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King Kong (2005)
I Know I am in the Minority Here, but
How anyone could walk out of this movie feeling like they got their money's worth is truly a mystery to me. When I saw it, most of the people with whom I saw it, loved the movie. I seriously thought they saw something completely different than I did.
Yes. The special effects are cool, but are they as cool as the effects for the Lord of the Rings movies? I say they aren't. I was expecting this movie to break serious ground in special effects and it did not.
My main point of contention with this movie is in believability. I am a film-goer that subscribes to the belief that you can create whatever rules you want in the world of your film, but you have to stick by those rules. For example, I don't have a problem with Storm hovering in the X-Men movies, because that is not uncommon in world of that film. How this applies to King Kong is the main reason I HATED it. There is a scene on Skull Island (the arrival to which provide the only worthwhile moments of this movie) where the crew is being chased by some brontosauri and velociraptors--at least I assumed they were velociraptors. Well, they all manage to pretty well outrun them, which is ridiculous. Also, at one point, a velociraptor makes for Jack Black's character and Adrien Brody's character sees this, realizes Jack is in trouble, veers left to save the day, and punches the velociraptor in the face. AND THE RAPTOR FALLS DOWN!!!! Mind you, Brody does this while still running fast enough to evade the other raptors. How is this possible?!? Adrien Brody is a writer when he leaves New York, but when he gets to Skull Island, he becomes superhuman? This does not mesh with the world of the film. There are many other examples of this throughout the film, but there are other matters to address.
Jack Black. The man is as entertaining as anyone in show business...when he is doing what he is good at. He plays a caricature of himself in every film he does and most of the time he is hilarious and very entertaining (High Fidelity, School of Rock, Saving Silverman, just to name a few). But in King Kong, he is asked to be more than that and it seems his Jack Black-ness is reigned in. Why would a director who is universally appreciated as a genius filmmaker make this gargantuan mistake? It couldn't have been to sell tickets, because we all know they didn't need Jack Black's name to sell this movie. I don't know the answer to this, but if you are asking Jack Black to act, you are going to get some awful AWFUL line deliveries, such as "It wasn't the planes. Twas beauty killed the beast." I know that is a line taken verbatim from the original, but it wasn't nearly as laughable when delivered in 1933 as it was in 2005.
Also, one more note of supreme sloppiness from Peter Jackson and his effects team. When they get back to New York at the end and there is snow everywhere and the lake is frozen over, WHY DO WE NOT SEE ANYONE'S BREATH?!? This is shamefully careless of them. CGI breath may look stupid, but I think it's FAR better to have that than ignore the fact that you have set the scene in New York in the middle of winter. If you don't like the CGI breath, set the freakin scene in July.
All in all, this movie had me looking at my watch almost as often as I was looking at the screen. Unfortunately, my watch was more entertaining.
Riding the Bus with My Sister (2005)
2 Equally Awful Performances
I found myself torn when I was choosing a rating for this film. Of course, the easy choice (the one I went with) is to give it a 1. It is, after all, an awful, awful, awful movie. However, if you view it in the proper mindset, you may not have a better two hours watching a movie than you will watching Riding the Bus with My Sister.
First, let me explain that it's not a garden variety "let's make fun of people that are different than us" type of enjoyment. In fact, that shouldn't really be enjoyable unless you are in a room of people who know you are kidding. If you TRULY derive joy from making fun of people who are different from you, then you might want to change a few things about yourself. What makes this movie fun is that you are making fun of two HORRIBLE actors delivering two HORRIBLE performances.
Now, to expect brilliance from either Rosie O'Donnell or Andie McDowell is probably akin to Sisyphus' struggle--you're going to be disappointed repeatedly when you don't find brilliance. This film might just be the best example that Andie McDowell's best acting was in make-up commercials and Rosie O'Donnell's best acting is done with the TV on mute.
I'll start with Rosie. I believe I read somewhere that her performance sounded like an Asian comedian doing a horrible impression of a combination of Pee Wee Herman and Adam Sandler. That's pretty close, only without comedic intent that such an impression would carry with it. What makes her performance laughable is the thought that I had while watching it--she is probably proud of this performance. There is literally only one line she delivers that is NOT delivered in the same manner as all the others. Most are given with a word screamed somewhere in the middle of the sentence while she gives herself an intentional facial contortion that makes her seem like she is making fun of mentally handicapped people. She also never stops rocking or moving her feet. And her hands remain in the same position the entire film. It's a farce. I look at it and I think, "How could anyone be seriously moved by this?" But that was clearly the intent. Failure by Rosie on every possible front.
Andie McDowell. Well, she is fine (and by "fine" I mean she doesn't single handedly ruin the film) when she is only asked to be mildly attractive with a southern drawl. If you ask her to do more than that, she is going to let you down. Well, they asked her to do a whole lot more than that in this film. She failed. Repeatedly. Egregiously. I am in the camp that thinks her performance is even worse than Rosie, because at least Rosie was being different than Rosie is in real life. This was Andie McDowell as we have always seen her. Trouble is, in Groudhog Day she is required to be mildly attractive with a southern drawl, in this movie she is required to have a character arc. Her arc goes from acting like she's tired (which is my favorite of her scenes. Watch how you can almost tangibly see her say "what do I do when I am tired. I know. I yawn and stretch.") to saying she loves her sister. The character NEVER changes. She reacts to these two events with the same exact reactions. Inflection, apparently, is something she thinks you can cover up with L'Oreal.
I could go on, but what's the point. These are the two central performances in the film and they are laughably bad from start to finish. That's the key, though. They are LAUGHABLY bad. So watch this movie and laugh at it. Don't feel bad, either. You're not laughing at people who are different than you. You are laughing at AWFUL actresses, although I HOPE they are different from you as well.
Vampire Holocaust (1997)
What? No Oscar?
OK-so maybe Vampire Holocaust did not deserve the Academy Award, but it is a can't miss motion picture. I know of four people who have actually seen it, and we all feel the same. As of now-we need one more vote of ten to get it an average of ten on this site. True-I would never have seen it had a friend of mine not been in it, but nonetheless it is a riotous, non-stop thriller, jam-packed with wacky one-liners and brilliant local Kansas City acting including Walter Stewart. Sadly, one of the movie's fellow viewers no longer has a job or a house in which to watch this movie. But, he still feels the first part of it was well worth his last few minutes in his home. Who else can say that about their favorite movie?
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Oscar snubbed!!!
The French Connection was certainly a great movie, a cinemtaic experience and certainly worthy of an Academy Award for Best Picture. However, how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can leave this movie off the list of nominees is an insult to filmmaking. The reason I can fathom is that most of Hollywood was too shocked by the movie's graphic scenes to be entertained. All the same, it is utterly wrong and a pathetic snub. This movie is, in my opinion, the greatest movie that did not win Best Picture.