Movies a gogo

Honestly I’m not sure what a gogo means.  But I’ve watched a great many movies in the last month or so, and am going to give some micro-reviews below.

The Da Vinci Code

Blah.  It was fine, but was certainly not monumental.  It was no deeper than National Treasure and had fewer explosions (I count them.)  I didn’t find it controversial or blasphemous, just boring at times.  I don’t know if I would’ve liked it better or worse if I’d read the book, but now have zero intention of doing so.

Silent Hill

I saw this one at the dollar theater out of loyalty to the video-game-to-film genre.  Ever since the Super Mario movie from the early 90s we’ve known that there will never be a good movie based on a video game.  All we can hope for is entertaining.  Silent Hill was entertaining.  To all the people who didn’t get it: you’re morons.  You’re probably the same people that thought The Matrix was confusing.  Just because it’s a horror movie doesn’t mean you can turn your brain off.  It’s true that I could name a dozen things to make this movie better, but it still did many things right.  The main criticism I’ve heard was that it was a scary movie with no scares.  This is somewhat true.  It was a movie that was designed to be creepy, not scary.  And trust me, it’s creepy.  Wondrously creepy.  

Kill Bill I

I quite liked this film.  I think that Tarantino is a giant nerd and is only a fifth as talented as he thinks he is.  But he certainly has flare.  This movie had some really cool visuals, great music and enough action to sate any appetite for mayhem.  Seriously, the amount of blood completely removed the story from reality.  Which is fine with me; just sit back and enjoy the bloody bloody ride.

Kill Bill II

I didn’t like this nearly as well.  He seemed to give up on the visual elements that were the main attraction (for me at least) of the first film.  I never really cared about The Bride’s revenge scheme, so it wasn’t really satisfying.  The first movie was silly and cool, this one was just silly.

Magnolia

This is the first movie that I liked Hoffman in, and one of the only ones I’ve seen Tom Cruise act in.  Overall I liked it.  But there were times when I got bored, and I’m not positive what conclusion I was supposed to draw from the end of the movie.  The frog rain was just plain strange.  But the music was great (provided by Aimee Mann) and the vast ensemble cast kept me interested through the vast majority of the film.  

Crash

I saw this the day after Magnolia and the two had a great deal in common.  I thought Crash did a much better job of connecting the characters and sticking to the unifying theme.  In fact they went a bit too far and bludgeoned the audience with the racism issue.  And although the racial interplay was a bit interesting, I thought the individual character development was much more intriguing.  The Hispanic locksmith was the only character who started out good and ended up good.  Everyone else is grey.  I only saw two of the best movie nominations (this and Munich) but I think there’s a good chance that this deserved its Oscar.  

The New World

I was hoping for much more in this movie.  It was ok, but not great.  It might’ve helped if they had some DIALOUGE!  The entire movie seemed like monologues.  One character would mumble through his lines and the others would stand around, just looking at the beautiful scenery.  And yes, the scenery was beautiful.  They did a great job of making it feel like the virginal forests of the new world.  But without more character interaction I found myself looking at my watch over and over and over.  

Tokyo Godfathers

This movie was great.  I admit, I’m biased towards anime.  But I really like it when I find one like this that I can recommend to everyone.  The story is pretty simple: three homeless people find an abandoned baby and have to find the mother.  But it’s a great little Christmas story with some fun banter, whacky antics and good animation.  This beats Disney (or Pixar, who I don’t care for either) any day.    

Song of the moment: “Demons” Guster