water and when they finally showed an image of the "turtles", I was confused to be faced with images of red and black pill bugs (or rolly pollies as we called them in grade school). This caused much confusion, and it didn't help that every time the dubbed voice said, "turtle", it sounded ridiculous.
But I imagine that with subtitles this would have been a far more enjoyable movie, and I might have even loved it.