Oscar Nominees

Yeah, I know, it's been WAY too long since I posted. I'm sorry all.

There is, however, some interesting news to post today. The Oscars have announced their nominees. You can get the list from several places, I got mine from Ain't It Cool News.

I haven't seen most of the nominees this year, so I can't really comment on it. While I'm a film fan, I tend to lean more towards 'geeky' movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, which (sometimes understandably, considering that Dead Man's Chest wasn't nearly as good as the first movie) tend to get overlooked by the Academy. Generally, the only catagory I REALLY pay attention to is the Best Animated Movie catagory. Let's look at the nominees....

Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House

I was busy when Cars and Monster House came out, so I missed out on seeing them (Both are at the top of my netflix queue, so I'll see them soon), and I missed out on Happy Feet, too. So, I can't say if these are good films or not. They LOOK like they had quality animation, at least from trailers and clips I've seen. I can't say these are bad choices. I've heard people complaining about them, but these were mostly anime fans bitter that Paprika didn't get nominated (understandably, I haven't seen it but it's Satoshi Kon--it's high quality).

It is, however, a bit sad that the best animation of the year (according to the Academy) is....CGI films. At least we didn't get an onslaught of animal films (Happy Feet seems like it's a movie BEYOND just....an animal movie. ....Well, except for the "humans are killing the pretty animals!" message the film appearantly has), but...I like computer-animated films...but that's not ALL animation has to offer. Compared to last year's list of out-of-the-mainstream, quirky, beautifully animated movies, this year is a bit of a disappointment.

Still, I'll reserve total judgement until I at least have a chance to see Cars and Monster House. I'll try to see Happy Feet, too.

REVIEW: Happily N'ever After

Happily N'ever After
Directed by: Paul J. Bolger
Written by: Robert Moreland
With the voices of: Andy Dick, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Wallace Shawn, Patrick Warburton, and Sigourney Weaver
Movie review format

In Fairytale-land, an all-powerful wizard keeps watch over the scales of good and evil. When the scales are in balance, the fairytales happen as they should. When the scale is tipped to the side of evil, things start to go awry.
When the Wizard goes on vacation (leaving his bumbling assistants to take care of everything), Cinderella’s stepmother discovers the scales and decides to take matters into her own hands. When her beautiful dress disappears, Cinderella decides to take matters into her own hands and find her prince without the help of a fairy-godmother—without realizing her prince might actually be the dishwasher. Will the lowly Rick catch Ella’s attention? Will the bumbling sidekicks set things right?

…Who cares?

That’s the feeling you’ll probably have if you go to see the movie. Fractured fairy-tales are fine when they’re done well. One of my favorite movies, Princess Bride, is one example of this. Shrek is another.
This movie wants to be a Shrek, but utterly fails.

The plot is….well. Barely there. The characters are shuffled from one scene to the next, saying jokes that aren’t funny. I laughed once—and it was mixed with a groan. The story doesn’t even try to be that interesting, it’s just begging you to please, please laugh at the jokes.
The actors playing the characters know it’s not funny, as well. Most don’t even try. The few who do—Sarah Michelle Gellar (who I feel sorry for, she really did try) and Sigourney Weaver (do you really need the money that badly, ma’am?)—are struggling with a dull, lifeless script.

The characters don’t help, either. In my last review, I said that Crystal Door’s characters had “very little unique characteristics” and were “unremarkable.” I feel like I owe Mr. Anderson and Ms. Moesta an apology. Their characters were outstandingly charismatic and interesting compared to these. The Prince is Patrick Warburton’s typical ‘lovable idiot’ without the lovable; the Stepmother is evil, but can’t even give an explanation why when asked in the movie; Ella is unsympathetic and just plain dull; the bumbling sidekicks are forgettable and unneeded; and Rick complains so much you can’t root for him to be with Ella, or to get…anything.

The animation for the movie is like something that was made five years ago. To be fair, characters don’t move quite as stiffly as some CGI films do, but they look like they’re made out of plastic. Ella’s hair looks like it’s painted on. The others look like their hair is made out of clay. Their eyes also have this weird shiny glint to them, like doll’s eyes. Were they trying to make them look like toys?

And as for the music? It sounded like a score for a bad Saturday morning cartoon. It was exaggerated and annoying. There was also one random musical sequence thrown in during the middle of the movie. I thought we had moved on from the days when every animated movie had to have a song tacked on! What’s worse is, the musical sequence was an unmemorable pop song what seemed to be the same scene being played over…and over…and over. It was like watching a bad AMV, only the animation and music is normally better in AMVs.

While sitting in the (empty) theater, I tried to come up with some redeeming qualities for this movie. Here they are: Some of the actors try to make the best of it. And the animation is better than Bratz. That’s about it. If you’re a teen or adult who likes animation, you’ll hate this for being a good example of everything that’s wrong with American animation today: reused plots, jokes that aren’t funny, and celebrity actors for the sake of having celebrity actors.
If you’re a parent looking for a movie to take your kids to…rent out Shrek and let them watch it at home. It’s cheaper, and your kids will probably enjoy it more.

I want my $7.75 back.

Story: 1/10
Art: 2/10
Overall: 1/10

POTC 3 Publicity photos

And I thought today was going to be a light day of posting from me.

Ain't It Cool News posted up some publicity pictures from the upcoming summer film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. These photos *may* be what's going to be on the posters for the film, but they may possibly be changed. The pictures show Barbosa, Will, Jack, Elisabeth, and an oriental character I don't recognize.

I wish I could see Elisabeth's outfit better...there's some sort of...pirate-y kimono she's wearing in the pictures. I really like it, looks like it would be fun to cosplay. (Hey, the Renaissance Faire here is in the summer, so I could wear it there AND the premiere. It'd be cool.)

Fire nation, meet your greatest enemy--glasses of water!

According to Variety.com, M. Night Shyamalan has signed a deal with Paramount pictures to write, produce and direct a trilogy of films based on Nickelodeon's popular animated show "Avatar: The Last Airbender." (You can also read about at on Anime News Network and Ain't It Cool News.)

I'm giving you two minutes to get any and all "TWIST ENDING!" jokes out of your system.

..............

Okay, now that you've gotten that out of the way, I'll offer my opinion on it.

I actually like both Shyamalan (I genuinely liked The Village) and Avatar: The Last Airbender (it's not anime, but I like other animation, too, and it's a surprisingly deep show). But the thought of the two together? Weeeeeell...it's....interesting.

On one hand, if they're really serious about this, it could be an excellent series of films. I generally dislike most show-to-movie translations for cartoons (Powerpuff Girls was dull and Scooby Doo was absolutely hideous), so to have a bit of a change in the norm certainly couldn't hurt any. But Shyamalan? His movies are so....dark and supernatural. Not that there isn't any supernatural themes in Avatar, and the cartoon is pretty dark for a show aimed at children, but it still seems his style doesn't quite mesh with the show.

Still, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the films.

Movie Review Format

Here, in this entry, you’re going to get my explanation of my format for movie reviews. In my blog, most of the movies I’m going to be reviewing are movies that have a particular ‘geek’ quality to them—animated films, fantasy/sci-fi films, and the occasional independent film. You’re probably not going to find a review of a political drama or a romantic comedy in here (unless it has some element of magic or time travel or…something along those lines). If a movie has ‘cult hit’ potential, don’t be surprised if I review it here. (Or if it’s just animated—I’m an animation geek.)

In my reviews, I’m going to be reviewing both films that have just been released to theaters, and movies just released to DVD. Why both? Well, while I prefer to see movies in a theater (my home theater system is, uh, nonexistent—just a normal SDTV, or my laptop), sometimes I might not be able to catch a movie in a theater soon enough to make it worth reviewing. Plus, sometimes a movie that I think would be of interest might be released on DVD several years after its release, or given some sort of “special edition” release.

The ratings: Like most of my other reviews, my movie reviews will be scaled based on a 1-10 rating in certain areas, and then given an ‘overall’ rating.

Story: Covers the overall plot of the movie. Among important qualities here is the dialogue, pacing, and characters. How I felt about the acting in the movie is included in this rating, as well.

Art: An all-encompassing rating that means different things to different movies. For animated movies, this is covering the quality of the animation, coloring, and character designs (similar to my anime reviews). For a high-budget film—particularly movies in the fantasy or sci-fi genres, which are often heavily visual—this will look at elements like the effects (computer or otherwise), costumes, and cinematography. For films that are lower-budget or more mellow, this will mostly be about the cinematography, although elements like costuming and any effects the movie might have will be included in here as well. For all movies, this score also includes how I felt about the score.

Overall: My overall feelings about the movie, not an average of the scores. Generally, a high rating in story matters more than a high rating in the ‘art’ category—although there are at times a movie that’s so visually impressive it’ll have the rating go up at least a bit.

In addition, while I try to be as objective as I can, I’m only one reviewer. My own tastes when it comes to movies are naturally going to seep in a little into my ratings. So you can see where I’m coming from with my tastes and opinions, here’s a look at my…

Personal Biases: As I said before, I’m an animation geek. Excellent animation—either used in conjunction with live action, or in a purely animated movie—is something that catches my attention. Also, I have a tendency to tire of clichés—if a movie does a good job of parodying clichés, or does a good job of remaining unique, I’ll rate it higher than I would a movie that is just the same old, same old. I’m a stickler for good characters, too—well written, deep, likeable characters will make a movie worth seeing in my mind.

Favorite movies: The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the original Star Wars trilogy (IV-VI), The Incredibles, Toy Story 2, Beauty and the Beast, A Little Princess, The Princess Bride, It’s A Wonderful Life, Stranger Than Fiction