Thanks, Twilight. Thanks for being the reason there is now a section in bookstores purely devoted to Teen Paranormal Romance. I’m serious, I saw it last week when I was at Barnes & Noble. I thought the first Twilight movie was enjoyable, just like I enjoy the first steak I eat at dinner. Thanks, I’m full, and I enjoyed becoming full. What’s that? No, I don’t want to eat 3 more steaks exactly the same size, shape, and taste as the first one I ate. Likewise, I don’t want to watch several subsequent movies that are literally the exact same recipe as Twilight, designed solely to make movie studio execs’ wallets even fatter. It was bad enough that there was more than one Twilight movie (none of which were as good as the first one), but now we have Teen Paranormal Romance. So, I was not the least bit surprised when I saw the following movie trailer. It’s based on an old fairy tale, but it’s clearly 1% old fairy tale and 99% Teen Paranormal Romance. See for yourself (ugh):

Red Riding Hood Trailer

Interesting fact: the Teen Paranormal Romance section at Barnes & Noble is roughly 4x the size as the Christianity section. Should it be like that? Is that normal? (answer: no, it’s PARA-normal. puns!)

The Good

I knew it would be good! I knew it! Some people hated it. However, A lot of other, smarter people raved about it. I for one am raving about it. Here’s the thing, I’m sort of tired of logically defining every aspect of life. What am I, a scientist? Don’t get me wrong, me and logic are like peas and carrots, but peas also have another cooler friend called mashed potatoes, and mashed potatoes represent feelings and emotions. Sometimes I discard logic for feelings, and that’s what I’m doing with Inception.

Here’s the recipe for Inception: start with The Matrix (everyone’s saying it, but it’s true), one of the all-time greatest films, and extract the feeling it gave you. That wonderful, overwhelming sci-fi-ish feeling. Put that in a mixing bowl and add in a generous helping of plot holes, Minority Report, a tablespoon of Vanilla Sky, a dash of Dark City, and the dark atmosphere of The Dark Knight (so much dark!). Bake that and eat it, and then you will fall asleep and have a good dream about a movie called Inception, which is about dreams-within-dreams-within-dreams. Sweet dreams!

I really need to see it again because it leaves lots of stuff hidden between the lines, plus it has that paradoxical element that time travel films often possess, and when I tried to think about it too hard my brain started to hurt. Maybe that’s because someone was in there last night inceptifying too many ideas at once. This movie was completely original and not based on any previous stories. I’m so sick of remakes and this was surprisingly refreshing simply because it was a brand new work of fiction. Christopher Nolan is awesome! Other people who are awesome: all of the actors in this film (minus Mal, she was depressing).

Some of my favorite parts of Inception are the whole dream-within-a-dream thing (did anyone else guess they were in a dream-within-a-dream in the first scene like I did? Count it!), the idea of “kicks”, all of the visual effects, the never-done-before zero-gravity hallway fight scene, and the awesome score by Hans Zimmer (wow!). Just check out this brief clip from the soundtrack:

The Bad

The problem with this film is that it might be too smart for some people. I realized it’s not the smartest movie ever to come out, but it’s a Hollywood summer blockbuster, which means it is being released amidst such generic and most assuredly dumb films as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Last Airbender, and Salt, to name a few. The good news is those three films I just listed got terrible reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, while Inception got rave reviews, so maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. Still, I know there are a lot of people out there who just won’t be able to follow what is going on in Inception, and thus will say “it’s stupid”. Ha. OK.

There are two glaring problems that I noticed in this film. First off and superficially, all the action scenes in the Alpine third-layer dream were really annoying. They weren’t well done and they lasted far too long. Secondly, and this one’s more important to me, the dreams just weren’t, well, “dreamy” enough. Everyone had dreams of regular places and regular people doing regular things. Sure, in one of the dreams a Paris city street folded on top of itself, but if you think about it, that’s not really as ridiculous as the stuff we actually dream about. What I’m trying to say is, you know how you have dreams that sound retarded when you tell them to people? Why didn’t any of the people in Inception have retarded dreams? Everything made sense. That was sort of weird to me. I guess maybe the whole film might not have made sense otherwise, right? Still part of “The Bad” section for me.

The Beratings

Acting – No Beratings. Joseph Gordon Levitt (3rd Rock From The Sun kid) and Ellen Page (Juno chick) are superb supporting actors, and obviously Leo was amazing, as he always is.

Plot – No Beratings. It was totally original and awesome.

Inconsistencies – 1 Berating. These people are dreaming, so why aren’t their dreams screwed up like mine? Also, if they were floating in dream layer 2, why not in dream layer 3?

Unbelievable Events – No Beratings. Since everything happens in the subconscious, nothing is really that unbelievable. Brilliant!

Semantics – No Beratings. If I gave half beratings, I would give one here since the snow action scenes were really annoying, but alas, I don’t.

1/10 Beratings = See it the first weekend

The Berating Scale
0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
» 1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

Here’s Some Not-So-Good Movies I’ve Seen Recently To Balance Things Out

The Hurt Locker: 5/10 Beratings

Depressing, no new territory (ANOTHER war movie…*sigh*), nothing really even happened. They’re dismantling bombs. So what.

The Blind Side: 5/10 Beratings

Totally cliched, seen it a million times, not great acting, I don’t really believe that’s how it happened at all. In a word, “Hollywood-ized”. Is that a word?

Invention of Lying: 6/10 Beratings

Thought it was going to be funny. There were maybe 2 funny scenes. Terribly disappointing. Plus, maybe a little blasphemous, depending on your mood…

Twilight: New Moon: 7/10 Beratings

I have no ill-feelings toward the Twilight series. It was not a good movie at all, but I completely see how its audience enjoyed the heck out of it. I’m just not its audience.

Alice In Wonderland: 7/10 Beratings

Why didn’t they just make this movie 100% computer animated instead of 98%? Way too outlandish, over-acted, un-inspiring, and nonsensical. I need at least a little substance in a film. This had zero substance.

The Men Who Stare At Goats: 8/10 Beratings

I don’t even need to explain why this sucked. Everyone who saw it agrees with me. Those who haven’t seen it are lucky.

Confessions of a Shopaholic: 9/10 Beratings

This is the biggest rip-off of a movie I’ve ever seen since Transmorphers. The movie it’s clearly ripping off is The Devil Wears Prada, which is a great film. This, however, ABSOLUTELY SUCKED. It might be in the running for my next installment of “Top 5er: Blacklisted Films”.

There is a link to an amazing article at the end of this blog post. But, before you click the link, you must agree with the following 8 statements. If you do not agree to all of them – ALL OF THEM – you are not allowed to click the link. I will be watching you as you read the statements and analyze them in your head. I have a plugin which notifies me by IP address when someone accesses my blog, lets me actually see back at them using their computer’s web cam, and then lets me disable the link so they can’t click it. I can usually tell by someone’s facial expression if they agree or disagree with a statement that is made. So, unless you A) don’t have a web cam, or B) have a great poker face, this applies to you. Yes, I went to all that work just to disable a link. That’s how important the topic at hand is. So, do you agree or disagree with the following 8 statements?

1. I get sick of all the Hollywood blockbusters that are churned out every other week.
2. I have decided not to pay $10 to go see Transformers 3 when it comes out in theaters and instead wait and see it on DVD, if I even see it at all.
3. I appreciated at least one of Christopher Nolan’s previous films for being smarter than the average Hollywood blockbuster (Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight).
4. Critics have said Christopher Nolan’s next film, Inception, might be “too smart” for moviegoers. That fact makes me want to see Inception even more than I already did.
5. I agree with everything stated in this previous TGM post: Most People Like Terrible Movies
6. I agree with everything stated in this previous TGM post: Transformers Berated
7. I agree with everything stated in this previous TGM post: I’m Calling Inception
8. I hope Michael Bay slips on a stack of his million dollar bills and becomes paralyzed so he can no longer make any films ever. (Seriously, you need to agree with this one. He’s about to make another reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. ANOTHER.)

If you agreed with all 8 of those, click on this link and read this awesome article written by someone who actually has good taste in movies. It’s basically an article saying what I’ve been saying all along, except written by an actual smart person who has higher than a 7th grade level of vocabulary. It pretty much bashes Transformers 2 and all other mindless movies like that, and glorifies smart movies like Inception. Here’s a little taste of how good this person is at writing to whet your appetite:

Audiences are a hungry breed. They want to have something to eat every single weekend and studios spend months preparing those meals. Yet, often there is nothing to “digest” at all — there is no substance to the meal, i.e. nothing for an audience member to contemplate later. It simply is what it is: filler, a snack, empty calories. Yet, as much as we complain about fluff films — as most summer blockbusters are — we all flock to the next big blockbuster. Maybe we just don’t know any better?

Here’s the article*

*If you did not agree with all the statements, yet you were able to click that link, then I hope you feel immense shame that grows with each word that you read. I still love you, but it’s called “tough love”, and it’s the only way you’ll learn.

Scorsese does it again. While Shutter Island is not about the mob or gangs or Italy or wiseguys or illegal drugs, it still has that Scorsese feel. There are a few common elements carried over from his previous film The Departed, such as Boston accents and Leonardo DiCaprio, but that is where the similarities end. There are only about 10 “f-bombs”, in contrast to the 100+ in his other films. There are 2 violent/bloody scenes, in contrast to the usual 10+ in his other films. An finally, there are 0 crazy, old, tough-guy actors (Robert Deniros, Joe Pescis, and Jack Nicolsons), in contrast to 1+ of his other films. The point is that Martin Scorsese has deviated from the type of film genre he usually dabbles in (quite successfully) to venture into the realm of psychological thriller, and he proves that he is quite skilled in it. I’m hoping for a romantic comedy next, followed by a new installment in the college humor Van Wilder series.

The Good

When I go see a film in this genre, I am aiming to experience that good ol’ frightened feeling. Not the type that makes me jump out of my seat, but the type that runs a little deeper in the “disturbing” department and causes me to intermittently reflect back on the movie over the next week, remembering how disturbing it was and trying not to spoil it for people who haven’t seen it yet. So, how does Mr. Scorsese approach this genre? Take a look at the following elements that he uses in Shutter Island:

• A 1950s mental institution
• An island with one way on and one way off
• A lighthouse
• A brewing storm
• A German psychiatrist
• People smoking cigarettes (aaaaahhh!!!)

How can that movie not be scary? Even if Micheal Bay directed that movie, it would still be scary for at least 1 minute, depending on who composed the music. BURN! Think about it – old mental institutions are just plain scary because you never know what type of weird brain surgeries they’re performing on their patients. An island in the North Atlantic surrounded by 100-foot shear bluffs? Scary. A lighthouse? Scary (see: The Ring). A brewing storm? Adds that element of ominous evil. A German psychiatrist? Seeing as how the Nazis performed all those crazy psychiatric experiments – scary.

So, it is scary. We know that now. But what else was good? Leonardo DiCaprio was very very good. He plays the all-to-familiar character with a troubled past. But it’s what we find out about his past that blows the familiarity away. What really makes this film stand out, however, is the plot. If you haven’t seen it, you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog post anyway, but at least don’t read the next sentence, because even though I’m not saying anything specific about the movie, it will still probably lessen the whole experience for you. Shutter Island is one of those films that you think you have figured out early on, but then it purposely causes you to second guess your initial prediction, and then it makes you go back and forth the rest of the movie. “Oh I know how this ends…”, “Nevermind, I have no idea how this ends…”, “Oh… wait, yep – I know what’s going to happen…”, “Actually, shoot, nope, I think I’m wrong… or am I?” And it makes you do that literally until that last frame of film.

This is definitely one of those movies that you will most definitely have to have conversations about afterwards. You know how people talked about the Spielberg film “A.I.”? Well this will cause some similar discussions. Pay attention to the very last line of dialog that Leonardo DiCaprio says. I know what it means – but did you catch it?

One final word on The Good of Shutter Island (spoiler!): it does such a good job with the insaneness of some of the characters, that a few times I started thinking things like “What if I’m not really sitting here in this chair watching this movie? What if I’m actually insane right now and none of this is real?” And I love that it could do that to me.

The Bad

There was a section of the movie, from about 60% of the way through to about 90% of the way through, that started to lose me. And that’s a big chunk of film. There was so much vague, referential dialog that I started forgetting who was who. I know the purpose was to make you try to figure out what was real and what was imagined, but it went on too long and started to lose some of the audience. It started to lose some of its realism and poignancy for me, and I wish it would have kept us guessing a little bit more. Despite the fact that later in the film we are thrown off the scent again, I don’t like how long of a section of the film I was sitting there sure where it was going to go, and some of the conversations could have been cut in half. The flashbacks started getting a little redundant too. They were all pretty much the same thing, and they were mostly in slow motion, which put me in a different place and made it harder for the film to pull me back in once the flashback was over.

The Beratings

Acting – No Beratings. Leo shines, as do the psychiatrist characters.

Plot – No Beratings. Keeps you guessing, even after you think you guessed the ending.

Inconsistencies – 1 Berating. I’m deducting a point for the 60-90% section of the film I talked about earlier.

Unbelievable Events – No Beratings. The insane factor actually makes everything quite believable.

Semantics – 1 Berating. The flashbacks were too much, enough to merit a berating point.

2/10 Beratings = See it at full price

The Berating Scale
0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
» 2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

Have you ever been so immersed in a story or character that you forget it is not real? Avatar does that to you. After seeing the film, it’s hard to remember that the blue-skinned alien race called the Na’vi doesn’t actually exist. It’s hard to imagine that Biff from Back To The Future isn’t a jerk in real life. Or that Middle Earth isn’t a real place. It’s because of good film-making that those things are so convincing. If I could sum up Avatar in a single phrase, it wouldn’t be “master storytelling”, “heart-wrenching drama”, “superb characters”, or even “ground-breaking”, it would simply be “superb film-making”. James Cameron knows how to make a film into an event that you can’t miss. Audiences were greatly affected by movies like The Terminator, Aliens, and Titanic. Well we can definitely add Avatar to the ever-growing list of must-sees in the theater.

The Good

I can’t remember a more magical world or desirable setting I’ve wanted to live in than the one created in Avatar. Not even Dazed & Confused. James Cameron thought let’s take Earth, make everything huge and photo-luminescent, and give everyone epic flying mounts so they can ride through floating mountains. Then he took all these natural elements and infused machinery and industry by added a futuristic drilling company, complete with monstrous mining equipment, mech-warrior-esque bots, and flying battleships.

The culmination of this dichotomy happens when the drilling company decides to take out the Na’vi tribe’s home. I especially loved that scene because it pits the might of nature against the cunning of man. Hundreds of missiles are launched in an all-out aerial assault on the largest living organism in the galaxy – a half-mile high, football field-thick tree that is home to the entire tribe. It is a pretty epic and moving scene when the tree is finally felled, and it is a good example of the conflict Avatar presents.

This is the next generation of CGI. The Na’vi were so meticulously created that they seem like a real species. The hardest part about doing CGI is human faces. You could say it is the last element that remains un-perfected, and certainly unrefined. The reason is that humans have a special area of the brain that is dedicated to recognizing human facial structures and facial expressions. That is why we can meet thousands of people in our lives with pretty much the same overall facial structure (2 eyes, 1 nose, about the same size head, etc.), all of which are capable of making thousands of facial expressions, and you and I instantly know who is who and what they’re feeling inside based solely on their face. So, imagine how hard it would be to create convincing CGI involving human faces. Avatar has gotten closer than ever before, and it is worth seeing the film just for this point.

As Jake Sulley discovers the world of Pandora, the audience discovers it with him. There are so many original and interesting things that we come across, everything from the flying mount rite of passage to the suspended hammocks they sleep in. It is so depressing each time Jake actually wakes back up and leaves his Avatar on standby somewhere out there in the jungle – for him and for the audience. Imagine having to leave Neverland or Narnia, and add in the fact that you are not only leaving such a magical world, but the person you have fallen in love with as well. Blast you James Cameron! How do you make love stories so appealing to a regular dude like me?!

Yes, there is a love story. And it is pretty good, although not on the level of Titanic. What takes precedence to the specific love story between Jake and his woman is the love story between Jake and the world of the Na’vi. And the reason we are able to fall in love along with Jake is because of the caliber of film-making. The sequence of events, the emotional highs and lows, the genuineness of the characters, the camera work, the effects – they all had a lot of time and effort put into them.

With the exception of Michelle Rodriguez. Why does she ever get put in a movie? Which leads us to…

The Bad

Michelle Rodriguez is the most worthless actor in Hollywood. Please find me a movie where she has any sort of genuine or natural dialogue. That is a direct challenge to you. You won’t find it in Avatar, that’s for sure. She has maybe 20 lines in the movie. Guess how many of them are not one-liners? None. “I didn’t sign up for this shit.” “You got what it takes, Marine?” “You should see your faces.” And 17 others that you will have to endure if you see Avatar. Michelle, on behalf of everyone who pays $11 for a movie ticket, please go work at a body shop or join the actual Marines.

There were plenty of unbelievable events in Avatar. Pretty much from the time Jake takes down the corporal’s ship to when Jake’s love Neytiri figures out how to put the mask on him, there is not one believable event. Here’s a quick list of things I noticed:

• Jake’s avatar falls hundreds of feet to the ground and gets up running without a scratch
• The Corporal in his mech suit falls hundreds of feet and slams onto the ground, and neither the corporal nor the mechanical suit are injured or broken in any way
• Jake takes on the mech suit in hand-to-hand combat and appears to be just as strong as the mech suit
• Again in the same combat sequence, the mech suit appears to be just as agile as Jake
• The mech suit loses its gun and unsheaths a knife. Is this thing a robot or a human?
• Neytiri somehow gains all knowledge on the human technology of the avatar program and knows where Jake’s real body is, that it needs oxygen (which she’s never heard of), and how to put the mask on him to save his life.

This all happens in the same 10 minute sequence at the climax of the movie. Cameron really could have sealed the deal with a climax the likes of The Matrix or Return of the Jedi, but instead he regresses into a series of classic action movie cliches.

If you read between the lines, it could be apparent that James Cameron is trying to preach environmentalism, Buddhism, and that the US should have left the Native Americans alone. I would slightly disagree with those ideas. I think Avatar is a commentary on humanity overall, not just on current events in America. Since humankind began, superpowers have expanded and gained power over others, because that is human nature. It is also human nature to sacrifice the natural world for the advancement of technology and civilization. Just because we find a new planet doesn’t mean we’re not going to let our humanity show through. In Avatar, humanity loses the battle against the indigenous population. What I take away from this movie is that maybe we were not meant to be on Pandora.

The film does tend to glorify the oneness with nature that the Na’vi have, and it gets a little old after a while. However Pandora is different than Earth because the beings that inhabit it can literally plug in to the network of nature via a very physical communication system. We can’t employ mind control on horses simply by plugging into them, but on Pandora you can create an instant, eternal bond with the same type of animal via the natural communication jack that every living being has. There are completely new and unique lifeforms in a world we have never been to or seen before, so I wouldn’t be too quick to compare every element in Pandora to an Earthly equivalent.

The bottom line is, yes James Cameron has certain political ideas that he could be expressing through his film, but no they don’t ruin the movie. You can easily accept this film as what it is, and enjoy it. That is, unless you come in with a prior agenda of your own.

The Beratings

Acting – No Beratings. Any lack of acting by Michelle Rodriguez is more than compensated for by Giovanni Ribisi. Sam Worthington also creates a very likable and relatable protagonist.

Plot – No Beratings. Wasn’t The Matrix, but it was good enough to keep me enthralled for almost 3 hours.

Inconsistencies – 1 Berating. We spend 45 minutes watching the development of how agile the Na’vi are, and then we see one of them fight a bulky mech warrior and he can’t even get behind it. Despite being undeniably chosen by the Na’vi deity as their savior, Jake is cast out of the tribe without any sign of betrayal on his part. Then accepted back in immediately when he arrives on a bigger dragon.

Unbelievable Events – 1 Berating. See bulleted list in “The Bad” section above. Also, the “Flux Vortex” didn’t make any sense. How can there be floating mountains? Gravity? Magnetism? I looked up the term “flux vortex” and couldn’t find a thing about it.

Semantics – No Beratings. Great soundtrack, CGI, originality, etc.

2/10 Beratings = See it at full price

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
» 2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

There’s something inside of me that wants to be scared, and that’s why I am constantly pursuing the feeling of fear, whether it’s riding the most thrilling roller coaster on the face of the planet (Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point), camping in the middle of the deep dark woods, or seeing scary movies. Coasters and camping are still able to invoke a decent amount of fear in me (although not as much as they used to), but movies are unable to do so. I have not been truly scared of a movie for a long time. That is, until last night.

There have been some good movies that have come close. For instance, The Ring scared me, as did The Others and 1408. And I’m not talking about jumping out of my seat because something on the screen startled me, I’m referring to the sort of scared that sticks with you and interferes with your sleep. I realize that there are a lot of people out there who absolutely do not want to be scared in this way, and that is just fine. But if you are like me and you secretly love that rare feeling of truly being frightened to your core, then go see Paranormal Activity in the theaters as soon as possible.

The Good

They got it right, finally. The best part of scary movies is always the first half as everything starts to build up. It’s the closing act that is always the worst, because you see whatever it is that is supposed to be scary, and we all know that the only thing to fear is fear itself. That is to say, once we know what it is we are fearing, it suddenly loses its potency. The scariness of most scary movies basically boils down to nothing more than how long it takes until we actually see what it is we’re supposed to be scared of. The reason Paranormal Activity is so good is because it saves it until the last 10 seconds of film, and you could argue that it never really even shows us.

There are no credits, no movie studio logos, and no music at the end of the movie. You simply sit there too scared to move, listening to the low rumbling sound and staring at a black screen with just the faintest amount of greenish light coming through. Then you have to go home and try to sleep, and let me tell you this is no easy task.

This movie contains no gore, no special effects, only 4 actors, and takes place all in the same house. And yet it is the absolute scariest movie I have ever seen – bar none. It goes to show that you don’t need a bunch of fancy special effects and quick crazy scenes to make a scary movie. It is shot in a mockumentary style, similarly to Cloverfield, The Blair Witch Project, and District 9, and coincidentally I have loved all of those films.

The Bad

SPOILER ALERT

While I try to stick with the caliber of filmmaking when doing beratings, I can’t help but to point out something that bothered me about some of the motivations behind this film. The woman slowly becomes possessed by a demon throughout the film. The actors are aware of this since a psychic that comes to their house tells them it is not a ghost but in fact a demon. Being a Christian, I know that demons exist, and it is not something to be taken lightly. I am OK with talking about demons in a film, but the problem comes when you don’t talk about the other side of the coin: Jesus Christ. The only way to cast out demons is with His authority, and that seems to me to be a rather well known fact – even among the secular community (via films like The Exorcist). For a movie that spent so much time delving into the realm of the spiritual world, not a single thing was mentioned having anything to do with God (apart from a solitary scene where Katie was holding a bloody cross, which was subsequently burnt).

The Beratings

Acting – No Beratings. You never even notice the two main actors are even acting. They seem so real, like they’re just a young couple that are being spooked by a presence in their house.

Plot – No Beratings. The sequence of events and the build-up is what makes this film good.

Inconsistencies – No Beratings. Everything that happens is likely to have been recorded by Micah and his hand held camera.

Unbelievable Events – 1 Berating. I just don’t see how they wouldn’t be even more petrified than they were. I would have called a priest and/or left the house immediately Even though the demon followed Katie wherever she went, human nature still would be to run from the evil spirit.

Schematics – No Beratings. The movie had surprisingly well-done scenes and very eerie sound effects.

1/10 Beratings = See it the first weekend

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
» 1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

Did you know a gaggle only refers to geese on the ground? In the air they’re referred to as a skein. I don’t know why I told you that. Maybe you should Twitter it you twidiot¹. I don’t always have time to Berate a movie after I’ve seen it because I have a job and a wife and there’s beer to be drunk and I’m too busy retweeting about Conan episodes that make fun of Twitter. J/k, what is a retweet? Is it something? Because I think I’ve heard of it. So I’ve decided that I still want to have a record of my reaction to movies I’ve seen even if I don’t have the time to write a full Berating, and in doing so I have made up my second new word of this blog post: Briefratings². And you’re about to get a gaggle of them and agree with everything I write as usual. (I’ll do whatever I have to do to get you to comment on TGM).

Here’s a refresher on the Beratings scale:

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

And now for the Beratings. These are not in any particular order:

Taken

Acting – No Beratings. Good acting job by Liam Neeson, as always.

Plot – 1 Berating. A guy’s daughter gets kidnapped, he goes and gets her back. Been done way too many times.

Inconsistencies – 1 Beratings. A very sophisticated and deep-running human trafficking operation was uncovered. And nobody cares.

Unbelievable Events – 2 Beratings. A guy kills people and blows up stuff in multiple countries and does whatever he wants and nothing happens to him. No arrests. No injuries. Only three people can do that: Jason Bourne, Chuck Norris, and James Bond, and they already have movies.

Schematics – No Beratings. Good action shots and tense atmosphere.

4/10 Beratings = See it at the dollar-fifty

The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift

Acting – 2 Beratings. Lucas Black is capable of only one facial expression: sullen.

Plot – 2 Beratings. I was 5 steps ahead of this movie the entire time.

Inconsistencies – No Beratings. At least the movie knows what its demographic wants, and it consistently gives it to them.

Unbelievable Events – 2 Beratings. A guy can’t learn to drift that well that fast. The same guy can’t wreck peoples’ cars and not face any real consequences. None of the characters react the way a real person would react to any of the situations presented.

Schematics – 1 Berating. Why is it always 2 in the morning? Isn’t there sunlight in Tokyo?!

7/10 Beratings = Watch it on TV

Luckily that’s exactly what I did. Let me just say that at least it’s better than Gone In 60 Suckonds.

Defiance

Acting – No Beratings. Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber were amazing.

Plot – No Beratings. Had me on the edge of my seat. Besides if I said the plot was bad I would be saying real life is bad since this is based on true events.

Inconsistencies – No Beratings.

Unbelievable Events – No Beratings. Once again, this really happened.

Schematics – No Beratings. Haven’t seen a film like this in a long time.

0/10 Beratings = Stand in line for the very first showing

Ghost Rider

Acting – 2 Beratings. Nick Cage was not good. Neither was anyone else.

Plot – 2 Beratings. Baaaaaad plot.

Inconsistencies – 1 Berating. I don’t remember what it was, but I can assure you someone does something inconsistent with their character at least once.

Unbelievable Events – 2 Beratings. Just watch 5 minutes and you’ll see what I mean.

Schematics – 2 Beratings. Unrealistic CGI, way too dark, bad soundtrack.

9/10 Beratings = Never watch it

Star Trek

Acting – No Beratings. I love no-name casts, especially when they perform this well. They won’t be no-name for long.

Plot – No Beratings. Although a little confusing and somewhat of a cop-out, it was very clever how they explained eveything with time travel. Doesn’t deserve a berating for plot.

Inconsistencies – No Beratings. Shucks, there could have been, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen it I don’t remember.

Unbelievable Events – 2 Beratings. I loved this movie, but I’m so sick of scientific liberties being taken with no regard for realism. Let’s just list one example: they would have died in the scene where they were parachuting to stop the drill. No question.

Schematics – No Beratings. Another well-made J. J. Abrams film.

2/10 Beratings = See it at full price

I Love You, Man

Acting – 1 Berating. I don’t find Jason Segel to be a very good actor, and he had a lot of screen time here. I also don’t like Rashida Jones. She got annoying after a few episodes on The Office and has stayed annoying ever since. Paul Rudd made this movie

Plot – 1 Berating. Nothing really happened. That’s OK as long as the movie in question is Dazed & Confused.

Inconsistencies – No Beratings.

Unbelievable Events – 1 Berating. There isn’t a guy like Jason Segel’s character in the whole world, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be.

Schematics – No Beratings. A good comedy that doesn’t rely too heavily on slapstick humor.

3/10 Beratings = See it at the Five-Buck-Club

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Acting – 2 Beratings. Why was Kat Dennings cast to be in this movie – or any movie for that matter? She’s terrible. Micheal Cera didn’t do anything great either.

Plot – 2 Beratings. Nothing happened. Except pretentiousness.

Inconsistencies – No Beratings.

Unbelievable Events – 2 Beratings. People don’t meet like this. People don’t act like this. They just don’t.

Schematics – 2 Beratings. I don’t like the way this film was made. It was so boring.

8/10 Beratings = Watch it purely for spousal points

More to come!

Footnotes —

¹ Twidiot: someone who uses Twitter as a public announcement platform for uninteresting personal things.

² Briefratings: do you seriously not know what this means?

District 9 is one of those rare gems where the cast is made up of entirely unknowns, directed by an unknown, and set in an unknown place (there’s a city in South Africa with buildings? is South Africa like a country or something? more ignorant questions). That’s why it’s such a good movie. It’s like Star Wars IV or Cloverfield or Napoleon Dynamite. I guess what I’m saying is it can only go down from here. So let’s all enjoy this movie while we still can. Everyone go out and see this movie and support directors that make special effects who are not Micheal Bay. Do it for the children.

SPOILER

An alien spacecraft comes to earth in 1990 and stops directly over Johannesburg and just sits there for like 3 months and the government wants to be humanitarian (don’t they know that word has “human” in it?) and go help the aliens so they go up to the ship and somehow break in to this ginormous ship even though they are incapable of firing the simplest alien pistol and find a million aliens who are all about to starve to death and decide to take them and put them in a sectioned-off part of their city called District 9 until they can figure out what to do with them. 20 years later it’s getting out of control because the aliens are breeding rapidly and causing crime and deaths and so the government decides to evict them and there are Nigerians involved who engage in gang activity with the aliens who complicate things because they are benefiting off of the aliens being in the city. The human protagonist Wikus gets infected with alien DNA and starts to change into one and is able to fire the super advanced alien weaponry and thus becomes invaluable to the government because they want to use him for his DNA. Oh and also the government is corrupt and so Wikus has to hide from the government and the Nigerians among the aliens while he is going through this transition.

The movie begins documentary style and for a while I thought the whole thing was going to be done in this manner, which at that time I wasn’t really looking forward to. About 20 minutes in it began to transition into live action in such a seamless manner that I didn’t realize until most of the way through that it had even made the transition. It was done in a very unique way and somewhat reminded me of the film making style used in Cloverfield. Let’s explore some of the things that made this movie good, and a few things I could have done without.

The Good

Let me just say that I loved this movie. I could see pretty well where the plot was going, but the journey was most of the fun. The first time one of the alien weapons was fired I got chills. The special effects were done in such a way that I almost forgot that they weren’t real. The visual style of District 9 is very gritty, and the special effects blend in very nicely. They aren’t colorful like Transfomers 2. They aren’t completely monotone and dark like Terminator 4. They are exactly what they should be – extensions of real life scenes and action sequences. For instance, one scene involves a truck ramming into a mechanical walking robot. The robot is CGI (not because it looks CGI, but because you just know it is), but the truck is real. They could have done the whole shot in CGI like they would have done in a Micheal Bay film, but they chose to blend the CGI with real world objects, and I have found that is where the best action sequences are born. Here are a few examples of good CGI/real-world object blending:

The actor who played Wikus is likable in a pitiful sort of way, although he makes bad decisions and isn’t the brightest man alive. I enjoyed watching his transformation, physical and psychological. The budget for District 9 was $30 million. In comparison, the budget for Transformers 2 was $200+ million. Despite this huge difference in funding, District 9 had much more amazing and poignant special effects, and overall felt a lot more real. There were just as many scenes featuring special effects in District 9 as there were in Transformers 2, because the aliens were in almost every scene. I realize T2 had to pay big name actors and went on a marketing blitz, but that still leaves at least $100 million for production expenses (probably much more than that). This only goes to show that what makes a movie good is quality and creativity, not money and sex.

The weapons were quite stunning. I found myself yearning to see another out of this world weapon being fired, and every time I got what I wanted. Such advanced machinery and technology in the same frames as dirty, run-down hovels and trash is what makes this movie stand out:

The last 20 minutes of the film blew me away. When Wikus was driving the mech-warrior suit and fending off an entire army of soldiers shooting everything from pistols to mini-guns, and then he caught that RPG in mid-flight and flung it aside, there literally were cheers in the theater, and I was one of the people that audibly cheered. I haven’t experienced audience response like that since The Matrix. It seemed like there was nothing that couldn’t be done, and nowhere we couldn’t go, and I attribute that to Neil Blomcamp, director and screenwriter.

The Bad

There were some unbelievable events, as well as inconsistencies in District 9. First of all, I don’t believe humans would stand for the type of violence and rampage caused by an alien race and not wage war against the offending party. Going in and nicely asking for signatures on eviction documents amidst blatantly unruly aliens that are fighting back and killing government officials is ludicrous. No human would enter with such light armor and limited weapons into an area with 1.5 million aliens, all of which are bigger and stronger than any human, and most of which have weapons that could take out a building.

Also, if an alien ship 3 miles long with a million aliens was hovering over a city somewhere on Earth, I don’t care which country it is in, the entire world would be involved – not just the local government. It was totally unbelievable how a couple of corrupt local government guys could be running the show in an event of this magnitude.

One inconsistency was that the ship was apparently broken and not able to return home, but somehow at the end of the movie one alien was able to fix it from the ground and leave. If he was able to fix it with no resources by himself 500 yards away from it, how could a million of them not fix it during the 3 months they sat inside the actual ship before humans “rescued” them?

Also, the range of intelligence and moral conduct amongst the alien race was not consistent. Every alien was savage, hostile, and not smart enough to not get killed by some very dumb humans. Every alien except one, who happened to be super smart and super heroic and super forgiving. Are there other aliens like this? Why was he so different from every other alien? The movie never explained it and it leaves a gaping inconsistent hole.

The Beratings

Acting – No Beratings. I love no-name actors because they usually don’t seem to have egos.

Plot – No Beratings. Not the most complex plot, but original nonetheless.

Inconsistencies – 1 Berating.

Unbelievable Events – 1 Berating.

Schematics – No Beratings. The movie was well-made, especially for a $30 million budget.

2/10 Beratings = See it at full price

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
» 2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it