Movies My Way

I'm going to take a few posts (read: until I get bored) to recap the movies I've seen lately. I've been reduced to a claw handed freak and so I don't have much else to discuss. I also figured, if your hand hurts every time you move it or something touches it, why not type up a bunch of movie reviews while at work until you pass out in agony and they send you home.

So we don't get off on the wrong (or wronger) foot, let me say that I'll probably drop some FREAKIN SPOILERS in there. I don't intend to since I won't be getting too detailed, but it will happen I'm sure (maybe I'll black something out if I can remember to). This brings me to my next point, which is that I watch a ton of crappy movies and you probably didn't want to see them anyway. I don't need to be informed that my taste in movies blows and that I should have liked this or I didn't understand that. I'm a big boy, according to my Mom, and that means I don't have to like Juno if i don't want to. Settle down, I didn't even see it. If it's still in the theater, then I haven't seen it. I can't recall the last time I was in one. I think for The Number 23. So take that for what it's worth. I also tend to multitask, so if a movie is not working for me, I get up and do other things.

I'm going to go backwards from what I saw most recently and I'll leave a Foreign Edition and a TV Edition for later postings. I am only going to rate things on Pass/Fail/Incomplete.

Onward!

Halloween (Unrated, 2007)
This is the Rob Zombie movie. What better thing to send a person off to bed with? I have to say, despite my reluctance to watch this, it was surprisingly entertaining. Even had a touch of edginess to it. This was primarily due to the first half of the movie, which details the relationship between Michael Myers, his family and eventually, the Dr. Loomis character (Malcolm McDowell). The kid does creepy fairly well. Perhaps moreso for me since the little shit looks just like one of my familial relations, who I am positive is a psychopath. Looking up the kid's name (Daeg Faerch) on imdb, I was disturbed to see postings talking about how gorgeous he is. Seems young for that kind of talk, plus he looks like a pudgy little girl with greasy hair. Anyway, the movie eventually devolves into the typical slash fest, complete with running and screaming. It had some violent scenes, but not too bad for a movie of this sort made in the last few years. I presume the few combinations of nudity and gore, plus a rape scene, were what tags this as the "unrated" version. Nothing groundbreaking and neither a prequel or a remake, but some kind of frankenfilm mash of the two. Still, a good enough genre pick and not likely to turn off fans of the franchise. Much better than I could have imagined when I first heard whispers about it being made. PASS

Last Legion (2007)
This is a kids movie, I think. I hadn't even heard of it, but I needed to watch something and it seemed to have some reasonable elements: Romans, swords, hot actress. Alas, it was a relative disaster. Accuracy is not required for these sorts of movies, but this was really something. The fighting was weak and the actors were not tremendously skilled in making it look good. Not to mention that I don't really like kid actors. This kid wasn't that bad, but the Caesar bit was just not working. The film didn't develop story and emotion. Certainly not for a sweeping epic type story about Excalibur and Empires clashing. Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley and Aishwarya Rai would seem like a winning combo. Would that it had worked out that way. It reminded me of a Saturday afternoon TV movie. Give me a Sinbad claymation joint over this any time. However, the film did not rely on gore, bad f/x or misplaced sex (you know where that is!), so it probably works for kids. On the whole, I have to give it a PASS since I watched the whole thing without getting ill, but I don't feel good about it. Maybe I should rethink my ratings.

I think it's time for that passing out now. More later.