Sherlock Holmes I thought it was great. I've never read any of the novels (which definitely helped -- I don't think the movie is that faithful to them), but I've seen a couple Guy Ritchie movies (Snatch and RockNRolla), so I had an idea of what to expect. The cast was awesome -- Robert Downey Jr. was exactly what you'd expect, Jude Law was pretty smarmy, and I've always liked Rachel McAdams so she gets a free pass even if her character wasn't that well developed. The movie's primary job was to entertain, not to make you think, which was fine with me. It's also set up well for a sequel, which it will get because it's going to make a pile of money. In short, the worst case scenerio is that you get to watch Robert Downey Jr be Robert Downey Jr for 2+ hours. Which is awesome.
Dances With Wolves? War of the Worlds? Honey, if you watched that entire movie and didn't repeatedly think "This is JUST like FernGully!!" then I weep for your childhood. Other than an obviously recycled plot, I liked it. The moral messages were delivered in a somewhat heavy-handed fashion, but I'm not complaining. I'm not sure what kind of groundbreaking technology James Cameron came up with, but in simple terms: I could almost guess the human actor behind the Na'Vi face...it was kind of creepy-cool. Certain species of animals/geographical landmarks on Pandora were also superbly rendered--seriously, awesome visual effects. The 3-D glasses made my head hurt, but it was still neat-o. I recommend everyone go see it, especially if you're fond of getting high and looking at pretty colors.
Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes wasn't a fucking action hero. He was an intellectual. He's Dr. House; not fucking Rambo. This shit just looks silly and wrong. Remember when Trey Parker and Matt Stone put together a rape-montage of Indiana Jones getting the business end of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg? That's what this movie did to Sherlock Holmes. The fact that they already have a sequel underway is the final nail in the coffin for me. Pass.
I saw it in 3D, but I'm damn near blind in one eye. My brain is all sorts of fucked and I don't have depth perception. I paid $16.50 to see this pile of shit in IMAX 3D. What I got was 2D wearing recycled glasses. Maybe I care about story too much, or I'm bitter because I've never once seen the image in a Magic Eye 3D poster. But this was not worth it. The level of detail was overwhelming. So why waste it on such a terrible premise? Half the audience stood and applauded during the credits. I booed. Mod edit: This isn't a review; expand it a bit, offer some points.
What exactly were you expecting? This is Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, not David Mamet's. Anyway, the action sequences really aren't unfaithful to Conan Doyle. Holmes is described as an accomplished boxer and fencer and knows some martial arts. Holmes and Watson get into plenty of chases and fights in the stories- the action element is just emphasized a bit more in this movie. I read the stories as a kid and loved them. I didn't have any problem with the Holmes in this movie. It was fun and not completely mindless entertainment- although the plot wasn't the strongest, and I did expect a bit more in that department- but I guess they couldn't bring Conan Doyle in to write the script. I liked the way they remained pretty faithful to the basic characters of Holmes and Watson and yet Downey and Law each added something a bit different from the literary version. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it was something beyond Holmes being less infallible and Watson less bumbling.
Avatar (for Grind) SPOILERS BELOW Characters: Neytiri, Moat, Tsu'tey were voiced by black actors. That isn't necessarily the problem. But the voice coaching made it sound deliberately "tribal" - is the word I suppose they might use. I would call it racist. James also modeled faces directly from the actors, so native Na'vi are modeled after blacks. The alien Na'vi operators are white. Neytiri's father isn't black, but he's a Native American actor that's been in Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans, etc. Thanks James for really driving home the parallels to American history. It's not the first and last time you'll do it in this pile of shit. Now switching from the noble savages to the land-raping miners. Was ANYONE not white at the mining operation. I'm not talking about mechanic #14. The only character that got screen time that I saw that wasn't white was their Indian (dot, not feather) IT sidekick. Colonel Quaritch: Every single thing he said was ridiculous and insulting to Marines. Parker Selfridge: This stuff is worth 20 mil a kilo. "Home Tree" is sitting on the largest pile of it within 200 kilometers.... It's a pretty big planet. Is he the only mining operation? How much of the planet has been surveyed? Who does this idiot answer to? He's the ONLY corporate suit I saw in this entire movie. Some pretty big decisions to be making by yourself. Plot: They brought down Home Tree with a few hundred rockets. That shit was huge. Why do they have to bring out their plodding transport ship to drop a pallet of mining explosives on the Tree of Souls. Why did they fly their mission to the Tree of Souls directly UNDER the floating mountains? They fully expected a counter-attack. I realize instrumentation wasn't working. But they had scans of that area. Print a fucking map and use a navigator. Pilots actually do that stuff. Then drop in on the Tree of Souls from a higher altitude at a speed slightly faster than a brisk walk. How did none of their instruments work in that area. But Jake's mind was still able to transmit to his Avatar? Why did Michelle Rodriguez help them out? I get it, the miners were doing some terrible shit. And she was the pilot assigned to the scientists. Still, it was a pretty big dues ex machina. But Eywa answering Jakes prayer's and sending every animal in the forest to attack the miners was the biggest dues I've seen in a while. Cameron just took a shit on the last few pages of the script. I need to see this movie again to remember more details. We can call this "Installment I" and I can come back to this if necessary.
Why did the Navi charge at the soldiers in a line instead of hiding in the trees while pelting them with arrows? Wait...Why did the soldiers land on the fucking ground in the first place? All they needed to do was bomb the shit out of the tree thing. And Unobtanium? Are you fucking kidding me?
Dude! You are the first person I have ever heard say that. That book was phenomenal. The movie has to be watched armed with a white hot poker because eye gouging will be required.
The book delved deeply into political philosophy, with a number of ideas and sentiments that would be considered very "conservative" or "pro-military". Verhoeven, a liberal filmmaker, chose to mock and belittle these when making the film, which is basically a children's cartoon parody of the novel, with some action scenes thrown in. On the bright side, the movie lost money at the box office, and is generally poorly looked upon. The same can't be said of all horrible adaptations.
I actually just saw "The Blind Side." Was not my first choice, I really wanted to see Sherlock Holmes. It's a nice, feel good family movie. Kind of reminds me of Remember the Titans with Denzel Washington. Bring the wife and kids and enjoy yourself. Pretty well acted, pretty well written. p.s. Sandra Bullock looks fantastic for being 45!
Sherlock Holmes: was fun but a bit predictable for me. The score was good and the chemistry between Law, Downey and McAdams was excellent. I was quite entertained.
For those of you who have outlined Avatar recently, I think this sums it up pretty damn well. Spoiler
Youth in Revolt This movie sucked, and here's why. It started off pretty promising with Micheal Cera being a wisecracking awkward loser, Zach Galifianakis being his white thrash step dad and jokes spilling out of both of them. Unfortunately every character in this movie was developed as little as possible. The movie introduces a ton of characters which frankly don't need to be there and then goes nowhere with them. Spoiler The best example of this was Lefty Cera's nerdy friend with the curved dick. We are told he's basically in the same boat as Cera except for the fact that he's known to have a dick that hooks to the left. He is trying to impress some girl, but we never get learn what happens with that. He just pops up in a couple of scenes offhandedly. Another example is that indian kid. Yes I can see why they introduced him, but after they get kicked out of the french prep school he basically shows up one more time briefly in the movie. He's introduced, immediately used as something to superficially drive the plot forward and then he disappears. This really is the case with all of the characters though. Zach, The girl in the toilet, Justin Long etc. Cera's character is such a little bitch throughout the entire movie it is completely unbelievable this girl would show any interest whatsoever in him. Even Appatow would hold off on letting someone like that get laid in a movie. The guy had pretty much no redeemable qualities. All in all the jokes were way too few, the movie tried to put forth dry humour like The Life Aquatic but it just came off as stupid and stale most of the time.
Leap Year Dumb ass movie. Predictable from end to end. Amy Adams is kinda hot, and that was the only thing that saved this from being a complete failure. Declan is about as cookie-cutter as you can get. As well as everyone else. FAIL/5
Thank you! The whole time I was watching Avatar all I could think was "So it's FernGully........for adults". It was entertaining enough, but I think we can all agree that without Robin Williams as a jive talking bat and Tim Curry as an evil pollution spirit Avatar's narrative suffered tremendously.
2009 was a great year for powered armor. District 9 and Avatar both had great ideas to serve as a base for the suits depicted in Starship Troopers. I was so disappointed when I saw that the MI in the 1997 film were clad in less gear than the average soldier of today. I wanted to see hand-flamers and peewee nukes. When I first posed that idea I got a lot of rep saying that after James Cameron took such a pro-indigenous stance with Avatar there's no way he'd adapt a pro-military book like ST. I'd take a stab at it if I were in his position just to get a chance at visualizing all the technology in the book. I read that he tried to read the book but he got "bored and depressed" before he was halfway through. What I don't understand is how the screenwriter who wrote the adaptation could write Robocop, a movie set in a police state, but not have the stomach for the militarism in Starship Troopers.
Sherlock Holmes It was fun. Not a great movie, but I'd give it 8/10. I have to applaud the casting. Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law are perfect for their roles. Some of the wit was a bit dry, but Downey Jr makes the most of it with that odd quirky persona he pulls off so well. Rachel McAdams was fucking hot in her role. Not so much the way she looked, but the way she carried herself. She had me drooling. Just a warning for anyone who gets nit picky at the movies - you're going to be asked to suspend your disbelief quite often. Spoiler For example, when Watson gets caught in an exploding inferno and is on his feet a couple days later. Most of the logical deductions make sense though. It's a bit far fetched how he puts everything together, but it's not like he's pulling facts out of thin air. On another note, I'm really curious to see what wins picture of the year. I still think it should go to Up but since that's almost definitely not going to happen I wonder what's next in the line.
A Serious Man Actually rewatched this one, as I was a little bit distracted (at a party) the first time around. While I enjoyed the film, and encourage people to see it, after looking at the reviews, I have to say...it's definitely overrated. It's a quality, worthwhile movie for the excellent humor and absolutely spot-on Jewish characters alone. On top of this, it has some truly creative story swerves and mindfucks. However, unlike some of the Coen Brothers' better films, it was just far too inscrutable. There was no real resolution, no point, and ultimately, it raised a lot of questions...and answered none of them. The Coen Brothers do that to a certain extent in every film, but usually, there's some underlying point. In this case, they went way, way overboard. It also doesn't help that as unpredictable as they typically are, I guessed the rough nature of the ending about 30 minutes into the film. Beyond that, the main character, after a while, became downright grating. Don't get me wrong; it's was an excellent acting job, and it serves a purpose, but after a while, being constantly hammered in the face with his passive, comic-pathetic personality just became too much. So pretty good movie, but not a masterpiece.