Meatwadsprite's Slow Review Thread

Superbad (2 viewings)



Plot : Three teenagers about to graduate from high school try to have an amazing night and try to figure out their futures.

Story : How you grow to love the characters over the course of the movie is one of the films best aspects. It's story revolves around five characters Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Micheal Cera) as they try to get alchohal for a party they are invited to by girls they really like. Fogell - a friend of Seth and Evan who hangs out with some cops after he gets robbed while trying to buy alchohal with a fake ID , and then there are the cops Slater (Bill Hader) and Micheals (Seth Rogen) who just do outragous stuff for tons of laughs.

Humor : There are a lot more laugh out loud moments in here than subtle funny moments like Knocked Up - so if you were looking for an outragous comedy this year : you've found it.

Visuals : The movie also takes on a day to night cycle , since the whole thing takes place in one day : which really makes it that much better. Also , there are some other great visual moments for the movie.

Sypnosis : Hillarious antics with a big heart , you'll be hard pressed not to love it.

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The King of Kong : A Fistfull of Quarters (1 viewing)



Plot : A real documentary that captures the amazing donkey kong rivarly between Billy Mitchel and Steve Weibe .

Story : The documentary is really cartoony and really exagerates the characters which is what lots of documentaries lack (making them boring) , but what so many documentaries have failed at - this one susceeds. It captures so much with the footage as well - it's amazing how they got it all. Billy Mitchel is the holder of the world record on Donkey Kong (arcade machine) , untill one day Steve Weibe records a video of him setting the new high score . Rules blur the line of trust and fairness - and in the end you'll defintly have an opion on this rivarly.

Visuals : There are some great ideas visually displayed and tons of older footage that makes the movie really fun to watch.

Sypnosis : As fun as documentaries get - you can't judge it's excitement soley as a documentary rather than an actuall drama.

This thread is shaping up well. I agree with quite a few of these...

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The Godfather (3 viewings)



Plot : A coming of age story about a family operated mafia.

Story : Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) is the Don of the corleone mafia family , times are changing - but he refuses to dip into the up and coming drug buisness : which starts big problems. He also has four sons - Micheal (Al Pacino) a war vetran who is only one of his brothers not in the family "buisnesss" - Sonny or Santino (James Caan) the son who would take the Don's position once he passed away - Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) adopted at an early age , he is the family's consilgere - and finally Fredo (John Cazale) who is seemingly half in and half out of the family buisness. As tensions rise with the Corleones refusal to help out another family with the drug dealing - people are killed and new oppurtunities are presented. This is one of the best character driven films of all time , it's characters and setting are thrown at you at incredible speeds : it took my a couple viewings to understand who all the characters were - but once I did , I saw the huge signifigance of the entire story.

Visuals : Lots of amazing long shots and action scenes. Though not very out of the box - it's masterfull lighting and well designed settings will defintly keep it realistic.

Sypnosis : This film didn't get it's reputation as the best out of nowhere. I doubt there's a person out there who won't enjoy this film.

2001 : A Space Odyssey (2 fast forwarded viewings)



Fast forwarded notice : I have not viewed this movie in it's entirety due to me fast forwarding the huge amount of ambient scenes with no dialouge and seemingly no value - though trust me I've seen all the different scenes : i may have no viewed them the whole way.

Plot : Mysterious objects are discovered by three different time eras of creatures .

Story : Well , I really can't tell you what the story is - since it really makes no sense and could be interperted many different ways. It starts off with some ape looking guys discovering a giant object and then they learn how to use tools. Then it goes to space where it becomes a horribly acted and boring film. A space crew takes a new ship that is almost completely controlled by a self aware computer with incredibly advanced artificial intelligence - the HAL 9000.

Pacing : This is a film that suffers horribly from one of the biggest elements in a movie. The somewhat story unfolds incredibly slow - which makes this movie about 100 times worse. Maybe the film would have been allright for a 20 minute feature.

Visuals : Defintly the most accalimed aspect of the movie , though there are some very cool moments for the film - it's really nothing compared to how much they are taken granted for : since the audience apparently needs to look at them for extended periods of time.

Sypnosis : One of the worst films I've seen. I must give it some credit on it's HAL 9000 character which I actually did like the concept of , but it's a shame the movie is about 2 hours longer than it should have been.

Ouch, a half a point

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

What are you thinking about when you watch the film? Are you thinking, at all, about where you came from or where you're going?
Are you thinking about if there's a God or just some alien experiment, and if so, is there a difference?
Are you thinking about whether you or any other human will ever be able to fully communicate with another human?
Are you thinking about the evolution of Mankind?
Are you thinking about how "Humans" are becoming more "Machines" and how "Machines" are becoming more "Human"?

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
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i'm thinking this movie is pretty damn boring

No, he's not. Ok, half a point is perhaps a little bit harsh, but I don't think I would give this overrated piece of space-debris more than 2 stars. There are good aspects to it - the visuals, as Meatwadsprite mentioned, and the whole sequence with HAL; but the monkeys were a prologue extended for far too long for a start. Somewhere in here is a decent film, but it is lost inside some pretentious existential pondering (which would be done much better 4 years later in Solaris), which isn't half as deep or interesting as it thinks it is.

I think that a lot of the enduring appeal of this film has to do with its timing - being made just at the time when mankind was exploring space for the first time. Now that both space movies and visual effects are taken for granted, it is easy to see how this movie can fail to wow a first time viewer.

But that said, I'm not sure how much of a right you have to write a review of a film that you admit to having fast forwarded large chunks of...

Meatwad, your "slow" 2001 review reads more like one of your "quick" reviews - not in terms of word count but in terms of how much (or little) information you get across. Surely you can write with a little bit more substance about a film you watched (ok, fastforwarded through) twice.

I'm also a little confused as to what you think plot and story are, and if there is any difference between the two. The information you put under plot would make just as much sense under the story heading and vice versa, so why have separate headings at all?

I have a particular problem with this:

This leaves out some crucial details, particularly the significance of the object (the monolith) in both portions of the film (you say that it appears multiple times but don't explain the significance of this in your description of the story, leading one to think that the three parts of the film might as well take place in completely different universes, which they clearly don't). In another thread I saw you write (I'm paraphrasing) that story/plot are the most important parts of a film and that Kubrick fails at those so any psychological message is wasted. That might be a defensible argument but in order to actually make it you have to show that you understood the story enough to call it a failure. IE you need to be able to say what exactly the story fails at (other than entertaining you). Try harder please.

Mark, I think answering these questions would be a worth while exercise to try and make sense of 2001 but find a couple of them somewhat problematic, namely:

1
While that's an interesting question, I don't see it in this movie so much. Could you point out what in the movie makes you think about that? I just don't see that as a lucid theme in the movie, I mean after you pointed it out I can find it but only through some pretty fancy contortions.

and 2
This is something I think about while watching but the way you phrased it might actually distort what I find more interesting about the movie's theme. "Machine" kind of implies to me viewing it as a "message movie" about the dehumanizing nature of technology. If this is what you mean (and sorry for misappropriating your words to help illustrate my interpretation if it isn't), you may be right that Kubrick wants us to recognize what he sees as a dehumanizing force in society. After all I see this as an ongoing theme in some of his films, most notably in A Clockwork Orange and Fullmetal Jacket where he shows attempts to program people away from or into brutal behavior much to the subjects' suffering. But I have a problem applying the man/machine dichotomy to 2001 because I think the movie implicitly conflates the two in a fairly deep way right from the starting line...

In part I think it works better in those other two film cosmologies (the man becoming machine part, not the machine becoming man part obviously) because they start from a human base and then go on to contrast that with a mechanical or conditioned state of being. Both films follow the basic arc of people in the wild ("human"), then their programing ("mechanical") then released back into the wild as machines and the results of that. You could argue that 2001 follows a similar arc but I would say it's significantly different in that the initial "wild" (without technology) baseline in 2001 is not more human but less. Keep in mind that it's an alien technology that literally impregnates the primate brain with the ability to reason. This ability to reason eventually progresses until we are able reason about reasoning itself, from which Hal is born. I think technology in 2001 is less important than the idea of the reasoning, plotting, chess-playing mind. The ape's ability to make a tool isn't significant on its own, only as a sign of its ability to create a goal and the plan out the steps to achieve that goal. Further, that ability to plan is less important than our ability to recognize the plan as such.



I guess my problem with that question is that the way I see it, in 2001 it's that very "machineness" that separates the men from the monkeys, or more properly its ability to abstract itself away from a world where the bone is just another arbitrary object and into an inner one with rules and narrative sense.

Sometimes I think that any presentation of the question 2001 (are we "alone"/how did we get here) posits is bound to be self-defeating. IE the infinite regression of how did we get here? Something created us. How did that something get here? Something created it? How did that something that created it... etc. Is there ever a free will not determined by what came before? How does free will make sense in a universe determined by causal laws?

Is that what you mean by "pretentious existential pondering"? If so I think that's a little bit harsh in tone but wouldn't disagree in spirit (if that makes sense). But if that's what you're talking about, I have to wonder if Solaris did the same thing at all, let alone better. Maybe I just don't remember Solaris well enough, but I thought it was about People encountering an alien intelligence rather than that alien intelligence "birthing" us. Correct me if I'm wrong (about my memory of Solaris, about my interpretation of your statement or about life in general).

Robocop (2 viewings)



Plot : Officer Alex Murphy is assigned to a new police department. He briefly gets acquainted with his new partner , but a robbery quickly takes place soon into the film. With no back-up he and his partner must take down heavily armed bank robbers with only pistols. Murphy is beaten by the robbers and they kill him - meanwhile a new corporate defense company has other plans for Murphy : he is transformed into Robocop !

Story : Robocop now the ultimate crime fighting machine starts a whole new type of havoc. The corporation responsible for building him is having problems when a long time boss is undermined by another - younger employee. Meanwhile , Robocop comes to relize who he was in his "past" life - and focuses his vengence on the people who killed him. I admire the number of things that seem small at the time but come back later in the movie as important - similar to many great action films , but the number of plot holes is pretty large. Somehow all these very distantly related characters know each other , robocop is ambushed by police for no reason , and robocop's invincible armor that can withstand bullets can't withstand a weakend guy shoving a wood spike into it : but plot holes aside it's still a fun story.

Action and Visuals : Hard hitting gun fights and some amazing cinemetography is really one of the big advantages this movie has to offer. Though the incredibly horrible looking frame-by-frame animated ED-209 is pretty hillarious.

Sypnosis : Defintly a lot better than I remember , though it's huge plot holes and hillarious looking robot defintly draw from the expeirience - you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of this one.

I was only speaking for myself sorry if you thought i was speaking for the whole family

What I meant in the first quote above is that the human characters in the Moon/Jupiter section of the film never seem to really communicate with each other. It's that simple, but it's actually a very obvious, conscious choice for the writer/director to make, and let's make sure that everyone is aware that Arthur C. Clarke co-wrote the scriot.

When Dr. Floyd shows up on the Moon, he talks with some people, mostly exchanging pleasant small talk, but he has to keep secret his mission. Even in his briefing, he is quite secretive until he reveals what they found buried under the lunar surface. The doctor also phones home, trying to talk to his wife, but instead he talks to his young daughter (played by Kubrick's daughter). Now, I wouldn't want to say that he's not being truthful in his exchange with her because it's the most human scene we have of the man, but he was unable to communicate with his wife, and I'm sure he would have said something a bit more "substantial" to his wife.

On the Jupiter mission, Frank gets a birthday message from his family, but all he can do is unemotionally watch it with no way to respond to them. I don't know if Frank has problems with his family, has received a few too many of these type greetings, is apprehensive about the mission or is slowly turning into a zombie. But it's clear that he is unmoved by the message.

Taken altogether, it paints a picture of a civilization that is made up of people who are either incapable of open communication or too emotionally scarred to have the courage to attempt to engage in or react to it.

This also ties into the second quote. In contrast to the human characters, HAL is very open, inquisitive, and supportive of the two astronauts. He also speaks with "more emotion" than either Frank or Dave. Then again, near the end of the Jupiter Mission, when HAL has finally shown that he's much more than a friendly helper to the two men, he basically breaks down, regressing to "his childhood". This section where HAL turns violent doesn't necessarily have to be interpreted as a copycat of human behavior since most animals will strike out to defend themselves, but the fact that HAL has human-level intelligence certainly makes it appear that he is acting as a very dangerous human would behave.

I'm not sure if this is relevant to what you take from the film, but this is some of what I was considering when I posited my questions. I feel the film can be discussed in many ways, so to me, that's a huge asset it has going for it. Two others would be that it is a unique experience in film storytelling and that it has never bored me for a second the 25+ times I've watched it. But I realize that its uniqueness will stir debate.

I think HAL can be observed from several points of view: first, he symbolizes human progress - a perfect machine that people made in the peak of technological development, a perfect program that never makes mistakes, as we are told. But, HAL breaks down because he was suddenly told to lie, which was never originally in his code. So, he broke down because people wanted him to lie to other people, not telling them they would probably never come back from the mission. Someone didn't care what would happen to these individuals, as long as it's for the benefit of the mankind. Just like with the apes at the beginning of the movie, mankind tries to evolve through destruction. End shows mankind succeeding, but not without a price.
So, HAL isn't human, but a symbol of a piece of technology that can ruin everything, if being used the wrong way. On the other hand, I completely agree with markf about the other way of looking at HAL - machines becoming more and more like people, and people becoming machines in today's world, and that makes cold and detached directing all the more appropriate.

Face Off (2 viewings)



Plot : Arch enemies switch bodies and lifestyles

Story : Sean Archer (John Travolta) finally catches the man who killed his son Castor Troy (Nicholas Cage) , but Archers revenge is cut short by Castor Troy's bomb that will destroy the entire city within a few days. To find out where the bomb's hidden he switches faces with Castor to get the information from his brother. The plan almost complete is again cut abruptly when Castor Troy somehow wakes up and becomes Sean Archer : while killing the few people who know of this top secret mission. Though there is tons of character development in this movie , toward the end it is all thrown aside. The movie is great untill about the last half hour where it becomes a shooting extravaganza that has no effect on the characters or story other than who's going to shoot who. It's a shame to see such a great crafted movie die out in one of the most drawn out endings ever.

Action : Most of the time fun and powerfull , but again - toward the end of the movie : had way too many camera cuts and barley any power at all - compared to the earlier action scenes. The shootout of the guys huge apartment was espicially amazing.

Visuals : The only part of the film that dosen't get weaker toward the end. It's great eye candy for the majority of the film - with a little overkill on the blurs , but still great.

Sypnosis : A great action movie filled with characters and amazing visuals - sucked of it's soul in the last 30 minutes of this 2 hour , 10 minute feature .

Kung Fu Hustle (2 viewings)



Plot : A peace-loving slum is attacked by the blood thirsty Axe Gang .

Story : The movie is basicly one bigger and better fighter being introduced at a time . The axe gang attacks the helpless citizens of the slum - which then the axe gang is destroyed by 3 kung-fu masters - which then they are beat by another set of villians - and it goes on and on. Nothing really special , aside from the tiny amount of character development : the fighting scenes while cool as they may be , drag on way too long.

Action and Visuals : There is tons of amazing CGI and action scenes to be found here , but the obnoxious slow motion will defintly tend to bore you around the first hour of the film. The fight scenes basicly make the entire movie - and they are very drawn out.

Sypnosis : Some great action taken way too far - turns into something similar to the action ending in Face Off : except it takes up the whole movie.

Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny (1 viewing)



Plot : Two friends determined to be the next big rock band try to obtain a magical guitar pick with the devil's power embedded into it.

Story : Jack Black raised in a very religious family - his dreams of becoming a rock and roll legend are crushed by his father , but with some inspiration from his poster he decides to leave his house and find a partner. Kyle Gass a masterfull guitar player meets Jack and they become friends , though their music just dosen't seem to have the edge they crave , a guitar store owner (Ben Stiller) guides them to a powerfull guitar pick in the rock hall of fame. The story never has any pointless turns (aside from the big-foot part) and keeps going at a pretty fast pace , but the only characters that ever have anything happen to them are the two main characters - though we are introduced to many characters that aren't ever fleshed out. The film's ending certainly dosen't help the movie , when it comes out of nowhere.

Humor : The begining is where the majority of the humor is , there are some parts later which are funny : but it never made me "really!" laugh.

Music : Some parts are much better than others lyrically and some parts are really fun to listen to. Defintly something that dosen't subtract from the movie - except toward the end the seemingly weak finale.

Visuals : Though there are some "ok" moments for the visuals and it gets the job done , but defintly not anything special . Satan looked really dumb though in my opion.

Sypnosis : You'll enjoy it for the first viewing and will probably laugh a couple times : but it just dosen't have classic potential. Keep in mind I am not a fan of jack black or tenacious D .

Ratatouille (2 viewings)



Plot : A rat determined to be a chef makes a human friend when they decide to help each other in the cooking buisness.

Story : Remmy "the rat" who's passion in life is cooking and eating is constantly discouraged by his position in life. His father and brother accept their current role as creatures who must hide and fear humans , but Remmy wants a big change to allow him to create food. One day Remmy ruins the comfortable set-up his family has set up - when he is seen by the owner of the house where his family lives (unknowingly to the owner of course). Remmy discovers where he has been living his whole life - Paris "the city of food". He encounters a garbage boy who experiments with the resturant's soup one day , for the worse : which then Remmy fixes and becomes Linguine's (garbage boy) friend and cooking guide. Remmy controlls Linguine by pulling his hair gently to influence Linguines actions , and by this makes the food. The story never has a dull moment , it's also told in a very different way : there will be lots of focus on one thing for awhile and you will get very involved when all of sudden you forgot about another important character and event so that becomes the dominante part of the movie , and then it goes back to what you were just watching . It really is a fresh breath into the seemingly repetetive/commercially safe (boring) work that pixar has been doing lately.

Visuals : I don't usually watch lots of the new gigantic wave of 3D animated films coming out - and for a good reason : they are all played out commercially formulated films , with no originality. So I'm not one to compare this to other 3D films - but the ones I have seen have nothing on this. Easily pixar's best work yet , the gigantic beautifull Paris , amazingly intense action sequences , and the delicious looking food - all come together in one of the best visual films ever.

Sypnosis : Don't let the recent lack of great animated films steer you away from the gripping and heartwarming tale of Ratatouille.