So my review of Dark Knight seems a little lackluster, very cliche and nothing interesting, I gotta stand out from the crowd so here it is. Today I am basically previewing a movie based entirely on the trailer for the movie Swing Vote.
My basic idea of the plot of this movie is this. In a presidential election between Frasier Crane and the Carl Sagan-esque guy from The Core, the election has come down to a dead heat tie, and the only man who can decided the out come is Robin Hood himself, Kevin Costner. Why Robin Hood, you might ask? Simple, his vote-o-matic was way out of date to run Microsoft Election 'o8. Apparently he was using the 2300 series, whereas the rest of the nation was running the new 3200 series (much better for voting). So seeing as nothing went wrong with the other 303, 948, 170 votes, each candidate received 151,974,85 votes (these numbers are completely made up by the way.) Oh noes, a pure 50-50 Tie! clearly any vote for a third party candidate was either throw out or a number that kept both of those men in the majority but still 50-50. wow this is sounding less and less plausible even as I write this. So the electoral college had a wild party and sorta lost their votes, damn drunks(!), so anyway thanks to one man's stubborn refusal to upgrade he know gets to decide the election. seems like both Frasier and that other guy seem to want to impress this guy, and probably spend half the movie taking him to NASCAR events and tractor pulls, and such. Now is it just me, or does it seem like Costner's character could easily have been replaced by a 1999 New Jersey quarter (heads is Frasier, tales is Carl Sagan). Hell, any number of ways would be better, I personally am partial to a foot race. I'm just trying to save some time an money here.
So clearly Swing Vote takes an immense amount of liberties with our electoral system. The only redeeming qualities it could have is it could make some poignant observations on partisan politics and how they divid our country, or it could just fail and die. I guess we find out on the 1st. Also on the 1st, Mummy 3, gotta check that one out!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Dark Knight Reviewed!
So I figured it might be about time i actually reviewed a movie, and i chose the blockbuster summer hit The Dark Knight.
First of all i gotta say that this movie really delivers! The story, while less straight forward than Batman Begins, actually takes a look more at the way "The Batman" affects the citizens of Gotham city. Gotham has gotten used to Batman's presence and is viewed as a deterrent as he could be there whenever a crime happens, and most would rather not take their chances. The story greatly features district attorney Harvey Dent who has put away many of the city's criminals. Many of the remaining mobsters are concerned about getting put away and decide to rely on a Hong Kong businessman, who believes that he is outside of the Batman's jurisdiction. After being proven terribly wrong, the remaining mob bosses take up the offer of the mysterious Joker to kill Batman. After a seemingly successful capture of the Joker, Batman is forced to choose between Gotham's hero Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes. Batman saves Harvey, but causes him to suffer from horrifying burns on half of his face. Harvey sees the horrible world of the insanity of the Joker and feels that Lt. Gordon is responsible for not getting to Rachel in time. Batman must defeat the insanity of the Joker and the crestfallen and misguided Harvey, now Two-face.
The movie might disappoint some in its lack of hand-to-hand combat that the first one featured prevalently, but the action is still there. Featuring some of Batman's new gadgets and vehicles, the audience is treated to one of the most entertaining chase scenes in years. The things the Bat-cycle (Bat-pod?) can do are really impressive and just fun. There is less Batman in this movie as Bruce Wayne does a great deal of his investigation of the Joker's activities. Unlike the 1989 Joker, The Dark Knight's Joker brings back the chaotic darkness of the original comic, Alfred puts it best "...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn" Two-face's roll in the film is less as he is mostly in there as Harvey Dent, but he sets up the fantastic ending as well as being a true beacon for Gotham City, The White Knight.
The performances in The Dark Knight are some of my favorite of the year. lets run down the cast list: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman. How could it not be awesome with that? Morgan Freeman is fantastic in everything he does and is always a good performer. Maggie Gyllenhaal takes the place of Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes and personally I feel she does a better job and is much more real. I'm pretty sure that until he played two-face, Aaron Eckhart basically played himself, but we can feel for him and understand how far he fell when he transformed. Bale and Caine reprise their roles as Bruce Wayne and Alfred and do it beautifully. Of course The Dark Knight features the penultimate performance of Heath Ledger. Ledger's Joker is the dark, insane, chaotic evil character that he was when he was introduced. I'm quite sad that we will not see him in this role again, and unfortunately the Joker's fate is left literally up in the air. I would hope that they don't try to replace him for a future film, but it is possible for an equally good performance.
So now its time to actually rate the movie on my scale! woo! so lets see: good solid cliche-free storyline + Fantastic performances by the entire cast + good action sequences... add this all together and you get...
a 9.5!
The only and only reason that this did not get a 10 is that i would have like to see the hand-to-hand combat. I would also like to see some hints at what might be to come in terms of villains, but that's no reason to dock it. This functions as a stand alone Movie and not merely a sequel and that's what makes a good sequel, this is something that Hollywood truly needs to learn.
First of all i gotta say that this movie really delivers! The story, while less straight forward than Batman Begins, actually takes a look more at the way "The Batman" affects the citizens of Gotham city. Gotham has gotten used to Batman's presence and is viewed as a deterrent as he could be there whenever a crime happens, and most would rather not take their chances. The story greatly features district attorney Harvey Dent who has put away many of the city's criminals. Many of the remaining mobsters are concerned about getting put away and decide to rely on a Hong Kong businessman, who believes that he is outside of the Batman's jurisdiction. After being proven terribly wrong, the remaining mob bosses take up the offer of the mysterious Joker to kill Batman. After a seemingly successful capture of the Joker, Batman is forced to choose between Gotham's hero Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes. Batman saves Harvey, but causes him to suffer from horrifying burns on half of his face. Harvey sees the horrible world of the insanity of the Joker and feels that Lt. Gordon is responsible for not getting to Rachel in time. Batman must defeat the insanity of the Joker and the crestfallen and misguided Harvey, now Two-face.
The movie might disappoint some in its lack of hand-to-hand combat that the first one featured prevalently, but the action is still there. Featuring some of Batman's new gadgets and vehicles, the audience is treated to one of the most entertaining chase scenes in years. The things the Bat-cycle (Bat-pod?) can do are really impressive and just fun. There is less Batman in this movie as Bruce Wayne does a great deal of his investigation of the Joker's activities. Unlike the 1989 Joker, The Dark Knight's Joker brings back the chaotic darkness of the original comic, Alfred puts it best "...some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn" Two-face's roll in the film is less as he is mostly in there as Harvey Dent, but he sets up the fantastic ending as well as being a true beacon for Gotham City, The White Knight.
The performances in The Dark Knight are some of my favorite of the year. lets run down the cast list: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman. How could it not be awesome with that? Morgan Freeman is fantastic in everything he does and is always a good performer. Maggie Gyllenhaal takes the place of Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes and personally I feel she does a better job and is much more real. I'm pretty sure that until he played two-face, Aaron Eckhart basically played himself, but we can feel for him and understand how far he fell when he transformed. Bale and Caine reprise their roles as Bruce Wayne and Alfred and do it beautifully. Of course The Dark Knight features the penultimate performance of Heath Ledger. Ledger's Joker is the dark, insane, chaotic evil character that he was when he was introduced. I'm quite sad that we will not see him in this role again, and unfortunately the Joker's fate is left literally up in the air. I would hope that they don't try to replace him for a future film, but it is possible for an equally good performance.
So now its time to actually rate the movie on my scale! woo! so lets see: good solid cliche-free storyline + Fantastic performances by the entire cast + good action sequences... add this all together and you get...
a 9.5!
The only and only reason that this did not get a 10 is that i would have like to see the hand-to-hand combat. I would also like to see some hints at what might be to come in terms of villains, but that's no reason to dock it. This functions as a stand alone Movie and not merely a sequel and that's what makes a good sequel, this is something that Hollywood truly needs to learn.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Introduction to the Future of Movie Reviews
Welcome to the movie parabola blog, before I begin I would like to introduce you to my revolutionary concept of movie reviewing. In the past reviews were simplistic and easily identifiable "four stars", "Two thumbs up" or a grade scale akin to that of a report card. The problem with these forms of reviews is that they only tell you if a movie is good or bad, but we all know that there are movies that are so bad, that they are good. These movies may not win awards (except maybe a Razzie), but there is no denying the enjoy ability of these movies, so I have made a scale that accounts for these successful failures.
As you may have already guessed the movie scale is based on the mathematical structure of the parabola, in layman's terms a half-oval. The parabola exists on a two dimensional grid. the ends of the loops are situated at 1 and 10 on the X-axis, the loop dips down to -5 on the Y-axis and. what does all this mean? It means that a rating of 1 and 10 are at the same point on this scale, the closer a movie gets to 5 the worse it is. Think of a 5 as a movie that is not only bad, its plain boring, you can’t even laugh at it. My example of this is Napoleon Dynamite, stupid, annoying, wouldn't watch it if you were paid (well I might if I got paid).
How can the 1 and 10 ratings be equal? You might ask. (Quit asking questions, this is my damn blog!) 1 and 10 are equal only in their respective entertainment value. A score of 10 means the movies is entertaining, insightful, and all around worth your money. A score of 1 means that the movie is unintentionally hilarious, often throwing reason (and any sort of science) out the window, the kinda movie you see with friends if only to make comments to each other, ala Mystery Science Theater 3000. A recent example of a 1 movie would probably be Wanted (loom of fate, hilarious!). Your 10 might be a
(Thanks to Jack, Rita, Danni, Dave, and anyone I forgot, we have been using this method for years now.)
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