Contemporary NetFlix Reviews #16

[crisper]

Starting to filter in more stuff for Liana to watch, as well. At this point, our three-at-a-time DVD queue tends to be one for just me, one for C and I, and one for Liana. We're also streaming more stuff, of course, and that will be even more the case now that we replaced our ten-year-old original Series 1 Tivo with a new Tivo Premiere that can do

Comments

[mmcirvin]

Re Dreamworks, I was pleasantly surprised by "Megamind". It's derivative in concept--obviously inspired by "The Incredibles" and probably the elevator pitch for "Despicable Me" as well--but most of the jokes actually connect, the characters are a notch above most Dreamworks flicks, and there are some nice visuals, particularly Minion's Robot Monster suit and the flying Brainbots. The action gets a bit intense for little kids, but it didn't seem to permanently scar Jorie.

[crisper]

The general shape and angle of the mirror that separates our universes begins to clarify.

[ctd]

This, if I take your meaning correctly.

TBL, BAR, and Fargo/Blood Simple/Raising Arizona are genre sendups, but they also wind up being their own beasts, informed by various Coenisms. For the latter 3 (and a few unlisted here), the Coenisms work synergistically. For TBL, they wind up spinning the movie into a love song for LA and a certain era. For BAR, I felt that the characters didn't cross over into Ludlum/le Carre-land enough for me to get into the sendup part. If more of the movie had been like the firing scene and the Russian embassy scene, I could appreciate ronebofh's position.

Speaking of Fiasco, The Great Muppet Caper should go on your list.

[crisper]

Agreemsg at pretty much all points.

[mmcirvin]

...I've seen the whole Toy Story series many times by now, and the thing that strikes me technically is how much more accomplished the CGI is in Toy Story 2; it looks respectable by present-day standards. But that was 1999, just four years after Toy Story, and they've already made all these vast improvements with things like hair and vegetation. I think the main difference between the two is just that the first movie had about half the budget of all the subsequent Pixar productions.

(The first one's still my favorite, because it's the funniest. The whole series is excellent, of course.)

[crisper]

My theory is that every Pixar movie tackles some new technical problem to master. MONSTERS INC, for example, is all about fur. WALL-E is about the textures of decay and corrosion. They pick new ground to conquer every time.

[mmcirvin]

The Incredibles was probably fire and lava. Also, I recall hearing that a surprising amount of work went into the vegetables in the dinner scenes, though Ratatouille was probably the one that went all-out with food.

[mmcirvin]

...Correction: the first movie had half the budget of A Bug's Life (which was clearly the one where they worked on plants). The other movies had substantially bigger budgets than that. Toy Story 3 was $200 million.

[dnereverri]

I saw "The Muppet Movie" maybe three times between 1980 and 1985. Didn't see it again until 2000, when I ran across it while channel-surfing and disturbed my houseguest by gleefully starting to chant all the dialogue in unison with the characters on-screen. It, um, definitely made a deep impression. One of Henson's best.

Inception

[epileptikitty]

Inception is worthwhile. I'm in yer dremz haxon yer mind as a crime caper.

I Sell Your Body: 1800's graverobbers encounter zombies. As it turns out, the undead fetch a higher price from certain discriminating customers. Starring some dude from Frodo's posse.