The Monuments Men

the-monmuments-menIf you watch this movie and expect massive heroism & big action… you’ll be disappointed. As it is, the bits of action and tension in the movie are contrived. More likely, an actual story like this one plays-out in offices and on the phone – it’s kind of hard to dramatize that on-screen. Now, I wonder… this was surely 90% “made-up”. Is it better to make a watchable movie about an historical event with lots of invented drama, or make a movie that’s as accurate as possible, but likely unmatchable? Or just no movie at all? It seems these are the choices we have. I’m not sure any of them are good ones.

Elysium

ElysiumI was expecting elegant, grand, deep… But instead it was a lot of shaky-cam and borderline camp. Maybe they blew their budget on the stars, and didn’t have any left for… well, the movie. It did have its moments, but there was so much more potential in the concept. I’m kind of glad I just happened to see this on a hotel TV for nothing, on a night when I had nothing better to do.

The Martian

The MartianFinally… a science fiction movie that treats its audience like the smart adults we are. Finally we get a hero whose struggle isn’t against his own personal demons, but just against a hostile environment. There’s no stupid love story, no family crying at home about how they miss daddy, no people doing stupid things because they have some emotional baggage, no illogical plot points… instead, we’re left with a movie that’s certainly fantasy – and fantastical, but just on the right side of plausible. Sure, there are a few technical issues glossed-over (like how his plastic bubble fix to the habitat could not have come close to withstanding the pressure it needed to). But these were not central to the plot.

I think most movie-makers in Hollywood simply aren’t very scientific. They’re in the movie business, they’re all about art and emotion. I hope they “get it” with a movie like The Martian – there’s a huge demand for geeky smart stuff. Please make more.

We Bought a Zoo

we-bought-a-zooYes. I watched this. But, only for the sweaters.

Though this is outwardly a cheerful family movie, I was a bit taken about how dark it was… I mean, they really dwelt on the loss of a parent – no gleaming over it. So, I have to give it a little credit for that. But, it’s still titled “We Bought a Zoo”… and you can probably guess the rest.

Tron (the new one)

With some movies, you have to go in knowing what to expect. I was expecting a wild ride of special effects… And this movie delivered. I heard some reviews of this movie deriding the sometimes nonsensical, predictable, illogical plot. Plot? Pfft. Come on. It was good enough to shoulder the 3D fireworks. I cared about the characters a little… Enough. Sure a few tweaks might have made this a transcendent movie with a message and all that, but whatever… It was entertaining, and that’s all I was looking for. 

Dogma

Sure it wasn’t an awesome movie or anything, but it was fun… and funny.  Message?  why does organized religion think it has a monopoly on god?  I have no idea why the Catholic League protested this movie, if anything it was pro-religon.  They just helped promote it… (Hmm… maybe they were using sophisticated reverse psychology? Naw.)

Saving Private Ryan

Steven Spielberg’s latest. This movie was about what I expected. All the bare ‘grit’ of war. I can’t really think of anything too critical to say about this movie… it was quite good. I really liked the camera work, it added a bit more realism and was not overdone like some MTV video. I especially liked the lack of fiery explosions and the lack of any slow-motion violence sequences. For some reason, the movie industry seems to think that we can’t relate to explosions unless there is a lot of fire involved, even though almost all explosions are really fireless. Also, Hollywood seems to think that we “get more out of” slow motion sequences. I think slow-motion totally ruins the reality of a scene (with some exceptions). Real life is not in slow motion. Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t think this movie was necessarily ‘too much’ for some younger people (say… kids over ~13 depending on their maturity level… ) I’m sure a lot of people will disagree though, and I can understand why. It is very graphic, but I don’t think it will do permanent harm to anyone’s character. A lot of movies tend to make violence and death overly glamorous and dramatic – I think that’s a lot worse than just telling the truth about it. This movie shows what real violence does to people – there’s nothing glamorous about it. A lot of real soldiers get killed in agonizing ways, and luck has more to do with survival than skill. Who wants to bet their life that they’ll be lucky? War does indeed suck. Maybe people who see this movie will be less inclined to start them. (Oh, I think there was one plot screwup: Pvt. Ryan talks about the last time he was together with his brothers – back on the farm in Iowa. But, we learned earlier that they were all stationed together, and only split up after a different (and real-life) tragedy happened. )

 

Good Will Hunting

I think my favorite scene in this movie was the first time that the Robin William’s character ‘gives it’ to Will. I’ve never heard the “you don’t know everything kid” speech done so well… I guess that’s cause the kid does “know everything”… except what can’t be learned in books. I think this movie really says that we all have something to learn. Just think, if you ever reached that point where you did know everything there was to know, what would be the point anymore? What would you do? I think the actual character of Will wasn’t important, it was the development of that character which was most interesting. I could take the more cynical approach and just mark this one off as another “abused kid overcomes his problems”, but I think this movie is better than that. (I would like to know if the actual math problems were real though)