I Sell the Dead (2008)

Tags

Comedy, Dominic Monaghan, Fantasy, Horror, I Sell the Dead, Movie, Vampires, Zombies

I think we might be...LOST.

R?

Dominic Monaghan, Ron Perlman, Larry Fessenden

Fanny: You’re all cowards.  There’s money to be made in Languls Island, and it’s gonna keep us all happy and lovely…for a really long time.  And you lot are telling me you’re afraid??
Willie: …In a word, yes.
Arthur: Yes.
Ronnie: Yeah, looks like it.

On the eve of his execution, a 19th century grave robber, Arthur (Monaghan), tells the story of how he entered his chosen profession and about some of the adventures he and his partner, Willie (Fessenden), experienced.

This movie was only an hour and 20 minutes long, but it seemed to drag on forever.  I’m not really sure what the point of it was.

Was it supposed to be a dark comedy?  ‘Cause it wasn’t funny.
Was it supposed to be scary?  ‘Cause it wasn’t scary.
Was it supposed to be an adventure?  ‘Cause…well, you get the idea.

It was boring.  Some of the stories Arthur tells involve supernatural occurrences, but most of them are dull and unoriginal.  There’s one reasonably entertaining sequence on a beach near the end, but otherwise, not much works.

Dominic Monaghan is a likable actor, and he’s watchable here, but his character does not seem like it belongs in the 19th century.  It’s not a very serious movie, so maybe his character seeming too modern was an attempt at comedy.  If so, it didn’t work.

Ron Perlman probably gives the most interesting performance as the clergyman who is recording Arthur’s story, but even his story line isn’t very interesting – and is also quite predictable.

It seems like grave robbing is the perfect set up for a good dark comedy, but instead of using that for a lot of humor, they just have the characters standing around talking for most of the movie.  It just dragged on and on until I started rooting for everybody in the movie to just get killed off so the movie would finally be over.  Though, in this movie, being killed doesn’t always stop a person from walking around and talking.

If you’re robbing a grave, and you find a corpse with a stake in its heart…don’t remove the stake.

10 – 3 for being slow and boring – 1 for being predictable – .7 for poor special effects = 5.3

Coraline (2009)

Tags

Animated, Coraline, Dakota Fanning, Drama, Fantasy, Movie

well, nothing unusual here...

PG

Voices of – Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman

Cat: You probably think this world is a dream come true…but you’re wrong.

Coraline (Fanning) has just moved to a new place with her parents who spend most of their time working and little time paying attention to their daughter.  One day Coraline discovers a passage way in their house that leads to a sort of parallel version of her life.  This version seems more magical, with more caring parents (despite having buttons for eyes), but there’s something sinister lying beneath the surface of this new world that is trying to tempt Coraline to stay.

Even if nothing else was good in it, I’d be glad I watched this movie just for the visuals alone.  It really is a sight to behold.  Colorful, inventive, and detailed are the words that come to mind.  It’s especially impressive on blu-ray.  As amazing as CGI characters can look, stop-motion animation brings an added sense of three dimensionality to the images.  It also helps add to the creepiness factor, as everything tends to move a little less smoothly.

Happily, the story and characters are also mostly interesting and well done.  I wish the parents weren’t so inattentive to begin with because this isn’t a story about them learning a lesson.  The lesson seems to be that kids should be happy with the family that they have, even if it doesn’t live up to their ideal, but I thought these parents were kind of jerks.  Seems like it would have made more sense to start Coraline off as the unappreciative kid, with the parents being more sympathetic characters.  Or at least have the parents be a little bit nicer than they were.  Then when Coraline realizes that she had things pretty good to begin with, we in the audience would agree.

Regardless of that, the movie works.  It’s creepy and interesting and weird and, as I mentioned, visually stunning.  I watched a little bit of it in 3-D, but I thought it looked better in regular ol’ 2-D because some of the coloration is lost when viewed through the 3-D glasses.  I recommend watching it in 2-D first.  The voice performances are all good enough, though the best are by Fanning and David Keith (as the Cat).

I thought the end almost turned into a sort of video game type plot for a while, but it still worked well enough not to ruin the movie.  It just seems like they could have come up with something better than a little quest to find various magic balls of light in order to win her freedom.  Yes, there’s more to it than just that, but it felt like a video game character going from level to level, and that distracted me a little.  Is there a Coraline video game out yet?  I’ll have to check on that.

Overall, it’s a quality movie.  Good for kids if they can handle creepy imagery, and good for adults if…well, if they can handle creepy imagery as well.

Kids, no matter how bad your parents are, love ’em anyways, because it could be worse.  They could be trying to sew buttons to your eyes and drain your life force…or something.

10 – .7 for the parents being a little too unlikable – .6 because I thought the end could have been a little better – .9 because I didn’t like the characters of the two weird ladies downstairs + .1 for the visuals being so darn impressive = 7.9

Stardust (2007)

Tags

Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Comedy, Fantasy, Movie, Ricky Gervais, Robert Deniro, Romance, Stardust

ya know, you sorta remind me of Jordan Catalano...

PG-13

Charlie Cox, Claire Danes

Yvaine: You know when I said I knew little about love?  That wasn’t true.  I know a lot about love.  I’ve seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable.  All those wars.  Pain, lies, hate… It made me want to turn away and never look down again.  But when I see the way that mankind loves… You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful.  So yes, I know that love is unconditional, but I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing…

Long ago, in  a town called Wall, a young man, Tristan (Cox), crosses over the wall around the city to retrieve a falling star in order to prove his love to a girl, Victoria.  He enters another realm, called Stormhold, where all kinds of magic exists.  He finds the star, in the form of a girl, Yvaine (Danes), who was knocked out of the sky by a special necklace that is to be worn by the next king of Stormhold.  Following me so far?  Tristan wants to bring Yvaine back to show to Victoria, but he has competition for her.  Also trying to get her is an evil witch, Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer), and a prince who needs the necklace she wears in order to claim his place as the new king.

This is a busy, but enjoyable, movie that I would best describe as a blending of The Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings, It Happened One Night, Willow, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.  It tries to have a little bit of everything:  comedy, sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, and romance.  Amazingly, it never really seems to be too cluttered, though I thought some of the stuff with the flying pirate ship was a little frivolous and lagged a bit.

The performances are mostly good.  Even Claire Danes’ British accent wasn’t a distraction.  I think her character could have come off as whiney and annoying if she hadn’t played it right, but she does a good job and is likable throughout.  I can’t say the same for Robert De Niro’s odd performance though.  I thought he was miscast a little bit.  I think they needed an actor that would go all out with the role, which he sort of seemed reluctant to do.

There’s quite a bit of violence in this movie, though most of it is played for laughs, as there’s very little blood seen at all, despite multiple killings.  It certainly earns the PG-13 rating though.

Fun movie, creative plot, good performances, quality comedy, and a nice romance.  What more do you want?

10 – 1.3 for De Niro’s odd performance/character – .6 for a couple of dull patches = 8.1

Enchanted (2007)

Tags

Amy Adams, Comedy, Enchanted, Fantasy, Movie, Patrick Dempsey, Romance

Well aren't you a cute little special effect!

PG

Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey

Morgan: Remember when you go out not to put on too much makeup, otherwise the boys will get the wrong idea, and you know how they are…they’re only after one thing.
Giselle: What’s that?
Morgan: I don’t know. Nobody will tell me.

Giselle (Adams) is banished from her animated world by the evil queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon).   She is stuck in the “real” world, specifically New York, where she meets Robert and his daughter, Morgan.  Meanwhile, Prince Edward (James Marsden) has also entered the real world in order to save Giselle.

Well, before Mr. Grumpy Bear comes along to over analyze and over criticize this movie, I’ll point out the positives.

Amy Adams.  Her performance could make or break this movie, and fortunately she went all out with it.  It can’t be easy to be that uppity and innocent all the time, but she never wavers.

Another positive would be nice musical numbers, if you’re into that sort of thing, which I’m not so much.  But it didn’t bother me, so that must mean that it was pretty good.

And I’ll mention that it had a nice, overall happy feel to it that made the movie easy to watch.

Now to the other stuff.  I didn’t like the way that the “real” world was really just an extension of her animated fantasy world.  I would have preferred if she couldn’t summon animals to do her bidding at all.  I get that the joke was that now she has to deal with rats, roaches, and pigeons as helpers – rather than deer, rabbits and squirrels – but I was hoping to see some attempts to talk to animals go dangerously awry.  I also thought it would be more amusing, and more interesting, if her attempts at starting a sing-along, dance-along in the street would fail as well.  Maybe just a few brave souls would join in, thus making a commentary on how few people are willing to act without caring what others think.

Then there’s the evil queen.  Her powers extend into the real world too.  I would have preferred to see her forced to take a cab to get to her desired destination.

My other complaint is a general one about most romance movies.  Why must one, or both, of the leads so often be already in relationships?  It seems especially odd in a Disney movie seemingly directed – at least partially – at kids.  Hope daddy doesn’t meet a beautiful princess one day that he’ll dump mommy for!  I know Robert (who’s a divorce lawyer, happy!) isn’t married, but he and Nancy are going to be, and she’s just annoying enough that we’re ok with him leaving her for Giselle.  Speaking of Giselle, how come the moment she realizes she’s in love with Robert is when he finally makes her angry enough to lash out at him?  Is that how you know you’re in love, when you’ve reached a point that the other person can drive you crazy?

Told you I’d go too deep into this.  I guess I just found myself thinking that a few changes here and there could have made it much more enjoyable and interesting.

10 – 3 for the stuff I discussed above + .3 for Amy Adams’ performance – .4 for some less than stellar special effects = 6.9

Personal Favorite: The Fall (2006)

Tags

Action, Catinca Untaru, Drama, Fantasy, Lee Pace, Movie, The Fall

mini-Lee

R

Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru

Blue Bandit:  What a mystery this world.  One day you love them, and the next day you want to kill them a thousand times over.

Alexandria (Untaru) is a little girl who is recovering from a broken arm in a hospital, some time around 1915 or so.  She’s quiet – she doesn’t speak English well – but likes to wander around the hospital and is known by most people there.  One day she meets Roy (Pace), a stuntman who is suicidal, not only because he recently lost the love of his life, but also because he was injured in a stunt and may never walk again.  Roy and Alexandria seem to bond as Roy tells her a story about bandits seeking revenge on the evil governor Odious.  We see this story unfold through the eyes of Alexandria.  But, Roy has alterior motives for telling this story and befriending Alexandria…

I’ve seen this movie a few times now, and I find it moving every time I watch it.  It might be a little over-indulgent in its big, sweeping imagery, but I was ok with that.  The story is the real key.  And not the story of the Blue Bandit and his friends seeking revenge, but the story of a man, Roy, who is rapidly losing all hope, and a little girl who might show him there’s a reason to live after all.

I love how the story Roy is telling gets darker and more violent as his mood shifts to being more depressed or angry.  I love Lee Pace’s performance.  I love little Catinca’s performance, and I love how the two of them interact with each other.  Apparently Lee Pace had to do a lot of improvising around Catinca’s performance because she wasn’t always given set lines to speak, just a general idea of the scene.  It all adds up to a very believable series of interactions.

My only other minor complaint is that the end wraps up a little too quickly and easily, but again, that’s a minor complaint.  Overall I think it’s a fantastic movie about whether hope can win out over the despair of your current miserable situation.

Plus, it looks great on Blu-ray!

10 – 1 for getting a little lost in its own cinematography at times – .6 for hasty finale + .5 for the performances of the 2 leads = 8.9