Wednesday, September 15, 2010

3 More Disappointing DVD's

I don't know if I am becoming overly critical or if 2010 is just a sucky year in the film industry, but I recently caught up on some more DVD's of films that I was excited about - and am once again disappointed. The fall season really needs to step it up (so far my best list has 2 films on it - "The Last Station" - which was officially released in 2009 and "Inception" - which isn't even that amazing, however my worst list is getting really long...). Here are my thoughts on the DVD's that I recently watched:

1. Alice in Wonderland - Truly an awful film. Just awful. I am not even sure what else I can say about it. Half of it didn't make sense - I realize Alice in Wonderland is supposed to be a bit absurd and fanciful. I appreciate Tim Burton using the Jabberwacky style mixing words together and basically creating a world of nonsense. However, with words like fudderwachen being used it was hard to taking the film seriously. I felt like i needed to smoke something first to understand it. I am not sure Burton thought about his audience at all (for example - who exactly is the audience he was going for? because if I couldn't understand it - then I guarantee a 9 year old would be utterly confused - yet I felt like it was too immature for an adult audience as well). It also features the worst casting decision of the year - Anne Hathaway as the ethereal White Queen. Hathaway is a decent actress, but her representation of this character was basically to hold her hands up in the air and float around with a blank expression on her face. It was hard to watch. I am glad I saved my money and missed it in theaters (especially in 3D - I might have died).

2. Kick-Ass - I was indifferent about this film when it was released, but then it started getting some hype and some good reviews - I thought it might be a fun, kick-ass film. And it was...kinda. Unfortunately the bad elements of the film brought down anything good about it. The bad being Nic Cage (hate him. With a passion.) and Aaron Johnson (supposed to be the next hot young actor - but I wasn't that impressed with his looks or his acting). It was also about a 1/2 an hour too long and it seemed a little out of touch (it kept referencing Myspace - I am not the most up to date with technology but even I know Myspace has been over for years now). The good stuff was some really beautiful cinematography and choreography (the action sequence with the little girl in the dark was oddly beautiful). I am also a fan of Chloe Moretz (she was JGL's little sis in 500 Days of Summer and Peter Krause's daughter on Dirty Sexy Money- she is also the girl that landed the much anticipated role in the remake of the beautiful Swedish film Let the Right One In - the American version will be released this fall and is titled Let Me In). I can understand why people had issues with her cursing and using guns (at the age of 13), but I think as long as her parents raise her right - she will be just fine. Look at Lilo - she did cookie-cutter family films at that age and she is a hot-mess now, so the type of films doesn't really matter for these younger actresses - it's all about the parenting. I also think people are ignorant about how much their children actually know - 13 is not that innocent nowadays.

3. The Crazies - not much to say here. It was pretty predictable and not very scary. The trailer was much scarier. I never saw the original, but am now very interested in watching it. I like the story (although it is cliched now - I am sure it was ground breaking in 1973 when the original was released). I actually thought that this was the premise for that tv show Happy Town but it was nothing like it (and the show was a big fat disaster). So, the acting was decent - I like Radha Mitchell and Timothy Olyphant (although I can't believe he actually has a career after his horrible over-acting in Scream 2 and Go). All in all a pretty mediocre film.

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