Movie menage

Movie Review: Along Came Polly (2004)
I expected this to be just another dumb romantic comedy but I was pleasantly surprised. Ben Stiller plays a very anal retentive risk assesment agent who's wife cheats on him on their honeymoon. Jennifer Aniston is a free spirited former classmate. Will these opposites attract? Of course they will but it's a funny ride. The broken toilet scene has become a real cliche these days but the rest of the film was good for laughs. Philop Seymour Hoffman nearly steals the show as Sandy, a former child star who can't move beyond the one role that everyone remembers him for. 7.5/10

Movie Review: Closer (2004)
2 couples become entwined in this story about love, obsession, guilt and trust. The 4 leads give very strong performances but as all of their characters were total pricks I wasn't interested in what happened to any of them. 6/10

Movie Review: The Butterfly Effect (2004)
A bit like 'Donnie Darko', this is a pretty good sci-fi flick. I'm pretty biased in favour of time travel movies though. Kuschner suffers numerous black outs as a child and later on learns that he can travel back in time and change the events. He intends to make things better and right certain wrongs but the more he meddles the worse things seem to get. There are some apparent contradictions that result from his time hopping but I found this a very enjoyable movie that I've been thinking about a lot afterwards. The alternate ending on the DVD is also a real mind bender. 7.5/10

Movie Review: The Pacifier (2005)
Mr. Mom meets Mary Poppins meets Home Alone meets Commando. Vin Diesel plays an elite navy SEAL charged with protecting a household of spunky kids. You can guess what happens; he doesn't know the first thing about kids or babies (so there must be a scene with him having to change a diaper), he's gonna solve all their various problems, and he's gonna deliver an ass-whoopin to someone. Seriously, this is a kiddie movie and the little folk might enjoy this. Anyone with a slightly critical eye with see numerous faults though. Firstly, the opening scene where Vin leads his SEAL team on an amphibious assault is laughable. The wrestling match between Vin and the high school wrestling coach is too pathetic to be laughable. Apparently the high school wrestling coach doesn't know anything about amateur wrestling. This is obviously why he claims to have gotten the coaching position because of his black belt. There are no belts in wrestling. The biggest flaw though is that Vin's mission is to guard the family and their house because criminals want to steal something that is hidden inside it. How does Vin do this? By leaving the house empty for most of the day to sit at the school. He also leaves the majority of the family unguarded most of the time while he tries to help them out individually. While he is playing den mother to the littlest girl, taking the eldest daughter out for driving lessons, and directing the son's musical version of 'The Sound of Music' where are the other children and who is watching over them? Not a very effective plan in my opinion. 5/10

People with Problems

Movie Review: House of Sand and Fog (2003)
This is a pretty dark drama with Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley. They play two tragic figures united by a dispute over a beach house. Connelly's husband has left her and has retreated into her family house. Unfortunately she doesn't have the money to keep it. Kingsley plays an ex-Iranian colonel who is forced to take menial labour jobs to maintain his family's image. When Connelly's house is seized by the courts Kingsley thinks he's found a way to help his family but Connelly isn't about to give up. Things spiral out of control into an even bleaker ending. I was pleased to see the same mother & son pair (Shohreh Aghdashloo and Jonathan Ahdout) from the season four of '24' playing Kingsley's wife and son. Despite the somber mood this is a fantastic movie. 8/10

Movie Review: A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Another film from my favourite French director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet (director of Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, and Amelie). This contains a lot of the same stylistic markings and subtlely inserted CG as his earlier films but this is quite a sad film. A young woman, Audrey Tautou of 'Amelie' fame, searches for her fiance who is missing and presumed dead from WWI. He was found guilty of trying to flee the trenches and is forced into no-man's-land where he disappears. Tautou's character never gives up on him and follows a series of mysterious clues to learn the truth. As in all of Jeunet's films the balance of beautiful cinematography, subtle but believable CG effects, wonderful music, and colorful characters makes this a movie to watch and enjoy. 8/10

Movie Review: Kinsey (2004)
Somewhat dry biopic about pioneer sex researcher Alfred Kinsey. The movie was well done but I think I'm a little tired of seeing Liam Neeson in the wise man role. He's a jedi in 'Star Wars', then he's Aslan in 'Chronicles of Narnia', now he's a sex expert. It's a shame though because despite his character's brilliance he's a flawed character and thus interesting. I just wish it wasn't Neeson in the role. I would have preferred to see a documentary about Kinsey with real footage of the key people involved. 7/10

Movie Review: Death Note (2006)
I caught this on Japanese TV. A young man named Light Yamagi finds a magical notebook. Writing someone's name in the book will cause them to die. Light begins writing down criminals' names and soon the police are searching for the mysterious cause of all these deaths. The police enlist a young computer hacker known as 'L', who never blinks and eats an ungodly amount of snack foods, to track down Light. Meanwhile, Light is visited by a Death God (I think it's his notebook) who only Light can see. This is based on a manga and I'm sure the CG Death God looks just like the character in the comic. However, he looks to me like a modelled character from a FPS game such as Unreal or Quake. He looks pretty good but doesn't fit in at all with the background. I couldn't follow all the philosophical discussions going on (it was all in Japanese) but I found the movie pretty interesting. Part 2 of the movie openned in Japan on Halloween and I'd like to see this sequal sometime. 7.5/10

TV Review: Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000 / Season One)
Written by and starring Larry David, the co-creater of 'Seinfeld'. Seeing as I've been in Japan since the end of 1998 I never got the chance to see this show. It's just like Seinfeld but much nastier. As it's broadcast on HBO the characters drop the F-bomb every once in a while and some scenes are too risque for the major networks. Larry David plays himself and the show usually involves him putting his foot in his mouth or doing something really stupid which comes back to bite him in the ass at the end of the show.

Superheroes

Movie Review: The Incredibles (2004)

Another fantastic CG animated adventure from Pixar. Much like the comic book Fantastic 4, this family features a super strength dad, super stretchy mum, invisible force field casting daughter, and speedster son. The only missing character is the Human Torch. This action flick contains a lot of patented Pixar style humour. And you can only laugh when Samuel L Jackson voices a super cool ice hero. The story does seem awfully close to the story in the graphic novel 'The Watchmen' but it is a great watch. 8/10

Movie Review: Fantastic Four (2005)Well at least it's much better than the Roger Corman version. Like a lot of comic book adaptations this one falls pretty flat. The whole premise seems a little sketchy. Our cast of characters go into space to a privately funded space station that resembles the thing in Deep Space Nine. They're supposed to be monitoring a cloud of radiation that passes by. They miscalculate the time it will take to arrive and fall prey to the cosmic radiation. It's a little hard to understand why there are only the 5 people onboard the station, 1 of them being the owner of the company. With the majority of them running the experiment who is running the station? They certainly could have used another person to keep track of the radiation cloud. If someone had been checking on it at least intermitently it wouldn't have snuck up on them.
Otherwise, the Fantastic Four never look all that fantastic as they really don't do much adventuring here. I think the Incredibles showed off their super powers in much more exciting and interesting ways. The rumour is that the 2nd F4 movie will feature the Silver Surfer so hopefully it will be better. 6/10

Movie Review: Sky High (2005)

I don't remember why I was interested in seeing this one in the first place. The son of world famous superhero parents enrolls in a highschool just for future superheroes and sidekicks. There is some actual tension early on as the boy doesn't have any super powers and must deal with the shame and practical problems of super powered bullies. When his powers finally due bloom the movie turns into a stock young teen action movie. Kurt Russell is good as the super powered father and it's always fun to see former Kids in the Hall alumni Dave Foley and Kevin McDonald messing around in too-small parts.
6.5/10

TV Review: The Tick (Live Series 2001)

And I thought the animated series was good. This live version of the Tick is just hilarious. What a shame it only lasted 1 short season. Patrick Warburton (Elaine's thick boyfriend David Puddy from Seinfeld) is perfect as the moronic but nigh invulnerable Tick. Every episode is very funny and the main cast are all great. Check this out if you get the chance.

Book Review: The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales - Oliver Sacks

This 1985 book by neurologist Oliver Sacks describes the case histories of some of his patients. The title of the book comes from the case study of a man with visual agnosia. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat became the basis of an opera of the same name by Michael Nyman, which premiered in 1986.

The other essays in this book include:

• "The Lost Mariner", about Jimmie G., who has lost the ability to form new memories due to Korsakoff's syndrome. He can remember nothing of his life since his demobilization at the end of WWII, including events that happened only a few minutes ago, and must struggle to form an identity. (The main character of the fictional film Memento has a similar condition, and obsesses with the identity of a certain "John G." or "Jimmy G.")
• "The President's Speech" - about a ward of aphasiacs and agnosiacs listening to a speech given by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Each group saw flaws in the president's content and presentation respectively, flaws which escaped the notice of 'normal' people.
• "The Disembodied Lady" - a unique case of a woman losing her entire sense of proprioception (the sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other neighbouring parts of the body).
• "On The Level" - another case involving damaged proprioception. Dr. Sacks interviews a patient who has trouble walking upright and discovers that he has lost his innate sense of balance due to Parkinson's-like symptoms that have damaged his inner ears; the patient, comparing his sense of balance to a carpenter's spirit level, suggests the construction of a similar level inside a pair of glasses, which enables him to judge his balance by sight.
• "The Twins" - about autistic savants. Dr. Sacks tries to connect with twin brothers by joining their game of finding very large prime numbers. He cheats and uses a book; neither of them can read or even do multiplication. They instantly count 111 dropped matches simultaneously noticing that 111 is three 37s. This event, with toothpicks in place of matches, and other of Dr. Sacks's observations on autistic savants, were used in the film Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman.

The above was copied from a wikipedia.com page. This is a great read that I recommend for anyone interested in some of the more unusual aspects of human psychology.

Fun on the water

Seeing the made for TV version on TV here in Japan is what inspired me to watch the other versions of this disaster-at-sea movie. 'Titanic' has nothing to fear from these soggy stories.

Movie Review: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

The one that started it all. A wave capsizes an ocean liner on New Year's Eve. The ship flips upside down and a motley crew of survivors must navigate their way upwards, towards the bottom of the ship, through a maze of perils. A decent movie formula that has been duplicated many times since. I was delighted to see Leslie Nielson in the role of the ship's captain early on but he plays the straight-man here unfortunately, nothing like his infamous Lt Drebbin. Gene Hackman is really good as the brave, nearly foolhardy priest who leads the rag tag band. Ernest Borgnine is also here as the doubting Thomas who provides the annoying counterbalance to Hackman. I haven't liked Borgnine in anything I've seen him in and this is no exception. This is certainly not a great, or even pretty good, movie but its campiness makes it a bit fun. 5/10

Movie Review: The New Poseidon Adventure (2005)

This made-for-TV movie was obviously rushed out to profit on the upcoming Hollywood movie. I think it's also supposed to dupe some people into buying the wrong DVD when they think they are getting the new big budget version. This was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Everything about it stunk. The plot was changed so that it's not a wave that overturns the ship but a bomb set by Middle Eastern terrorists. A brief explanation is given by a member of the crew as to why the explosion caused the ship to flip upsidedown but it really doesn't make any sense. All the shots of the ship are done with CG and they look REALLY bad. Smoke coming from one of the propellors underwater is just a bunch of black squares shooting out. The cast list is also stellar: Adam Baldwin in the lead (no relation to the Baldwin gang, but he was worse than the CG), Rutger Hauer (all down hill since Blade Runner), Steve Guttenberg and C Thomas Howell. You can basically predict who is going to die based on the fact that this movie was produced by the Hallmark comapany. The 'whore' who the married man sleeps with... dead. The real annoying guy... dead. And the dangers they encounter are just riduculous. In one room the characters have to cross a narrow beam one by one as a fire rages below. It's not just any normal fire though. No, this CG fire looks like the surface of the sun itself. I don't know what could possibly be burning down there to cause this. And while the ship is supposed to be sinking the entire time shots of the ship from the outside just after the flip and at the end of the movie show that it hasn't sunk at all. I must admit that IMDB has this movie clocked in at 170 odd minutes. Here in Japan we got a 2 hours version with commercials included. Thank the Emperor for small miracles. 1/10

Movie Review: Poseidon (2006)

This latest incarnation was supposed to blow too. However I didn't find it all that bad, especially after watching the first two films. Director Wolfgang Peterson (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm) certainly knows how to make a sea film. The CG here is great and the disaster is quite realistic and frightening. It's still not as goos as what was accomplished in 'Titanic' though. This time around it's Kurt Russell and Josh Lucas leading the survivors. Russell is good although he's basically playing the same part he played in 'Backdraft'. One particularily strong scene has the survivors trapped in a horizontal air vent as the water begins rising and engulfing them one by one. One of the women is claustrophobic and you really feel her fear as she begins thrashing about in the narrow space, trapped on the ladder under the others. Worth a rent if you're in the mood for an action flick. 7/10