Back To The Future is one of the cheesy family films from my childhood that i still adore. When i was about 9 it was my favourite film and i'd still say it is in my top 5 from the 80's.
It's one of my favorites too.
But I like Part 2 better.
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Johnny Mnemonic is easily one of the most faithfully cyberpunk movies I've ever seen.
The premise features a protagonist who removes childhood memories into order to install a harddrive in his brain and uses it to smuggle compromising information between corporations. By overloading the storage space in his brain, he's on a ticking clock to deliver the information before it kills him.
That's just friggen' awesome.
Too bad the movie suffers from a variety of problems; fish, continuity errors, an unengaging subplot about Takeshi's daughter, an unengaging subplot about some rogue AI ghost, some questionable camera choices, some ever more questionable CG character designs, and emotional moment with our hero lamenting over never being able to achieve his dream of renting out a 10,000 dollar hooker...
But easily the most damning problem is simply the acting.
Nevermind how out of place Ice Cube looks, or how Takeshi can't emote at all, it's, sadly, Keanu Reeves who sinks the ship thanks to a persona that never manages to remain as steady as in The Matrix movies.
He's monotone and he shifts gears from uncomfortably flat to 11 with a lot of teeth-baring GRRRRRRRRR!!!
He comes across as really silly and it'd be one thing if the whole movie had an element of that, but it doesn't, it's just sporadic moments of facepalm worthy "Why did you think that was a good idea? Why did you use that shot? Why are you panning the camera around like this is way more intense than it is?"
At least in terms of themes and worldly design, Mnemonc hits it out of the park, but there's very little to speak of besides.
I don't have any interest in seeing it again. A REMAKE on the other hand...
I also think Johnny Mnemonic is just okay, yet I've seen it way too many times for some reason. A little while ago I was at a local store, and they had it on DVD for $2. I was very tempted to buy it, and I kept asking my friend "Do I want this for $2?" We agreed that I didn't, but I secretly sort of still do.
I also think Johnny Mnemonic is just okay, yet I've seen it way too many times for some reason. A little while ago I was at a local store, and they had it on DVD for $2. I was very tempted to buy it, and I kept asking my friend "Do I want this for $2?" We agreed that I didn't, but I secretly sort of still do.
It's interesting to think about how nostalgia comes and goes in waves.
I had said that Nightmare Before Christmas holds a lot of nostalgia for me and I would probably attribute that to not having seen it for over a period of 10 years at least. Since then I've popped it in regularly alongside Back to the Future and today I'm struck with the peculiar thought...
Imagine if this was the first time I'd ever seen this movie.
I don't even remember my first time seeing BTTF and I've seen it so many times that I feel the effect has seriously worn off on me. I can only imagine how pleased I would be having only just gotten around to it, but the magic new discovery or even revisiting old memories is gone... I've just seen it too many times.
Not that I don't like it any more, far from it, Back to the Future is a fantastic movie, but my experience with it now is probably a big reason why you haven't seen me review Ink yet, I just DON'T WANT TO WATCH IT.
I mean I DO. But I don't want to ruin it by seeing it too often, you know? I like to keep that experience preserved fresh.
ANYWAY, so what do I make of BTTF now that it's perhaps worn stale?
Probably harsher criticism.
Seeing it again there's no mistaking that the movie is chock-full of melodrama, overacting, and numerous little leaps in logic. I couldn't even really begin to count them, they're everywhere.
Why is Doc working on a mind reading device without someone to mind read? Was he mind reading the dog?
Why do the farmers leap to the conclusion that Marty's an alien because of his car? Sure it looks futuristic, but it still looks like a car. They have cars in 1955.
Why is George so accepting of this total stranger with a bizarre and never explained compulsion to specifically hook him up with the one girl who's after him?
Why is the billboard any reasonable hiding spot for a car? It stands right in front of a construction site. Won't construction workers see it?
In fact, why do the first people Marty meets on the road freak out and drive away from him? Because he's a kid with a "life preserver" jacket? Is there's some 50s era paranoia about strange high school kids jacking old couples in broad daylight in the midwest somewhere? WTF was that about?
And of course there's the biggest plothole of the movie which is the fact that Marty and his family slowly vanishes over time if he triggers the Grandfather Paradox.
This doesn't make any sense at all since there's no direct explanation for why he would only slowly disappear at some arbitrary rate.
Is it relative to how close he is to his parents' conception?
If it is, then would he not see any effects if he went further back in time?
Why do his siblings disappear before him if not for dramatic convenience?
Why do his siblings disappear top to bottom, but Marty just fades from existence?
When Marty begins to fade away when George is parted from Lorraine it implies that the future is slowly undone by the progression of the now, not the inevitability, so what if Biff showed up and knifed George at the concert? Would Marty fade away?
What if he didn't die, just went to the hospital and he and Lorraine still got it on another day? Would Marty still fade away?
Marty's future seems dependent on their relationship, not their literal sex, so what if they got together and just agreed to be friends? Would Marty fade away?
What if their relationship was cut short, Marty faded away and their relationship came back together? Would Marty fade back?
Is Marty the same Marty if he was born on a different day?
Would it be a different sperm that makes Marty?
What if Marty had sex with Lorraine and Marty disappeared? Would her baby disappear?
He already shares some of her DNA so would only part of the baby disappear?
Would she miscarriage?
What if Marty had sex with Biff? Would Biff disappear?
What if Biff had sex with Lorraine who had sex with Marty and THEN had sex with George, would Marty disappear?
Would Biff be Marty's daddy?
Would Marty have different Biff siblings?
Would they be called Bifflings?
What if Biff got Doc pregnant? Would Marty disappear?
What if Biff was Doc's son? Wou-OH MY GOD I'M MAKING FAN-FICTION.
The biggest issue here is the assumption that anyone would disappear at all. This seems to be everyone's answer to the Godfather Paradox that if you "shouldn't" exist, you stop existing, but that doesn't make any sense. All you're doing is removing history, you're not removing the present, so why should the present change? History isn't really gone, it's just separate timeline.
Which is one of the reasons Back to the Future: Part 2 is better. BTTF seriously pushes that level of acceptable suspension of disbelief. We don't REALLY have a firm understanding of time travel, so these assumptions are made for the sake of producing conflict. It's a significantly worse variation on what Inception pulled by suggesting that our dreams occur fast, rather than slowly.
I still like it though. And to be perfectly honest BTTF is a far smaller cluster**** than most other time travel movies.
Doc's still fun, Biff's still fun, Marty's... there, and all the little clever continuities in the background are neat to pick out. Also the soundtrack. It's a hard one not to revisit.
Butchu still got dogfood, dogs, meatloaf, kissing, obvious SFX, and...
..."love".
Final Verdict:[Pretty Good]
I think you're overthinking this. It's a movie, not a science experiment. Just enjoy it.
If you want to see a good movie that explores the idea of a time paradox, try The Final Countdown (1980). A time warp takes the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz back to Pearl Harbor, Dec. 6, 1941. It's a great movie with a top-notch cast.
__________________
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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game. OPEN FLOOR.
I think you're overthinking this. It's a movie, not a science experiment. Just enjoy it.
Perhaps it's a bit disingenuous of a review. That's not really the kinda stuff that goes through my head while watching it, I just know that the time travel bit doesn't make any sense so I just went off on that.
Originally Posted by gbgoodies
If you want to see a good movie that explores the idea of a time paradox, try The Final Countdown (1980). A time warp takes the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz back to Pearl Harbor, Dec. 6, 1941. It's a great movie with a top-notch cast.
Disney's adaption of Alice's Adventures Underground is met with more criticism than I feel I will ever understand.
The main point of contention seems to be it's deviation from the book, it's half-hearted combination with sequel, Alice Through The Looking Glass, and the addition of relatively forgettable musical numbers.
As much as I can understand the sentiment, the accusation that it doesn't strictly follow the book's story is ludicrous because the ridiculousness of the movie is based entirely on the ridiculousness of the source material.
We're talking about a movie with basically no plot, no arcs, and no grand overaching theme beyond child wonderment taken to an absurd degree. You can't really RUIN that story without trying to make sense of it and Disney doesn't, in fact in revels in it.
Even in between the scenes cut straight from the book, Disney finds opportunities to sprinkle in nonsense like accordion owls and spiff up otherwise flat chase sequences on paper into visually arresting bursts of imaginative surrealism. This really is an ideal movie for, if no one else, the animators at Disney, because they have a lot of wiggle room to elaborate and get really creative while still remaining comfortably within the spirit of the original work.
At the same time, I think it improves over the book in a small handful of ways as well. Ignoring the advantages it has as a visual medium, it may suffer from an absence of the wordplay prevalent throughout the original story, but in the same sense it manages to inject song where it feels appropriate which keeps the scenes light and upbeat while turning Alice into a much more likeable Straight Man. She was kind of an insensitive bitch in the book.
On top of that, the idea that Alice in Wonderland is somehow one of Disney's weakest movies doesn't jell with the fact that it was easily one Disney's most pervasive productions up until The Little Mermaid. Even if you didn't care for it personally, you can't deny that even today it's one of the biggest movie influences Disney's ever put to screen even making it THE go-to adaption of Alice in Wonderland. It's sparked one of the biggest community responses I've ever seen and probably competes only with The Lion King and Frozen.
And there's a good reason for that. I've gone on at length to explain why I dislike Eraserhead and other general "nonsense" movies, but the distinction here is that Eraserhead isn't really a nonsense movie. It's supposed to have a point (whatever that is), but Alice doesn't really have any point at all, it's just confusing and trippy for confusing and trippy's sake.
If there's ANY takeaway from Alice as a compelling addition to the medium it's given away in a subtle gesture at the beginning of the movie:
This isn't a slam against Alice's Adventures Underground, it's an admission that you don't need a traditional narrative to create something compelling or interesting, much like how Fantasia was essentially was just a collection of animations set to classical music.
Alice in Wonderland contains plenty of words, but what it does, arguably better than any other Disney movie to date, is create a world that simultaneously makes no sense, but is so visually, creatively, and thematically indulgent that it excels in taking that world of delusional fantasy from our dreams and trapping it in a bottle.
It's like an addictive fuel for artists, there's so much fan art and fan adaptions of the material that I was SO HYPED to find out Tim Burton was going to work on it.
Tim Burton!? Beetlejuice, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Peewee's Big Adventure, Tim Burton!?
When I first heard the news my mind immediately went to the video game, American McGee's Alice, which despite being a royally **** game, managed to present an intriguingly dark and stylistic approach to Alice in Wonderland by putting her in a mental hospital and suggesting she's schizophrenic a la Return to Oz.
I was SO LOOKING FORWARD TO IT... BUT... it was terrible.
It was really ****ing terrible. What a total wash.
And get this, just a year later, American McGee put out a sequel called Madness Returns, which is not only a much better GAME, but a much better Alice in Wonderland.
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Reassessme-*ring ring* ...もしもし? なんで!?
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Gothic & Lolita Psycho (I shall call it GLP from now on) is, I believe, one of the gems of total ******* whatthe****ery movies.
What is this movie?
Well, I'll tell you: It's about a girl who dresses up in gothic lolita clothes, for literally no reason other than to serve the title, and kicks ass out of VENGEANCE!
Yes. It really is that simple. We even get a fancy flashback and everything about how her mother was crucified in her own home and her father's legs were crippled so only she alone could seek cold VENGEANCE upon the 5 totally random and unrelated people who destroyed her family for practically no reason. It's kinda sad.
Kinda sad in that a movie called Gothic & Lolita Psycho is literally better written and choreographed than age-old Criterion-classic, Tarantino-inspiring Lady Snowblood, which if you haven't noticed I've been mocking the **** out of. VEVEVEVEVENGEANCE!
So the movie opens up, unpleasantly, with an extreme close-up of a man sucking down noodles and cigarettes hardcore. Fortunately it's nowhere near as bad as that atrocity in Avalon, but it's very shortly followed by overacting and surprise buttsex (not in that order).
It honestly took me a while to realize that the movie was a comedy because at the very beginning there's very little that gives away it's comedic premise and very shortly after we figure out that where we're supposed to be in a "gambling den", noodle guy walks out clutching his intestines in his hands, victim of our Gothic Lolita (which I will call her).
My biggest issue with the movie is easily the gore. While it falls victim to fake special effects, obvious feints, and even a fart joke, the gore is easily the worst the movie pulls.
It's not just fake-looking blood, it's not just dismemberment, it's not just disembowelment, and it's not even that one girl who gets her face shot off, but they went the full 9 yards with blood geysers and here's the thing with blood geysers:
They're stupid.
Let me give you the one situation where it worked: The beginning of Army of Darkness. That worked because it was cartoony as ****. It wasn't graphic and it was a literal geyser. HERE, we're just dropping in blood sprinklers into dramatic scenes. There's legitimately no reason for it.
If they were meant as joke, they ****ing failed because that **** has never made me laugh anytime anywhere EVER, whether it was Army of Darkness, Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, or this.
It's not funny. Get rid of it. For the ****ing umpteenth time.
What IS funny are the funny parts. If half of the movie is gore and melodrama, the other half is action and comedy. The action's pretty good. Nothing special save the fact that all of it unfailingly involves a parasol (which is eventually upgraded into a gun, naturally), but I can't say the same for the jokes which are some of the most bafflingly hilarious moments I've ever had watching a movie.
AGAIN, SPOILERS! EXIT NOW IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED.
The movie features it's own Team Rocket and even a ridiculous boss fight that looks like Mr. Fantastic vs. demon Bride of Frankenstein (or something), but there are two particular moments which stick out to me.
The first is the second fight against a perverted teacher who's apparently a... telekinetic? The fight opens up with him, armed with a mop and sitting down on a cushion after swearing to kill Gothic Lolita. It's somewhat amusing in it's attempt to portray totally different characters with each member of this group of bad guys, particularly one that will only fight sitting down, with a mop, and still manage to whoop GL's ass at every turn.
That is until he starts flying. It just comes RIGHT THE **** OUT OF NOWHERE, it's midfight and he's still sitting when he just careens forward into the air wagglin' his mop and the rest of the fight is him ****in' about on really obvious wires making Bruce Lee noises.
The second bit was actually kind of brilliant because it sets up our 4th bad guy as a gyaru Genki Girl with guns-for-knives. She's just totally playful and "bahng bahng!" the whole fight and it's kinda fun.
The best part begins when during a stalemate between her and GL, her gunknife rings.
Her KNIVES are also GUNS are also CELL PHONES.
So the rest of the fight she's just offhandedly swatting GL away chirpin' on the phone until she's so bored and engrossed in her call she literally sits down and begins eating and complaining about how bad the bread is.
Eventually GL gets the upperhand on her, both of them are disarmed and we just sit and wait while Gothic Lolita very slowly tries to strangle Genki Girl to death.
Eventually the phone rings and we have this long drawn-out shot of GL strangling this girl as her phone rings incessantly a few feet away.
Finally GL just gets sick of it, loosens her grip so Genki Girl can answer the phone and that's when we get,
"What? You want to break up with me? Bu-"*click*
*neck snap*
Oh my god, she's ****in' dying on the floor and we let her answer the phone just so her boyfriend can dump her. That's amazing. It's even more amazing when GL guns her into a pile of jelly and the boyfriend calls back to apologize.
Wow. There's something special about this particular pile of schlock.
It's not just fake-looking blood, it's not just dismemberment, it's not just disembowelment, and it's not even that one girl who gets her face shot off, but they went the full 9 yards with blood geysers and here's the thing with blood geysers:
They're stupid.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. The only time I think it works is in a comedic setting when the rest of the movie is not bloody, or at the very least not filled with gore. I thought I had an example or two, but as I'm typing this they've completely left me.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. The only time I think it works is in a comedic setting when the rest of the movie is not bloody, or at the very least not filled with gore. I thought I had an example or two, but as I'm typing this they've completely left me.
"There is a fifth dimension... beyond that which is known to man... It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity... It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition... and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge... This is the dimension of imagination, it is an area which we call... the Twilight Zone Movie."
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
So we open up with Dan Aykroyd.
*high-pitched orchestral sting*
**** RIGHT OFF.
What a ****ing horrid way to kick off The Twilight Zone.
Thzuie eoui oeumdro This is the TWILIGHT ZONE! This isn't horror! This is psychological thriller! Not JUMPSCARES, stories to make you THINK and ask QUESTIONS! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
And Dan Aykroyd, really, Dan Aykroyd? What a miscast.
Okay, so there are 4 stories here and I'm just gonna go through them one at a time:
1.) Time Out Guy loses out on a promotion to a co-worker and vents his frustrations in the form of racism. Leaves the pub and finds himself chased as a jew in Nazi Germany (or someplace). Then as an african-american in the Confederate States (or someplace). Then as a "jap" in... Vietnam (or someplace)?
The obvious problem with this one is that there's virtually no deceit at all. It's just one minute he's in the real world and the next minute he's off to the concentration camps. It's telling that this isn't even a straight adaption of any existing Twilight Zone episode, it just borrows elements from A Quality of Mercy.
It's okay, but that's all it is. It seriously lacks the intrigue or even the musical queues that press the atmosphere of The Twilight Zone.
2.) Kick The Can Easily the worst of the 4, Kick the Can at least draws from an actual episode, but I can't help but criticize of all things it's direction (which is something I'm very aware that I rarely do).
Our rogue element at the senior home is the literal embodiment of the Magical Negro trope and he's always got that gummy grin rolling at 15% past comfortable. He encourages the other residents to act young if they want to feel young and after gifting them with youth long enough for them to appreciate their old age, he waddles off to another senior home.
It's an okay story in concept, but the focus confuses who it is we should be following and the whimsy is turned up to such stomach-churning levels you can't help, but go, "Okay soundtrack, COOL IT DOWN."
Beyond that, this seems to be an especially weak episode to pick. There's nothing in the way of slow-burning intrigue, and whatever moral there might be is lost in how obtusely it's presented.
3.) It's A Good Life Now this one nails that slow-burn right on the head. A little boy is attacked at a pub for disrupting a sporting event on television and a woman offers to take him home. Despite the boy telling her his family doesn't care that it's his birthday they are all very happy to see him and almost too friendly.
Everyone's acting a bit off and it slowly becomes a question of, "So where is this power struggle?" We eventually learn that the boy has god powers and a really demented imagination which the woman just accepts and agrees to stay with him... teach him... learn from him... forever... it makes no ****in' sense. Honestly it all just goes out the window when they pull a terrifying demon rabbit out of a hat and then proceed to stick a knife in the uncanny valley and twist it.
It gets really nuts on the visual effects. Which I guess is something memorable at least, but by that point it's strayed far far away from the minimalist fantasies you'd expect from Twilight Zone.
4.) Nightmare at 20,000 Feet EASILY the best one and the most iconic of the episodes featured in the movie, we have John Lithgow as the aviophobic protagonist and sole witness to the hideous gremlin on the wing of the plane.
I like John Lithgow and there's no exception here, but I'd also like to give particular praise to the presentation of the gremlin itself which not only blows the old black and white man in a fluffy suit out of the sky in terms of design, but it's also helpfully obfuscated by darkness, passing clouds, and only highlighted by the dim background and occasional bursts of lightning.
In this version it's much more believable that someone might not see it, but it's also much creepier to see just a black vaguely inhuman silhouette crawl around the wing, ripping up debris and chucking it in the engines.
That one was really cool.
Altogether, The Twilight Zone Movie (or should I say "Twilight Zone: THE Movie"?) is an extremely shallow attempt to adapt the tv series to the big screen (I've sincerely listened to better radio dramas, I strongly recommend those if you haven't), but if there's one take away; it's the very distinct skillset and varying levels of loyalty to the source material that the director of each episode brings with them.
John Landis directed the first part and his experience directing comedies like Blues Brothers and Spies Like Us show us a background and comfort zone FAR outside the kind of thinking that would produce something like Twilight one. We can probably blame him for Dan Aykroyd too.
Steven Spielberg directed the second part and BOY IS IT OBVIOUS. The WHIMSY COULD NOT BE CONTAINED. I respect Spielberg more now for being able to pull off the likes of Schindler's List, but why that dark, serious, and thoughtful edge was not brought here is beyond me.
Joe Dante directed the third part and given his quasi-horror roots in puppet-centric movies like Gremlins and Small Soldiers, it's no surprise he hit closer to home, though he couldn't help bring his goodie bag of monsters with him.
Surprisingly, the guy who brings us the Nightmare at 20,000 feet is George Miller. Dang. Well, that he managed both Babe and Mad Max at least shows he has considerable range.
If you want to see a good movie that explores the idea of a time paradox, try The Final Countdown (1980). A time warp takes the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz back to Pearl Harbor, Dec. 6, 1941. It's a great movie with a top-notch cast.
Your review of Twilight Zone: The Movie is spot on. "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is easily the best of the four segments, and "Kick the Can" is easily the worst of the four.
Have you seen this scene from the TV show "3rd Rock from the Sun", with both Shatner and Lithgow referencing their Twilight Zone airline experiences?
Your review of Twilight Zone: The Movie is spot on. "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is easily the best of the four segments, and "Kick the Can" is easily the worst of the four.
Have you seen this scene from the TV show "3rd Rock from the Sun", with both Shatner and Lithgow referencing their Twilight Zone airline experiences?
The next installment in my quest for punky girl movies, we have a drama. Let's check it out.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Gotta admit, the title's pretty apt; just like anything else that comes right out of the blue all you can do is:
Even so, I think a better title for the movie would be "A Series Of Unfortunate Decisions" because I didn't see a single sane character anywhere in this movie.
Our main character, Cindy, is riding with her dad, Dennis Hopper in a semi when she distracts him, he takes his eyes off the road, and he gets a Killionaire! ramming into a schoolbus full of children.
He goes to jail and so begins Cindy's decline. She laments the loss of her Dad and she laments the loss of Elvis, her favorite musician, and it's around this point that I start thinking...
Does she think Elvis is punk? This movie is made by Dennis Hopper, does Dennis think Elvis is punk? He's... not.
Anyway the movies seeks to endear us to Cindy by showing her hitchhiking and giving anyone who doesn't pick her up the finger. We're off to a great start.
We have some scenes showing her rather strained relationship with her Mom and Husband #3 (of which there are two others including Hopper). Turns out her Mom is taking hard drugs for some reason and Husband #3 is wet towel. Despite that they seem pretty nice and well meaning, but then her Mom very thickly advertises that Cindy should go to school...
so she can meet boys...
because boys will become men...
and men are "providers".
*EARTH-SHATTERING GROAN*
SO NOT ENOUGH PUNK UP IN HERE, let's get some punk music goin' in the soundtrack, alright? Alright, and that's... not punk music...
That's not even Elvis. WTF am I listening to this for?
Anyway, the first half of the movie sees Cindy try starting fights and threatening violence on reasonable people, she runs away from home, she hits up a cab driver for pot, she almost gets molested, she magically gets backstage at a concert, she gets arrested for...
Hold on, they're not telling us yet.
...
...
...still waiting...
...
...
Car theft. She stole a car. That's why she was arrested.
After that she's late to school one day, swears, and pushes a nosy girl into the grass-WHOAHOHOHOHO!!! NOW HOLD ON THERE, THAT'S PUSHIN' THE LINE LITTLE MISSY!
After the halfway point Hopper gets out of jail and you expect that this is the point where we see a change right? Her new rowdy behavior is looked down on by the dad she used to emulate? His influence reels her back in and calms her casual hate for hippies and disco? Maybe her living dangerously clashes with his now gunshy approach to life since he screwed up once and doesn't want to see her go down the same road?
NEEEEEEEEOPE.
He immediately brings Cindy along for rides again, he regularly takes his eyes off the road, he begins drinking and driving, drinking while operating heavy machinery, stealing dynamite, demolishing company property, getting fired, assaulting his employer, robbing his employer, and you know? We never even see his employer again so maybe he's just dead? They cracked him over the head in the middle of the street so maybe he legit killed the father of one of the kids he accidentally killed.
Intentionally.
After he'd given him a job.
Nice.
Then, OUT OF THE BLUE, there's some debate between Hopper and Husband #2 over whether they should have sex with her??? OR her mom??? That her mom misconstrues as calling her a dyke??? And Cindy starts yelling "I hate men"??? And then we have a weird dream-like transition where she stuffs her underwear in her dad's mouth??? And forces his face into her crotch telling him to "smell it"??? Then she stabs him in the throat with scissors??? And she blows up her mom and herself with dynamite??? While stating that it was punk??? Credits??? ??? ???
I was somewhat bemused the first time I saw Coraline. I want to see it again and figure out why. Reassessment time.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Chicken, Pizza, otherthingsIwon'tcountcausethey'renotactuallyrealand/orthey'reusedbyevilcharacters, CORALINE is a bit odd for me.
I'm not gonna go OMG HENRY SELICK IS TE BEST HE CAN DO NO WRONG OMGRRRRRR, no, but I will say that I was and still am wildly impressed by the visuals.
Coraline is not only significantly higher quality animation than Nightmare Before Christmas; using more frames, cleaner base materials (so you can get those seamless closeups), and introducing more nuanced human gestures into the individual characters, the animation is incredible.
Not only that, but I think the visual design of everything is great too.
Okay, maybe not everything I mean, the old man in the attic is pretty unattractive and the whole of the movie has various moments of... shall we say TOO macabre... but overall besides I think it's fantastic. And excellent blend of cartoony, but still very real.
The lighting, the colors, the button motif which begets the sowing motif which begets the spider motif, it all really creates a sense of...
...it's hard to describe. It's kinda like those kid's book horror stories with their themes of exploration and wanting something better?
Wait.
****. I totally forgot this was actually adapted from a book.
Well that EXPLAINS quite a bit and hey, kudos for managing to get that vague sense of what those kind of stories are like and making a movie out of them, BUUUUUUUUT I haven't actually read the book so I can't speak for it's quality as an adaption.
What I can say is that Coraline still loses me somewhere along the line and it's difficult to nail down why.
Perhaps those kinds of books just never really clicked with me? The premise is really interesting, no doubt, more than enough for me to want to check it out, but I think it may be a bit of misfire in it's execution.
I think maybe too much of the movie was spent on the spectacle of the thing. I mean, make no mistake it's great to look at and ****, it's not like Nightmare didn't do much of the same with an entire song titled "What's This!?", but it takes until the halfway point before Coraline's dream world becomes a nightmare and we get any serious level of deceit or intrigue.
The first half I think is divided up roughly between navel-gazing at "Oooooooh, ahhhhhhh, look at all the pretty things and awesome stuff going on! Let's spend the first 14 minutes of the movie setting up the tone before we bring in the core conflict at all! Yaaaaaaaaay." aaaaaaaaaand Coraline being a character.
Or a stereotype.
Just not anyone particularly likable.
Coraline is basically written as "Fed Up Preteen" character. She never does anything exceptionally rebellious, instead she spends the majority of her screentime moaning about what her parents won't allow her to do or making eyebrows as the hardtacked Straight Man character.
The thing about Straight Man is it exists for 1.) to serve as a viewer surrogate and 2.) for reactionary comedy.
There's very very little comedy here so the Straight Man exists solely for us to comfortably slip into as viewers.
That's okay insofar as Coraline demonstrating reasonable disgust towards general affronts like receiving a lookalike doll from the odd neighbor kid ("creepy"), but this combined with her bemoaning her own existence in the face of adversity significantly weaker than that which you'd find in say... Inside Out... is a bit of a put off.
And that's a bit of a put off that persists throughout almost the entire movie.
So we have a rather bland if unpleasant protagonist combined with a gratuitous amount of money shots combined with a multitude of scenes that feel empty if only because they exist for no other reason than to be reincorporated later combined with some bizarre plot bumps like...
Why does she only need to find 3 eyes for the ghosts if they're missing 6?
Why are their eyes symbolized by regular old knick-knacks, but literally referred to as eyes?
When was it ever agreed that the game would be over when the movie was ominously implying it was?
Ehhhh...
I'm tempted too give this one a [Meh...], but to be honest the themes and visual aesthetic go a long way for me and I can still see myself watching it again. It's by no means a bad movie and I'd say it's a more than an appropriate addition Henry Selick's resume.
This is the dimension of imagination, it is an area which we call...
the Twilight Zone Movie."[/i]
Enjoyed reading your review...it reminded me that this film might have something more than being a legacy to the death of Vic Morrow, your review really made me want to re-visit the film.
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