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ABC DVD: 10 Things I Hate About You

July 31st, 2016 by pladd

Recently Steven and I decided to watch all the DVDs we own in alphabetical order. It’s similar to that time I decided to cook out of every cookbook in the house, but less practical. The first title is that 90s classic based on a Shakespeare play, 10 Things I Hate About You.

I’m not over how cute Heath Ledger is in this, I’m not

Summary
Based on Taming of the Shrew–and even sneaking in a surprising amount of direct quotes!–this story follows new kid in school Cameron as he attempts to date the beautiful Alex Mack despite her father’s rule that she can’t date unless her older sister Julia Stiles does. Cameron and his bff David Krumholtz trick rich douchebag Joey into paying scary outsider Heath Ledger to date Julia Stiles, and of course there’s the typical relationship begun on false pretenses turns to real love/”IT WAS ALL A LIE” dramatic climax and reconciliation denouement. In the end, Alex Mack beats up Joey at prom, David Krumholtz hooks up with a hardcore Shakespeare LARPer, and I downloaded the soundtrack.

That ridic highschool building, tho

Trish’s Review
This movie is still hilarious. The characters are really well-written and all four of the main protagonists grow throughout the story. The script writers, Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith, are so clever in the way they use Shakespeare’s plot and lines but also update and turn it on its head. This movie is a feminist take on one of Shakespeare’s more misogynistic plays. Plus, it’s infinitely quotable and the music is amazing.

Rating: 5 out of 5 butterfly hairclips

Kill/Fuck/Marry: Definitely kill Joey. He’s incredibly conceited, boring, and, worst of all, only tries to date Alex Mack because he has a bet with his friends. Fuck Heath Ledger. Duh. Marry David Krumholtz because he solves everyone’s problems for no reason other than he’s a really great guy.

Steven’s Review
Somehow it wasn’t until well after the first watching that I discovered it was really just a re-telling of The Taming of the Shrew, and I’m honestly stumped at how I didn’t see it at the time. Thankfully, it’s just as good in the re-watching, years later. It’s pretty much everything I expect and want out of the teen comedy genre; typecast high school cliques, unrequited and inexplicable romance at the drop of the hat, ridiculous lack of parental oversight (apart from the main character ladies, apparently), and teens with all the apparent legal and fiscal means to do pretty much whatever a drunken 20-something might get up to. Bad guys get punched, scatological humor gets played, and all with plenty of one-liners to keep things interesting. Oh, and everyone’s favorite White House Press Secretary moonlights as an unapologetic bad erotic romance writer while apparently running a high school? Love it!

Rating: 5 out of 5 hole-sawn textbooks

Kill/Fuck/Marry:

Kill: This one’s hard. Like, really hard. Like, if it weren’t for the few characters I honestly like, I’d be inclined to say “Just nuke the school from orbit and spare the rest of us.” Joey’s an obvious front-runner, but I honestly had a hard time choosing between him and Cameron, the lackluster starry-eyed “nice guy.” Honestly, just let them both get hit by the same car.
Fuck: Ms. Perky, Alison Janney’s school counselor-cum-de-facto-principal character. She sounds like she at least knows how to describe a good time, so chances are at least even that she could back it up with the real performance.
Marry: The crotchety obstetrician Dad (Larry Miller). He’s clearly given up on life, but he’s also clearly got the disposable income to live comfortably, plus he’s gone most of the time, leaving you with that palatial house to yourself.

Next Up: Arrested Development!

Tagged: movies, Steven

Posted in ABC DVDs |

Terrifying Don Bluth Films: Ranked

May 12th, 2016 by pladd

Don Bluth left Disney to pursue his own dream: to scar children for life. But which Don Bluth film is the most terrifying? To decide, I chose to rank them entirely based on my unreliable memory from whenever they last terrified me as a child.

9. The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)

The bad guy in this movie was a weightlifting bro-penguin rapist named Drake.

Voiced by Tim Curry

But honestly the scariest part is how they try to distinguish between the penguin sexes by giving the girl penguins ludicrous human curves:

Why would penguins need boobs???

8. A Troll in Central Park (1994)

I mean, yes, this movie was scary-bad, so it automatically ranks higher, but the scariest part is honestly that these two infants are left to wander around New York City alone:

Do you HAVE parents??

Honestly I’m thinking the trolls they meet in central park are a childish imagining to block out their real abductors and the trauma that ensues.

7. Thumbelina (1994)

I don’t remember a ton about Thumbelina (besides this annoying-ass song) but there were at least two terrifying parts. When Prince Cornelius is frozen in ice:

How does this even HAPPEN?

I remember it really bothered me that his finger was still sticking out. That shit is going to turn black and snap off, Cornelius. Of course, even scarier is when Thumbelina is roped into marrying Mr. Mole, who hates sunlight and probably smells like mildew:

And you do NOT want to see what’s under that cumberbund

6. An American Tail (1986)

Besides the countless times someone almost gets stepped on or worse, you have this:

Which I think speaks for itself

5. Anastasia (1997)

Granted, I was a little older when this one came out, which I think is the only reason this guy doesn’t rank higher on the list:

He’s like a creepy demon zombie sorcerer

4. Rock-a-Doodle (1992)

I don’t have as clear a memory of this one, besides that it included live-action footage of bad flooding, which hit pretty close to home.

Also this thing

3. The Land Before Time (1988)

Yeah, sure, kids love dinosaurs. They also love tons of violence and the worst on-screen parent death until Mufasa.

I’LL HAUNT YOUR NIGHTMARES UNTIL JURASSIC PARK MAKES ME ALL THE MORE REAL

Kids love them some emotional trauma

2. All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

What the fuck is this movie

There is literally a dog hell

And even if the protagonists don’t end up there

THEY STILL END UP DEAD WTF WTF WTF

1. The Secret of NIMH (1982)

It is impossible to find a screencap of this movie that ISN’T fucking terrifying.

Creepy

Is that a good guy? What the hell?

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT

STOP

IT JUST GETS WORSE

In conclusion, this movie still haunts my nightmares.

Previously: Disney Villains Ranked by Scariness

Tagged: list, movies

Posted in lists |

Questions I Have About Jurassic World

June 20th, 2015 by pladd

I saw Jurassic World this weekend, and it was really fun! However, after leaving the theater and thinking about it more, I still have a few questions. Like:

If they are in Costa Rica, how come all of the workers are white?

Jurassic World is set on the same island as Jurassic Park, reached by ferry or helicopter from Costa Rica.

A Three Hour Tour

Despite this, I didn’t notice anyone in the film who could potentially be Costa Rican. Okay, the park is hella expensive, so maybe they wouldn’t be visitors, but what about the workers? Who is working at these concession stands? Driving these ferries? Flying these helicopters? Working security detail?

The one menial worker who has a speaking part is a bored, white teenager operating one of the rides. This raises so many questions. Where does this 16-year-old live?? He can’t just take the ferry home at night to his parents’ basement. He’s not some fancy intern because he clearly hates his life and is making minimum wage. Why is Jurassic World importing unskilled labor from the US when Costa Rica is right there?

Why is this movie sucking on the lady-character front when compared to its 22-year-old predecessor?

There were two main lady characters in the original Jurassic Park:

I nicknamed them “sciencey” and “screamy”

Some of their characterization may have been a little annoying, but they were both valuable members of the team. Dr. Sattler was a paleobotanist who dug through dinosaur poop to figure out what the deal was with these mutating dinosaurs, and also outran some velociraptors to turn the power back on. Lex was a teen hacker who got the door locks working again. Their badassness is even addressed when elderly park creator Hammond tells Dr. Sattler that “It should be me” loading up on guns to go traverse the dangerous, raptor-infested electric station because he’s a dude, and Dr. Sattler just scoffs and pushes past him, because shut up. Pretty good for 1993!

On the other hand, here in 2015, we seem to have gone backwards, because all we really have is:

Yeah, she wears that dress and heels the whole time

Claire is in charge of park operations and basically needs Chris Pratt’s help for most of the movie. Which is okay–not everyone can be a badass–but when it’s your only main female character it says a lot about what the creators’ think is a woman’s role.

Ellie and Muldoon know better

If you are just going to make a fake dinosaur, why not make a dragon?

The main plot point of this move is that the scientists have taken genetics too far and have just created a new dinosaur to draw bigger crowds. To the non-dinosaur-obsessed, it looks kind of like the T-Rex I would draw from memory:

If you told me this was a T-Rex, I’d believe you

But oh it’s ~way scarier~ than a T-Rex and will totally bring in more ticket sales, but… If you’re going to just make shit up, why not make something even cooler? Like a dragon?? Hire me for your focus group, InGen.

How are these people breathing?

HOW?

This gyroscope bubble thing is supposed to be unbreakable and completely safe from the dinosaurs on the outside, but how does air get in? Also, why build a ride the passengers can completely control and then just trust them NOT to roll right into restricted areas, as Plucky Kid Protagonists immediately do?

Why is park security so incompetent?

Did you learn nothing from the last three movies?

At a park filled with dinosaurs whose acknowledged past is littered with corpses and dinosaur escapes, WHY ARE THEY NOT BETTER PREPARED FOR DINOSAUR ESCAPE?

You are literally useless

Did you really think this glass dome was enough?

Jurassic World also boasts a swarm of flying death dinosaurs, housed in “the aviary”, which is a big glass dome that apparently can’t survive things hitting it.

Just GUESS what happens

Is this park really built to sustain that many visitors even in a non-emergency?

This park even on a normal day looks more crowded than Harry Potter World:

And they don’t even have butter beer

But Harry Potter World stops letting people in once they get to capacity. Does Costa Rica not have fire codes? I feel like all it would take is a rain storm or a particularly good sale and people would be dead from trampling.

Is Chris Pratt REALLY that much better at raptors than Muldoon?

Apparently Chris Pratt “bonds with the raptors” from eggs or some bullshit so they still kind of want to eat him but mostly don’t try to (mostly).

Raptor expert

Which is such a posthumous slap in the face to Muldoon.

Chris Pratt DOESN’T EVEN HAVE SHORTS

Muldoon knew those raptors were clever girls too, but they still bit his arm off and lovingly nestled it in a bunch of wires to freak out Ellie. That’s how raptors roll.

How did you out run a TRex in heels?

HOW HOW HOW

What is even InGen’s business model?

How are they still solvent?

It seems like they’ve had one PR disaster after another. Plus, they seem to only hire mad scientists and wannabe supervillains, which can’t be good for office culture.

Why did they build a theme park on the island, but leave the original Jurassic Park building to rot?

While running from the hybrid dino, the Two Kid Protagonists stumble into the remains of the original Jurassic Park Visitor center

Complete with decaying banner

It even still has the original jeeps that they can fix up and use to escape. Why did the park designers just leave those ruins there to rot in the jungle?

How is Chris Pratt so hot?

HOW?????

Where is Sam Neil?

You’ll always be chief paleontologist OF MY HEART

Tagged: jurassic park, movies, sam neil

Posted in lists |

Theatrically Released Animated Disney Movies

February 25th, 2014 by pladd

For some reason, I found myself looking at Wikipedia’s list of all theatrically-released animated Disney movies the other day, and decided I needed to rank the ones I’d seen. There are 58 of them (and 47 more I haven’t seen), and I ranked them kind of haphazardly, by going through and asking for each “Okay, is this better than that?” until I’d made a list. Some of them are tricky, because the plot’s pretty crappy but the animation is beautiful or I really like the songs. Others I’m pretty sure have earned their spots only through nostalgia. Here’s the Top 10:

1. Frozen (2013; Walt Disney)
2. Mulan (1998; Walt Disney)
3. Spirited Away (2002; Studio Ghibli)
4. Beauty and the Beast (1991; Walt Disney)
5. Emperor’s New Groove (2000; Walt Disney)
6. Aladdin (1992; Walt Disney)
7. Finding Nemo (2003; Pixar)
8. The Little Mermaid (1989; Walt Disney)
9. Hercules (1997; Walt Disney)
10. Howl’s Moving Castle (2005; Studio Ghibli)

It was interesting to me that a lot of them are from right around the same time period. Is that because Disney was the most skilled then? Or because I was the right age? Obviously there are outliers, like Frozen at #1 and the original Fantasia from 1940 ranking pretty high at #23 (see full list at the end). I made a graph scatter plotting release dates with my rankings and you can see most of the top ones are clustered in the post-1985 range, although that’s also when Disney increased their output, and acquired other studios like Pixar and Ghibli.

Interestingly, the worst ranked movie is from 1985

Here’s the bottom 10:

49. Sleeping Beauty (1959; Walt Disney)
50. Ponyo (2009; Studio Ghibli)
51. Dumbo (1941; Walt Disney)
52. A Goofy Movie (1995; DisneyToon)
53. Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (1998; Hyperion)
54. Pinocchio (1940; Walt Disney)
55. Bambi (1942; Walt Disney)
56. Tarzan (1999; Walt Disney)
57. Doug’s First Movie (1999; DisneyToon)
58. The Black Cauldron (1985; Walt Disney)

If anything, it’s harder for me to decide the worst than the best, maybe because my reasons for disliking a movie are more varied. In the end, The Black Cauldron beat out all crappy contenders by having a lot of the same problems of plot, characters, and art style but also trying to cram 5 books into one movie. Five books that I kind of really like, especially at the time I first saw this film. You can imagine the disappointment. Child-Me had not yet come to terms with the fact that movie adaptions of books you like are often fraught with terribleness, but this movie helped teach her that lesson, I guess.

You might also notice that this bottom list is more varied in terms of studio responsible than the top list. I was interested in that too, and if there was a correlation between studio and quality. The comparison is a little unfair, of course, since Walt Disney Studios has produced 37 of the films on this list, while the next most prolific, Pixar, only has 10.

Films on this list produced by each studio

Still, I thought it would be illustrative, so here are the average rankings of each studio on the list (out of 58, remember)

The results aren’t surprising

DisneyToon makes a terrible showing, partly because there are only 2 films it produced, and both are on the bottom ten. Studio Ghibli is a clear winner, even with the terribleness of Ponyo weighing it down from #50. Walt Disney Studios, where the bulk of these are coming from, is sitting comfortably in the middle. Because, sure, it’s got its Frozen and Mulan, but it also has The Black Cauldron and Tarzan weighing it down.

Here’s the full list: Read the rest of this entry »

Tagged: charts, disney, movies

Posted in lists |

Sam Neill Update: The Last One

April 3rd, 2013 by pladd

You guys!!! I’m so sad and happy at the same time to bring you my final Sam Neill Netflix Marathon update! I watched the last movie today, and I’m glad Brian was there to help me through this emotional time. I will be doing a big wrap-up post I have special plans for, but this is the last time I’ll review Sam Neill movies, since I’ve run out of them! Here we go:

This one wasn’t available on Netflix for awhile, so I’m glad I finally got to see it!

Dead Calm (1989)

Featuring Nicole Kidman as That Girl From Brave

The Movie: Nicole Kidman was just in a car accident that killed her young son, and to recuperate, her husband takes her on their yacht out on a journey through the Pacific, just the two of them. But when they come across an abandoned ship and take aboard its one survivor, Billy Zane, the dickish fiance from Titanic, Sam Neill KNOWS something is up. He goes across to the other ship to investigate, leaving Billy Zane to knock out Nicole Kidman and take over his own boat, sailing blithely away. Nicole Kidman ineffectually tries to wrest control back from him, completely refusing to shoot him even though she has both a rifle and a harpoon gun on board. Eventually after all kinds of shenanigans (and sleeping with him!), she manages to tie him up and turn that boat around! Of course he gets free, and she has to harpoon-shoot him again, abandoning his body on an inflatable life raft for some reason. Then she rescues her husband and they sail off into the sunset…

Except of course Billy Zane wasn’t really dead! Pan down to see bloody handprints on the side of the boat! An indeterminate time later, Nicole Kidman is chillaxing on deck when THERE HE IS AGAIN trying to strangle her to death. Luckily Sam Neill doesn’t seem to have her weird hang up against shooting him and FLARE GUNS HIM IN THE FACE. The end.

Did I tell you Sam Neill is also an intrepid Australian Navy Captain? Because he is

The Character: I am kind of surprised that Billy Zane even tried to come aboard Sam Neill’s yacht in the first place, because it was completely obvious from the beginning that he could beat this guy armed with nothing but a compass and his own steely resolve. Abandoned to his fate, Sam Neill manages to fix the sinking wreck of the other boat, totally nonchalant about all the corpses he finds there. Apparently Billy Zane is a photographer who was taking “model shots” of topless girls at sea when there was some kind of fight and whoops! everyone got murdered. Even after there’s a bad storm and the ship starts sinking again, Sam Neill totally manages to escape and build a makeshift raft to hang out on while waiting for Nicole Kidman to finally get her butt in gear and pick him up. Probably the only reason he didn’t flare gun Billy Zane in the face from the start was to give him a fighting chance.

Thing I Learned: When trapped in the water-filled hold of a sinking ship, always blow out of a potential air tube first to dislodge the cockroaches. Ew.

Should You Watch This?: This is a pretty solid thriller movie. The setting of alone at sea adds a new dimension of suspense.

The Simpsons, Season 5, episode 11: Homer the Vigilante (1994)

I feel like I don’t have to explain the Simpsons to you

The Episode: A cat burglar has come to Springfield, and seems to be making off with everyone’s most treasured possessions regardless of actual value, including Lisa’s saxophone. Homer starts a vigilante group to keep the neighborhood safe and hopefully catch the criminal, but refuses to let Grandpa Simpson join because he’s too old. After Homer fails to keep the world’s largest Cubic Zirconia safe from the thief, the town is about to turn against him when Grandpa solves the mystery! The thief is Molloy from the retirement home! In prison, Molloy tells everyone where he’s hidden all the money he’s stolen, and as they rush off to find it, he escapes. The end! Old people have value.

Especially if they have awesome facial hair

The Character: Sam Neill voices Molloy, the cat burglar. He is super suave, and so graceful in defeat that he almost talks his way out of being arrested. Plus he has some sneaky sneakers.

Thing I Learned: The Simpsons is actually still pretty funny. I haven’t watched an episode in probably a decade, but this one was really enjoyable, maybe because I remembered it from my childhood

Should You Watch This?: If you like the Simpsons!

Until the End of the World (1991)

Don’t listen to this cover, you are not prepared at all

The Movie: I don’t even know how to explain this movie to you. It is ridiculous and amazing and more than two and a half hours long. It was made in 1991 and set in 1999 so you know all the fashion and technology were completely bizarre!

Exhibit A

That is Claire. When everyone else is freaking out about an Indian nuclear satellite falling to earth, she is hanging out, wandering around France, and eventually getting mixed up with some bank robbers. In the process she meets a guy who is on the run from someone, and he steal some of her money. Rather than just keeping the rest of the bank robbery loot, she decides to track him down, to Germany, Spain, Russia, China, Japan… sometimes she’s working with bounty hunters also trying to find him, for stealing opals, other times she’s on her own and getting questioned by another bounty hunter who only uses “truth serum drugs” to solve cases. What? One time she sleeps with this elusive fugitive (awkwardly, while they are handcuffed together), but he still leaves her (handcuffed to a bed and a bounty hunter) because she is endangering his mission. Eventually he trusts her enough to tell her that he is on the run from the US government because his father invented a camera that takes pictures blind people can see. They want the camera, but his father didn’t trust them with technology that can take pictures out of people’s heads. Right now he’s traveling all around the world taking pictures of things to show his blind mom.

Eventually every character ever ends up in Australia around the same time as the nuclear satellite explodes and all electronics stop working. Except… for some electronics.

Also they end up on a dessert hike while she is handcuffed to a plane door

The camera works, but the stress of it ends up killing his mom. Then his dad reconfigures the machine to capture dreams and everyone becomes obsessed with watching their dreams all the time. The US government arrives and takes Science Dad away, only to die soon after. His son wanders around in the wilderness for awhile, and Sam Neill cures Claire of her obsession by locking her in a pen in his yard and then letting her read a book he wrote about her. It works, and she goes to work on the space station, where Sam Neill, the bank robbers, and the bounty hunter sing her happy birthday by video card. No one knows what happened to Truth Serum Guy. NO ONE KNOWS.

Sam Neill spends most of this movie kind of down, but stoic

The Character: Sam Neill is Claire’s (ex-?)boyfriend, whom she goes to whenever she needs help. He obviously still loves her, following her all over the world, but she mainly just runs away from him to be with the elusive fugitive until she needs something from him again. Maybe it’s worth it for him in the end because he writes a book about their experiences, on an old school typewriter after “all” the world’s electronics stopped working. I guess they started working again, since Claire ends up on the space station? THIS MOVIE. SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Thing I Learned: This movie was originally 8 hours long, but the director finally cut it down to 286 minutes. The theatrical release is 157, so even then, a lot of stuff was cut. I like to imagine it wouldn’t make any more sense with those added scenes, just more random gunfights in Tokyo pod-hotels.

Should You Watch This?: “Let me put on some music while we drive… it’s Pygmy children chanting, recorded by my mother in Cameroon.” If you like crazy, unexplained nonsequiturs like this, you will LOVE this movie. Also, if you love silly “future” technology. Here is a selection:

Claire’s dashboard computer

This thing is actually a lot like our modern GPS in that it talks to her in a robot voice and provides maps and directions. It also cautions her to drive the speed limit (by name) and looks like a portable TV, but points for effort, movie.

Public video phones!

It’s like a public telephone, but with video! And everyone around you can hear your conversations.

Sam Neill’s laptop

I don’t really understand the screen size to laptop size ratio.

A portable video phone

Nice one, Sony.

A portable video phone IN CHINA

Sam Neill is on the other end holding what looks like a desktop computer in one hand and a phone headset in the other.

Fugitive Tracking Computer

This software tracks people FOR you! With what look like a series of ridic 8-bit animated GIFs.

This movie was insane and bizarre and to tell you all the parts of it that confused me would take a post twice as long as this. What a great end to the Sam Neill Netflix Marathon! Can you believe it’s been about one year and eight months since this started? Look for a super fun wrap up post/awards show next week!

It’s a good feeling, seeing 100% on thespreadsheet

Previously: Middle of Nowhere Edition

Tagged: brian is a weather witch, movie reviews, movies, sam neill

Posted in Sam Neill Marathon |

The Hobbit Reawakens An Obsessive Fangirl, and I Couldn’t Be More Thrilled

December 14th, 2012 by pladd

Have you missed me? Don’t get excited, the blatant blog sabotage perpetrated by any combination of these suspects has yet to be foiled! Alas, I am writing to you from the public library. Seriously, you know my love of public libraries, but if you want to see desperate and sad, Friday afternoon at the library study tables is it. Everyone looks hella depressed, like they’re not sure what life decisions brought them to this point. Maybe I do too, who can say? I’m sure we each have a story to tell. Though no one is going to beat mine for excitement, since I have a villain with an evil laugh and a case of stolen identity (or split personality?). Yeah, I’m really taking advantage of my ability to link while not having to type out the html on my phone, whatever.

Steven has supposedly traced the issue and has moved to the “procrastinating talking on the phone” stage of the process (the longest in any process since Steven fears all human contact). And maybe he’s been a bit distracted lately because, oh yeah, WE WENT TO THE HOBBIT AT MIDNIGHT LAST NIGHT!!!!

Steven almost had to sit next to someone wearing fake elf ears, THAT’s how much we wanted to see this!!

I admit, I was skeptical. As you may or may not know, I was obsessed with the Lord of the Rings movies when they came out in high school. I saw Fellowship of the Ring 11 times in theaters!! That’s MORE THAN A DAY OF MY LIFE, y’all. I can’t really explain that, and I was nervous that The Hobbit could never live up to my insanely high 15-year-old expectations. Because even if it was good, nothing is as good as when you’re an obsessive 15-year-old fangirl, right?

WRONG!!! SO GOOD!!! I even think I liked it better than the original three? As this io9 review points out, the themes and characters of The Hobbit are much more human and relateable than the sprawling, world war majesty of the The Lord of the Rings. Martin Freeman plays Bilbo with just the right mixture of hesitation, courage, selfishness, and heroism that makes him seem entirely human (even though he is a hobbit, of course!) but also admirable. I know it makes me a bad librarian, but I’ve always liked Peter Jackson’s movies more than the books they’re based on. I just feel like he does a better job of telling a cohesive, understandable story with characters I can understand. Whenever I have this discussion with Steven, he’s always like “Well, but if you read The Silmarillion…”, to which I always respond, “Shut up! I should not have to slog through hundreds of pages of dense symbolic afterthought to understand the original story.” Which maybe makes me lazy, but whatever. I think the movies are better storytelling. Especially this movie.

I think a lot of the comparison that comes up in The Hobbit‘s favor stems from my dislike of Frodo. He’s just so whiny and kind of tiresome. I get that the Ring is hard to carry Frodo, but there are only so many long, drawn-out shots of you looking consumptive and yearning that I can take before I lose patience and scream “BRING BACK DIRTY UNSHAVEN ARAGORN ALREADY!” Thankfully, I didn’t have any of these moments of annoyance in The Hobbit, probably because Bilbo is awesome, and Movie!Bilbo whines less than Book!Bilbo, to the best of my recollection.

I know people are complaining that it’s just “three hours of Gimli and Gandalf”, but, guys, that is like my DREAM. Twelve gimlis+Hot Thorin+snarky Gandalf the Grey+not a Legolas in sight??? That is the equation for my perfect movie, and we haven’t even talked about Radagast the Brown!! It was hard for me to imagine Sylvestor McCoy doing the whole dirty forest wizard thing, because my only exposure to him in the past is as Doctor Who in the late 80s, but he was the perfect blend of whimsical, ridiculous, and then, just occasionally, DEADLY SERIOUS.

Steven was pleased about how they incorporated a lot of the songs, but not in a cheesy, annoying way like in the animated Hobbit movie (okay, maybe “cheesy” and “annoying” are my words, not his), and I enjoyed laughing at how amazingly posed Galadriel always looks, like maybe her ring of power gives her the ability to arrange the folds of her impractically long dresses just so whenever anyone looks at her. Also, all the dwarves got personalities!! And ridiculous facial hair that I wish real life had more of because please braid your beards, hipsters, I will love you so much more.

I also don’t really see this as a shameless money grub like most people. I mean, obviously money is definitely a factor. They wouldn’t be making them if they didn’t think you would see it. But it’s not like the last Twilight movie where they turn no plot into two movies just because. As Peter Jackson proved with the trilogy, each book could have easily made a six hour movie, and I like that we get more back story and information from the appendices than could have been included in one movie, or even was just in the one book. I like how Peter Jackson always seems to be looking at the Middle Earth mythology as a whole and working to tie that together, whether it’s providing a better explanation for things (like where Gandalf is always disappearing to, or who the Necromancer is) or cutting out some of the distracting shit that makes no sense (Tom Fucking Bombadil. I hate you and am glad you’re gone. Yeah, I said it. That’s what happens when you’re a blatant Mary Sue that speaks in annoying rhyme). Movies are necessarily a new format anyway, and I’m often a little disappointed when a movie just mindlessly mirrors the books without providing any insight or utilizing the visual storytelling format more. The book already has illustrations, the movie should at least try to be its own work.

Admittedly, I did not see it in 3D, because I hate 3D and refuse to pay more money for something that makes me feel ill. So your mileage may vary on this entirely shameless outpouring of joy. Also you might not like it as much if you don’t have any magic in your soul. I mean, I can’t help you there.

I tried to find a picture for you of High School Me dressed as Gandalf or something (you know how I love wizards), but there’s nothing on my laptop and, like I said, I’m at the library. I’ll look when I get home and try to upload it from my phone or something ridiculous. BLOG SABOTAGE WILL NOT STOP ME!!!

Tagged: High School Patricia, lord of the rings, movie reviews, movies, Steven, the hobbit, wizards

Posted in Let Me Tell You About My Life |

Sam Neill Update: Playing Both Sides Edition

September 7th, 2012 by pladd

Sorry this took me so long! I actually watched an entire TV series!! It was only one season, but that’s still better than I usually manage. This project is now sitting at roughly 89% completion and 124 hours.

Happy Town (2010 TV series)

If you have a secret identity tattoo on your upper shoulder, stop wearing shirts with such weird necklines!

The Show: Happy Town is actually Haplin, Minnesota, a small town where nothing ever seems to happen–or so they want you to think. A series of unsolved kidnappings still haunts the town, even though the last person was taken by “The Magic Man” years ago. The kidnappings were never solved, and the victims never found. But now they seem to be starting all over again! It’s one of those shows where everyone is a suspect and, even if they’re not The Magic Man, still has dramatic secrets anyway. The town matriarch who owns the bread factory and will do anything to preserve her family’s reputation, the newly-appointed sheriff whose dad seems to have gone crazy (with guilt?) and whose mom died under mysterious circumstances (OR DID SHE?), the newcomer to town who is clearly lying about her identity and knows more than she’s saying, some teens who are in love but their families hate each other, the owner of a pizza shop whose obsession with the Magic Man leads him to MURDER, the creepy new guy obsessed with old-timey movies and being mysterious, and a set of exciting old ladies who just want to woo him:

And protect themselves from The Magic Man the only way they know how

It was cancelled after only one season, and the series finale opens more questions than it answers. They do reveal the identity of The Magic Man, and though one of the actors claimed that, once revealed, the audience will think it was obvious all along, I kind of think the implications are impossible. Like… there are too many logistical problems. Plus, the main protagonist’s secret identity is never revealed, and the show’s vaguely supernatural obsession with an Old German Film called “The Blue Door” is never explained. We only see snippets of this film throughout the show, but it’s some serious Lost shit: characters who have died appear as actors in the movie and, upon viewing it, Rich Teen changes his mind from running away with his girlfriend to “That was the worst thing I have ever seen… I have to stay here. My place is here.” I turned to the Internet for answers, and all the ones people have come up with are kind of unsatisfactory and crazy, like that the film is purgatory or something. I hate when mystery shows start throwing in supernatural elements randomly. It seems kind of lazy to me.

Also, Amy Acker was there

Sorry for the rant. It’s been bugging me.

The Character: Of course Sam Neill plays Merritt Grieves, the vaguely creepy but super suave owner of this weirdly-placed olde-timey movie memorabilia shop:

Small town Minnesota is JUST the place for you! Clears not hiding something at all!

Sam Neill is really, really good at playing characters whose morals you aren’t quite sure of. I’m thinking of all the flashbacks of him in Crusoe and how I’m still not sure if he was going to be a bad guy or not in that. His mannerisms can be sinister, while at the same time he’s being completely charming. In Happy Town, he claims all the old ladies at his boarding house fussing over him is “the burden of being eternally dashing”. When asked by Evil Matriarch (who is crushin’ on him hardcore) if he wants her to show him around, he responds gallantly with “even more than I would like the ascot back in style”.

Basically the whole time I was like “AHHHHH YOU’RE SO AMAZING!!! But probably also evil? BUT AMAZING!”

Turns out, he was just pretending this whole time, and is actually a badass leather-jacket wearing guy who came to Haplin to catch The Magic Man, who kidnapped his son a long time ago… in England? This is where the “answer” to who the Magic Man is really breaks down.

What I Learned: Don’t trust strangers in hospital cafeterias–they will try to poison you for no reason.

You Should Watch If: You think you can figure out what the heck is going on, so you can explain it to me.

Victory (1996)

This cover looks way more exciting than it actually is

The Movie: So this guy, whose name is Axel (!), lives on an isolated island in the Dutch East Indies. There’s some rumors that he killed his former business partner, but they’re obviously not true because he’s clearly a quiet knight of chivalry. While visiting the port of Surabaya for some reason, he meets Alma, a woman/prostitute being kept in slavery by a guy who owns an “All female orchestra”, which is a barely-disguised front. Not wanting to be sold to the racist hotel owner, Alma asks Axel for help, and he smuggles her away to his secluded island home.

Laaaaaadies

Incidentally, that’s Willem Dafoe, who I recognize from another, more fun Sam Neill movie:

Where his name was Elvis and he was badass

Like Daybreakers, he and Sam Neill are enemies, and also Sam Neill dies at the end.

The Character: Sam Neill plays Mr. Jones, a strangely particular criminal wandering around the world creating gambling rings and stabbing people when they can’t pay. He also hates women and the noise they make.

And looks like someone you’d want to punch

Racist hotel guy, trying to get them and their violence out of his place, tells Sam Neill’s assistant about the beautiful girl who was stolen from him by Axel, so Sam Neill and his plucky crew head out to the island to cause drama and burn stuff down.

Yeah, use Sam Neill as a weapon of revenge, that’ll work out

Eventually, everyone dies except Axel, who, the narration tells us, leaves the island and begins to live again. So… thanks, dead Alma?

What I Learned: 1913 was a rough time to be in the Dutch East Indies

You Should Watch if: ehhh I can’t think of a reason, you shouldn’t. Sorry.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010)

For some reason, Steven thought this would be good enough to bend his “No More Sam Neill” rule again

The Movie: So, cgi owls, guys! This movie was very loosely based on the popular Guardians of Ga’Hoole children’s book series by Kathryn Lasky. I think that was its main problem–the plot felt rushed and there was no time for any characterization beyond the most basic “here’s the bad guy”, “here’s the hero”, “here’s the comic relief”, and “here’s the love interest in the sequel”. The story follows Soren, a young barn owl, and his ragtag friends who escape from “The Pure Ones” and their attempts to build an owl master race and attempt the perilous journey to warn the “guardian” owls of Ga’hoole. Which is like a tree in the middle of the ocean? I don’t know, then there’s an owl war, Soren defeats the Pure Ones’ magical(?) anti-owl weapon, and may or may not kill his Pure One brother. The end!

The owl warriors wear intricate owl helmets and metal claws over their talons. Owl battle!

The Character: Sam Neill is the voice of Allomere, a great gray owl who lives in Ga’Hoole but is revealed to the audience to be in league with the Pure Ones!!! His traitorous ways will supposedly bring him kingship of Ga’Hoole, but, of course, the Pure Ones are like “we already got a king, bro” and once he leads the Guardians into their magical trap, the Pure Ones send bats to drag him away, presumably eating him alive. Way to go, Sam.

Laaaaaadies

What I Learned: Owls can sense things in their gizzard. Including which way to fly, and the future. From now on I’m going to claim to “feel it in my gizzard” whenever I want to sound mysterious.

What Steven Learned: Just because something is about birds does not mean it will be good

You Should Watch if: you want to see pretty cgi of owls; you find the idea of an owl society as ridic as I do

Previously: Thomas Jefferson, Tennis Dad, and a Somber Narrator
Next: More William Dafoe, and a tiger

Tagged: movie reviews, movies, sam neill, Steven

Posted in Sam Neill Marathon |

Sam Neill Update: Thomas Jefferson, Tennis Dad, and a Somber Narrator

July 20th, 2012 by pladd

I can’t find my camera to take pictures of my new apartment, so you get some Sam Neill instead!!! I realized today that I screwed up my own spreadsheet awhile ago when updating it, so the figures I’ve been giving you the past few updates have been wrong. I’m actually only 85% done with this project. Don’t even pretend to be disappointed, I know you’re super psyched that you still get to read all about Sam Neill. Also, I watched all of these before the move, so it’s been awhile and I can’t remember all of the hilarious details. If there were any hilarious details. These were all kind of depressing, in different ways.

Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000 TV movie)

Steven was so excited to see Sam Neill play Thomas Jefferson, he went so far as to lift his “You’ve burned me once too often, Sam” ban on helping me with this project.

You’d think he’d look a little more enthused, right?

The Movie: Sally Hemings is a teenage slave when her relationship with Thomas Jefferson begins, when she accompanies his daughter to join him when he’s ambassador to France. TJ realizes she’s smart (and hot) so he takes an interest in her education, leading to a life-spanning love affair that causes major drama, both within the Jefferson family (thanks, bitchy daughters) and on the political stage of the country at large. Sally is apparently the half-sister of Jefferson’s dead wife, and most of the children she has with him look white but are still slaves, leading to awkward questions and misunderstandings. At Jefferson’s death at the end, Sally reveals to Bitchy Daughter Number 1 that she has been free this whole time and she’ll do what she wants now, thanks. Go girl.

Yeah, that wig is doing nothing for you, Sam

The Character: Steven says Sam Neill is good, but just isn’t “his” Thomas Jefferson.

I assume he’d prefer this one

I thought he did an okay job, especially at selling the dichotomy between Jefferson’s personal feelings for Sally and his public actions in regards to slavery. He was kind of overshadowed by how awesome Carmen Ejogo was as Sally, which was probably what the film was going for anyway. Sally is not going to take shit from you, even if you are the president, and you are just going to have to deal with that. Okay, so I may have girl powered out a little while watching this.

What I Learned: James T. Callender was super mad when Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t appoint him postmaster general. I had no idea postmaster general was such a coveted position. I guess, hey, all the stamps you want.

You should watch this if: You like really long historical pieces and/or Thomas Jefferson

Wimbledon (2004)

Kirsten Dunst, laughing at the direction her career has taken

The Movie: Peter Colt is a tennis player, but not a great one. He’s played by the same guy who was that creepy, self-flagellating priest in The Da Vinci Code, so that was also distracting. Anyway, it’s his last year at Wimbledon, and he meets and falls in lust with up-and-coming tennis star Kirsten Dunst. They have a love affair, which seems to be really helping Peter’s game, but really hurting hers. Of course they have the obligatory argument about whether he loves tennis more than her, he declares his love on national TV, and he wins Wimbledon and the girl as per the prescribed formula for these movies. I told you this week was depressing.

Sam Neill, trying to be reasonable in the face of all this cliche

The Character: Obvs Sam Neill plays her controlling, disapproving father! He’s so good at that, after all. He’s also her tennis coach, and you can’t really get mad at him because he does have a point. Flirting and spending all her time with Peter is hurting her game. I guess, like all dads, he just doesn’t understand that TRUE LOVE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN TENNIS OMG.

What I Learned: Professional tennis players are all self-centered, superstitious jerks.

You should watch if: you like formulaic romantic comedies; your dad keeps getting in the way of your relationship

Gallipoli (2005)
Not to be confused with the 1981 Mel Gibson movie of the same name.

I’d probably still take this over more Wimbledon

The Movie: Much like SuperCroc, this was a documentary that Sam Neill narrated. Unlike Supercroc, I was less interested in the subject matter, but Sam Neill’s co-narrator was Jeremy Irons so I was okay with it.

Feel free to tell me everything you know about WWI, preferably in song form

I really wish Sam Neill would start narrating audio books, because he would be way good at it. Every time I can’t finish an audio book because the narrator’s voice is too annoying, I hope that someday, when he’s too old to play disapproving dads, Sam Neill will make this dream a reality. All you have to do is watch one of his documentaries to see how awesome this would be!!

What I Learned: I actually knew something about this campaign from the Louis de Bernieres book, Birds Without Wings, but that account is so lyrical and personal, it was interesting to find out what really happened in the big picture.

You should watch if: you like looking at black-and-white historical photos; being sad about humanity

Previously: Losing My Mind Edition
Next: Playing Both Sides Edition

Tagged: movie reviews, movies, sam neill

Posted in Sam Neill Marathon |