Citizen Rules...Cinemaesque Chat-n-Review

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You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
I liked First Contact and Insurrection the best, I like Generations too. I watched one of the JJ Abrams ST movies and that's all I'll ever watch. So for me Nemesis was the last one.

I have to rewatch the TNG movies. It's been a long time since I watched them because I didn't really like them the first time I saw them.

I didn't hate the JJ Abrams movies, but there were definitely problems with them. I find that they're enjoyable movies if I just don't think of them as Star Trek movies, and I just watch them as normal action/adventure movies.
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I liked First Contact and Insurrection the best, I like Generations too. I watched one of the JJ Abrams ST movies and that's all I'll ever watch. So for me Nemesis was the last one.
You liked Insurrection, Rules?
Huh? I figured if you didn't like Nemesis you wouldn't like Insurrection either.

Granted, there's probably more Trek character development in Insurrection than in Nemisis (if I remember correctly), but overall it felt so much like a less-memorable TV episode (stretched out to 2 hours). Especially the fact that there was nothing really spectacular about it, visually or otherwise... (a somewhat familiar feeling sci-fi plot that I think most of the ST series have done variations of).

The special effects and outer space scenes were at a minimum (I believe most of the movie takes place planet-side in an idyllic, yet somewhat boring setting) - another thing that made it feel like a TV episode (keeping it under budget) rather than a major motion picture.



You liked Insurrection, Rules?
Huh? I figured if you didn't like Nemesis you wouldn't like Insurrection either.
One would think so

Granted, there's probably more Trek character development in Insurrection than in Nemisis (if I remember correctly), but overall it felt so much like a less-memorable TV episode (stretched out to 2 hours). Especially the fact that there was nothing really spectacular about it, visually or otherwise... (a somewhat familiar feeling sci-fi plot that I think most of the ST series have done variations of).

The special effects and outer space scenes were at a minimum (I believe most of the movie takes place planet-side in an idyllic, yet somewhat boring setting) - another thing that made it feel like a TV episode (keeping it under budget) rather than a major motion picture.
I agree with everything you said about Insurrection, which I bolded. For me all those things you mentioned is what I wanted from the movie. Watching it felt like a warm fuzzy blanket ride back to the Next Gen TV show. And I liked that feeling, it was comforting.

But...the weird thing is when I last watched the ST Next Gen movies it was like 10 years ago and at that time I liked Nemisis but didn't care for Insurrection. Now it's flipped around. Though First Contact is probably still my favorite Next Gen movie.





ᖇᗩ丅ᗩ丅ᗝᑌᎥᒪᒪᗴ (2007)
Ratatouille
Directors: Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava (co-director)
Writer: Brad Bird (screenplay)
Cast: Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, Patton Oswalt
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy


"A rat who can cook makes an unusual alliance with a young kitchen worker at a famous restaurant."

What a weird and cool movie Ratatouille is! I'm glad that someone decided to break all the movie making molds by giving us a film where a tiny rat loves to cook...and talks to a disembodied deceased chef for confidence...And sets the story in the heart of Paris, in the high cuisine world of fine dining.

I love movies about chefs and restaurants, maybe because I do all the cooking in the house. I don't know, but there's something magical about chefs creating culinary works of art and Ratatouille has lots of magic...and a blue rat that love's to cook too!



World Building: Fully deserves a: 5/5 for deliciously scrumptious world building.

Animation: Another easy rating: 5/5 I loved the way Paris looked and the look of the restaurant's kitchen. Even the Parisian sewers were cool!

Story Premise: Damn! it doesn't get more creative than this: 5/5

Other Thoughts: Chef Boyardee joke, Ha! I got it! Lots of lovely moments of wit in this gem.

Favorite Moments: The restaurant's pantry stocked full of wonderful things!



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ᖇᗩ丅ᗩ丅ᗝᑌᎥᒪᒪᗴ (2007)
This brings back memories - I moved into my little shoe box rental house in the spring of 2008 and this was one of the first movies I watched there after I got my cable hooked up!
Man I miss that house!




Toy Story (1995)
Director: John Lasseter
Voice Actors: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Studio: Pixar


"I dug it! and I'll watch it again" Citizen Rules

I admit it, I use to torture my toys I had this old Superman action figure and tied him to a brick with a long chain around it and threw him into this rather nasty looking drainage stream. I'm pretty sure it had sewage run-off in it, gross! I tied one end of the chain to a wooden plank that spanned the ditch. So a few months later I came back and pulled up the chain.... and Superman was gone! It was kind of amazing...maybe he escaped like in Toy Story or maybe the chain slipped off the brick and he's still down there at the bottom of the stream?

World Building: 5/5 I was totally into the personalities and lives of the toys, who knew toys were so ingenious?

Animation:
4/5 No problems here.

Character Development: 4/5
So far this has been my favorite character driven Pixar. Both Woody and Buzz are powered by not only batteries but by two great voice actors: Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. They made Woody and Buzz come to life. Come to think of it, all of the voice actors were great in this. Don Rickles as Mr Potatoes head and R. Lee Emery as a solider, go figure! And the dinosaur was voiced by one of my favorite Star Trek Deep Space Nine characters, The Grand Nagus, aka Wallace Shawn.

Story Premise: 5/5
Love it, I remember Disney did an old cartoon short about toys coming to life. It must have been from the 30s, maybe 40s, I always enjoyed it and that's partially why I enjoyed Toy Story so much...it's like a hidden world onto itself.


Originality: 5/5 Like all the Pixars there's oodles of fun little references that if you blink you'll miss them, and that's what makes these movies fun

Other Thoughts:
This is where I've been putting the negative thoughts at, but..I don't have any for Toy Story!


Favorite Moments: The beginning scene in Andy's room with the toys having a meeting about the Birthday party. Also the scene in the next door neighbor's room with all the misfit toys. Oh, and the Pizza Planet, yeah! I have to go there...and Disney is opening up a Pizza Planet...cool chilis






28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds

Toy Story (1995)
Director: John Lasseter
Voice Actors: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Studio: Pixar


"I dug it! and I'll watch it again" Citizen Rules

I admit it, I use to torture my toys I had this old Superman action figure and tied him to a brick with a long chain around it and threw him into this rather nasty looking drainage stream. I'm pretty sure it had sewage run-off in it, gross! I tied one end of the chain to a wooden plank that spanned the ditch. So a few months later I came back and pulled up the chain.... and Superman was gone! It was kind of amazing...maybe he escaped like in Toy Story or maybe the chain slipped off the brick and he's still down there at the bottom of the stream?

World Building: 5/5 I was totally into the personalities and lives of the toys, who knew toys were so ingenious?

Animation:
4/5 No problems here.

Character Development: 4/5
So far this has been my favorite character driven Pixar. Both Woody and Buzz are powered by not only batteries but by two great voice actors: Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. They made Woody and Buzz come to life. Come to think of it, all of the voice actors were great in this. Don Rickles as Mr Potatoes head and R. Lee Emery as a solider, go figure! And the dinosaur was voiced by one of my favorite Star Trek Deep Space Nine characters, The Grand Nagus, aka Wallace Berry.

Story Premise: 5/5
Love it, I remember Disney did an old cartoon short about toys coming to life. It must have been from the 30s, maybe 40s, I always enjoyed it and that's partially why I enjoyed Toy Story so much...it's like a hidden world onto itself.


Originality: 5/5 Like all the Pixars there's oodles of fun little references that if you blink you'll miss them, and that's what makes these movies fun

Other Thoughts:
This is where I've been putting the negative thoughts at, but..I don't have any for Toy Story!


Favorite Moments: The beginning scene in Andy's room with the toys having a meeting about the Birthday party. Also the scene in the next door neighbor's room with all the misfit toys. Oh, and the Pizza Planet, yeah! I have to go there...and Disney is opening up a Pizza Planet...cool chilis



I have a hard time putting anything above the original Toy Story in terms of Pixar efforts. There is something about the lightning in a bottle moment here that will never be duplicated.
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Suspect's Reviews



I have a hard time putting anything above the original Toy Story in terms of Pixar efforts. There is something about the lightning in a bottle moment here that will never be duplicated.
I can understand that, though for myself I realized when I joined the Pixar HoF that Pixar keeps reinventing itself and in that way stays fresh.




Finding Nemo (2003)

Directors: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich (co-director)
Voice Actors: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Studio: Pixar

'After his son is captured in the Great Barrier Reef and taken to Sydney, a timid clownfish sets out on a journey to bring him home.'

Ellen DeGeneres' Dory....her character a Blue Tang with short term memory lost made the film fun for me. I loved the underwater setting too, it reminded me of fun times snorkeling and free diving in the tropics. I can't say that I've seen a clown fish in the wild before but I've seen a sea turtle up-close and seen an Eagle Ray about 10 meters below me at Molokini Crater, Hawaii. So, I really dug all the fish and the underwater world they lived in.

World Building: 5/5 We see it all from the shallow coral reef, to sunken ships and sharks and open water and to the deep abyss ( I seen one of those sheer drop offs once while free diving, damn! it's wild looking let me tell ya!)

Animation: 5/5
I could say that the animation wasn't as detailed as Coco but that's unfair as Finding Nemo is a 16 year old film so should only be compared to the state of animation at the time, and I though it looked great.

Character Development: 3/5 Nothing outstanding in the richness of the characters, but for the scope of the intended target audience it worked just fine.

Story Premise: 5/5
It worked as we got to see different parts of an ocean and even the inside of a fish tank at a dentist office

Other Thoughts:
The only thing I didn't like was the surfer dude turtles. I didn't like them 15 years ago and I still didn't, just too silly for me. I would have liked a different type of 'suffer dude' other than a Jeff Spicoli imitation from Fast Times at Ridgemount High. On the other hand had Sean Penn did the voice for the turtle that would have been totally tubular! ha.

Favorite Moments: The entire fish tank scene. I have an aquarium and yes fish do plan escapes...which often doesn't end well






𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕀𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕤 (2004)

The Incredibles
Director
: Brad Bird
Voice Actors: Craig T. Nelson, Samuel L. Jackson, Holly Hunter
Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure
Studio: Pixar


'A family of undercover superheroes, while trying to live the quiet suburban life, are forced into action to save the world.'

Mid Century Modern...I love it! But if you don't know what that is then you missed one of the prime aspects of The Incredibles. I swear everything was done up in Mid Century Modern, with so many details in the background animation that I could've just paused the film and watched it frame by frame...I even spotted a sun burst clock, I have one of those too. Yahoo!

Now if that wasn't enough as soon as I seen the lady costume designer, with the bob hair and round thick framed glasses named E...I knew who that was suppose to be! I love that they included a character that would be unknown to 99% of those watching this. That's the great thing about Pixar films, they load up their films with clever insight and references that are pretty far out there.

I thought The Incredible was the most fun that I had watching a Pixar film. I actually laughed at some of the stuff and I warmed right up to the super hero family that was living incognito. Holly Hunter's voice acting really added to the fun family feeling, I liked all the characters in the film.

World Building: 5/5 For the uniqueness of the world of has-been supers. Very cool idea for a film.

Animation:
5/5+ For all the Mid Century Modern.

Character Development:
3.5/5 Not much character development, but the script wasn't about that so I'm good with it.

Originality:
5/5

Other Thoughts:
I really don't have anything negative to say about it.


Favorite Moments: The set designs, loved those.

Movie Review Rating




This sounds fun - Like the details like a sunburst clock.

ah but pardon me if I' m missing something
here @Citizen Rules, but what's the title of the movie?

PS - I remember really enjoying Finding Nemo when I saw it - probably time for a rewatch - my favorite character was Dory.
I did like the turtles, But then, I generally like all turtles.



This sounds fun - Like the details like a sunburst clock.

ah but pardon me if I' m missing something
here @Citizen Rules, but what's the title of the movie?

PS - I remember really enjoying Finding Nemo when I saw it - probably time for a rewatch - my favorite character was Dory.
I did like the turtles, But then, I generally like all turtles.
Howdy Lenslady, the last movie I reviewed was The Incredibles and the title is right under the screenshot from the movie. I used a special font and lime green color, maybe your phone or device can't see it (render it properly)? Take a look again and see if it's there and let me know, it looks like this: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕀𝕟𝕔𝕣𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕤 (2004)





Thanks @Citizen Rules - that's what I thought it was - but I still don't see the title . I do see the green 2004 - but not the title. Maybe my device.

At any rate, glad you 've been reviewing these not just for kids classics.



Thanks @Citizen Rules - that's what I thought it was - but I still don't see the title . I do see the green 2004 - but not the title. Maybe my device.

At an rate, glad you 've been reviewing these not just for kids classics.
At least we know it's not your eyesight It must because the font is a created font so I'm guessing it can't be seen on phones. Do you use a phone btw or a PC or Mac?

I wonder how many other people can't see the title? Anyone else.



Another aspect of The Incredibles that supports the setting is the soundtrack... (I liked it so much I bought the CD).

So reminiscent of the James Bond movies of the 60's! It seemed a strange choice at first as it's a slightly different genre, yet referencing a slightly similar era (as Rules noted with the backgrounds). In the end, the music works perfectly giving the movie a unique feel, different from other Pixar animations and other superhero movies.

I was one of those who did not know that "E" was based on Edith Head. I'd only heard her name and knew nothing about her upon my first viewing of The Incredibles. I knew her name from a They Might Be Giants song, and learned she was the preeminent costume designer of the mid 20th century, but still knew nothing about her personality until learning that "E" was based on her, which prompted me to look her up.



Pixar is always fun. Even with their occasional recent missteps this decade, I still look forward to watching their films. Admittedly, I kind of prefer their work to Disney's recent animated films.



Pixar is always fun. Even with their occasional recent missteps this decade, I still look forward to watching their films. Admittedly, I kind of prefer their work to Disney's recent animated films.
I don't really watch much animation. The reason I watched a bunch of Pixars was that I joined a Pixar Hall of Fame here at MoFo, which was tons of fun. I have to say I appreciated all of the Pixars that were chooses for the Hall of Fame (HoF). Here's a link if you're interested in seeing the Pixar HoF thread link

The final voting results are towards the end of the thread and start on page 11.



I don't really watch much animation. The reason I watched a bunch of Pixars was that I joined a Pixar Hall of Fame here at MoFo, which was tons of fun. I have to say I appreciated all of the Pixars that were chooses for the Hall of Fame (HoF). Here's a link if you're interested in seeing the Pixar HoF thread link

The final voting results are towards the end of the thread and start on page 11.
I don't watch too much animation as well, but Pixar is one of my go-to picks. Also, thanks for linking the HoF thread. It was quite informative to read it.