Tag: movie log

I watch a lot of movies, mostly kids’ movies and Hollywood action blockbusters, but in principle I’m willing to watch anything that isn’t horror. I’m keeping a list of the movies I’ve seen. Read these posts for my reactions and plot summaries, many of which are in the form of a beat sheet as described in Blake Snyder’s book Save the Cat.

The Jungle Book (1967)

Yes, that’s a VHS tape of The Jungle Book, and I just watched it at home using my VHS player. (Nothing beats a video that starts off with “Coming Soon in 1997.” Did you know that they released the 1989 movie The Little Mermaid back into theaters that year? Best Disney movie ever.)

I have mixed feelings about the Jungle Book cartoon. On the one hand, I love watching Bagheera slink around and roll his eyes. Shere Kahn is delightful as well. The voice of Baloo is just perfect. The animation of Kaa the snake is hilarious. On the other hand, I can’t get over the fact that Kaa speaks with the totally incongruous voice of Winnie the Pooh, a character who is the opposite of sneaky and threatening, while the Mowgli in this story does absolutely nothing but sulk and giggle and sulk and giggle the entire time. The only time he makes a decision is in the tacked-on ending invented by Walt himself—about which, more later—and his use of tools is limited to the aimless swishing of various twigs.

Watch on Amazon

SPOILERS, including a detailed plot summary and comparisons with the 2016 movie, below.

Continue reading The Jungle Book (1967)

The Jungle Book (2016)

Disney’s live-action / cgi adaptation of its own animated classic, The Jungle Book, is similar in tone to its live-action / cgi adaptation of Cinderella. It was earnest and straightforward, and the technology that brought all those talking animals and jungle landscapes to life was amazing.

The theme seemed to me to be extremely American, or at least Western, in its individualism.

Watch on Amazon

SPOILERS below, including a detailed plot summary in the form of a beat sheet in the style described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.

Continue reading The Jungle Book (2016)

Mansfield Park (1999)

I must have seen Mansfield Park on a plane before I watched this DVD.

I remembered only the oddly sexualized parts, which surprised me both times, since the sex in Jane Austen’s romances is, in the novels and the other movie adaptations I’ve seen, all much more implicit.

Another weird thing about this movie is that bits of Jane Austen’s letters were put in as part of the character Fanny Price, who sometimes speaks directly to the camera.

Finally, the movie adds in a didactic subplot to remind us that Slavery Is Bad.

Although the movie seemed well received, personally, I can’t recommend it.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/mansfield-park/id432519929

SPOILERS below.

Continue reading Mansfield Park (1999)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 has a surprisingly straightfoward plot, but it was pretty enjoyable.

Premise: Dragons, formerly a menace to the people of Berk, are now a cherished part of Berk’s peace-loving culture. Menace lurks on the horizon, however. Dragon trappers are hunting dragons to sell to a warlord who is building a dragon army, and they’re not about to let a bunch of dragon riders get in their way, attacks from a mysterious giant ice-spitting dragon notwithstanding. Can Hiccup accept his role as future chief and protect his people… and the dragons? He and Toothless are going to have to fight that warlord, obviously. With help from an almost totally unexpected source…

Frankly, even if the plot had been a lot worse, the dragon joyrides would have made it totally acceptable. You know, kind of like The Rescuers Down Under. I’m a sucker for friendships with flying animals. (Free Willy, on the other hand, you can keep.)

Looking forward (waaaay forward, to 2018) to the third and final movie in the series. Considering reading the books, but I understand there are a lot of them and they’re only loosely related to the films. Not interested in the TV show.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/how-to-train-your-dragon-2/id875611049

More about this movie, and only this movie, since apart from the tame-the-injured-beast montage I don’t remember much about its 2010 predecessor, below. There are SPOILERS, including a detailed plot summary in the form of a beat sheet in the style described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.

Continue reading How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

I enjoyed the heist aspects of The Thomas Crown Affair, but I hated the characters.

Although the movie is named after Mr. Crown (played by Pierce Brosnan), when the insurance investigator (played by Rene Russo) shows up, it seems the movie is going to be about her trying to catch him, or at least about him trying not to get caught. However, it’s actually about whether clever, cynical Crown can ever trust anyone, which is less interesting than a heist. Maybe it’s not a heist movie. Maybe it’s a romantic comedy with a heist in it. I don’t know. I’m confused. And so is Rene Russo’s character. In fact, she’s spineless. I hate spineless characters. (Like Elsa, for example. Don’t get me started.)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-thomas-crown-affair-1999/id220257569

SPOILERS BELOW. Read on if you want to know why I think you should save yourself the trouble of watching this movie.

Continue reading The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

Shaolin Soccer (2001)

I was eager to see the Chinese fantasy sports comedy Shaolin Soccer because I’d already seen and enjoyed Steven Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle. I think I liked Kung Fu Hustle better, but this wasn’t bad.

Steven Chow (writer, director, star) is a poor boy named Sing who has five brothers and who wants to bring Shaolin martial arts to the masses by packaging it in a unique way. He tries kung fu singing, but that doesn’t really work, and gets him and one of his brothers into trouble with some local rabble-rousers. Luckily, a crippled ex-soccer star is interested in teaching him to combine his kung fu with the game of soccer. Half the movie is gone by the time our protagonist has successfully recruited his brothers, seemingly unsuited for soccer, to form a team. Will this strange team be able to defeat the Evil Team, owned and managed by the cripple’s former rival? Yeah, probably so. And will our protagonist also win the love of the woman who uses kung fu for baking? Yep, that’s kind of a given, too. How do those two goals come together? That’s worth seeing.

The seams between the live action filming and the special effects are generally obvious, but the CG effects are amazing for 2001 and still pretty enjoyable. The best is when the Puma soccer ball turns into a puma.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/shaolin-soccer/id669315509

SPOILERS BELOW, including a detailed plot summary in the form of a beat sheet in the style described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.

Continue reading Shaolin Soccer (2001)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

It had some repetitive, unsubtle dialog, but on the whole, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was better than I was expecting.

Premise: The protagoscientist (Flint) and everyone else on the boring fishing island that got covered in too-big food items falling from the sky in movie 1 gets evacuated to California while the mess gets cleaned up by Live Corp, a high-tech company headed by Flint’s childhood hero, inventor Chester V. After working thanklessly on inventions for the company in a tiny cubicle for six months, Flint then gets suckered into returning to the island to deactivate his device, which has gone haywire and has apparently created food monsters. His father and friends return with him to the island, where they discover that it has turned into a jungle inhabited by foodimals.

If you can stomach the dialog, some of which is funny and some of which (like I said) is repetitive, then it’s actually a lot of fun. You get a technicolor eyeful of lovable, inventive creatures and an earful of food- and animal-related puns. The plot is rather tidy and satisfying, and the demise of the antagonist is particularly fitting. The end credits are really weird. The informative special features shed light on some things you might overlook while watching the movie.

Watch on Amazon

SPOILERS BELOW, including a detailed plot summary in the form of a beat sheet in the style described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.

Continue reading Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

Zootopia (2016)

I do not know how, but Disney made a fantastic cartoon mystery about gender, race and law enforcement. Oh, wait, I do know. They made it about animals instead of people, they did an amazing job of fantasy world-building, they got all the plot points in place, and they somehow made the theme explicit without—in my opinion—letting it get sickeningly didactic.

Premise: In a world where anthropomorphic mammals live together in harmony regardless of whether they are predators or prey, a bunny from a carrot-farming family becomes the first bunny police officer in the big city. Her victory turns to ashes when she’s merely made a meter-maid and tricked by a fox who’s as sly as a—well, as a fox. Meanwhile, fourteen mammals have disappeared in the city and no one knows why.

Zootopia is another full-on American movie about freedom of choice, but in this case the “be anything you want” message is tempered with uncannily realistic reminders that nobody—and no melting-pot, not even one with a utopian reputation—is perfect and that people will surprise you in both good and bad ways.

Watch on Amazon

SPOILERS BELOW, including a detailed plot summary in the form of a beat sheet in the style described in Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat.

Continue reading Zootopia (2016)

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

It was beautiful and moderately entertaining, but Kung Fu Panda 3 wasn’t great. I think the scenery and stylization was the strongest aspect of the project.

The premise is that an evil former friend of the old turtle character is stealing the life force of all China’s kung fu masters, both living and dead. Po the panda, as the famous Dragon Warrior, is the only one who can stop him. However, first he must figure out the answer to the surprisingly difficult question, Who am I?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/kung-fu-panda-3/id1071972907

SPOILERS BELOW.

Continue reading Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

Death Race: Inferno (2013)

The other two Death Race movies had satisfying plots. This movie had what could have been a satisfying plot, but somehow it fell short. It just wasn’t really particularly clear what was happening or why, so it was hard to care about the characters and events. Moreover, the dialog was amazingly boring. Take away the drama, and it’s just cars and blood and death. Yuck.

The premise is that the moneymaking prison death race management company gets forcibly bought out by a first class jerk, who tells star driver Frankenstein that he in fact cannot win his freedom from prison by winning a fifth race as promised and that instead he is obliged to travel the world to compete and lose to attract fans across the globe.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/death-race-3-inferno/id576172893

SPOILERS BELOW.

Continue reading Death Race: Inferno (2013)