Tag Archives: Movies

Friday Favorites: Favorite Character – The Fifth Element

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

The Fifth Element is a divisive film.  People either love it or can’t stand it, and considering how often it gets shown on TV, it’s probably safe to assume that most people have seen at least part of it.  I’m on the side that loves it, as it’s right up my alley.  I love the style of the film, with some truly unique costumes and set designs and it’s unusual musical selections.  I like it’s tone, which blends humor and action in interesting ways, but also has some real pathos to the story in its emotional core.  And it’s super cheesy, which appeals to me immensely because there’s nothing I love more than a cheesy film that wears its heart on its sleeve, and it doesn’t get any cheesier than love being the ultimate power capable of defeating evil.  What I love most of all, however, is the film’s odd cast of characters, beyond just Korben and Leeloo, so this week’s and next week’s Friday Favorite will each focus on one of my favorite characters from the film.

The Fifth Element spends its first third as a quirky, bizarre sci-fi action comedy, telling the story of a mysterious perfect being who, through a chance encounter, ends up with a former special forces officer who now drives a cab for a living.  The two are sent on a mission to gather a weapon to stop an ultimate evil, and Korben is sent undercover as a contest winner in order to gain access to the flying hotel where he needs to pick up some magical stones.  As goofy as that sounds, the movie switches in an instant from silly to batshit crazy and fascinating in an instant, when this happens: Continue reading →

Trailer Tuesday (on Wednesday): Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies, since I’ve always found them to be endlessly fascinating.

I’m sorry this post is a day late.  I was going to come up with something creative about being out doing my Love Pirate duties, but the reality is that I just didn’t get around to it in time.  However I finally got it done.  As the release of Thor: The Dark World approaches, it’s time for Marvel to start promoting the next film in their Cinematic Universe.  Behold the trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which takes things in a drastically different direction than 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger.  Take a look below, and read on for my thoughts:

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What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1995

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

When Jeremy Irons won the award at the 67th Academy Awards, the general consensus was that the category had finally produced a winner that represented the dramatic performance quality that the award had been created in order to recognize.  There was still some grumbling over the fact that the nominees were largely dominated by one film, but The Lion King had been so impressive that it was hard for people to complain too much about any of the individual nominees.  Disney was set to release another animated film in 1995, Pocahontas, based on a time period and series of events ripe for drama, and featuring the voice of Mel Gibson, who would go on to have a huge year with Braveheart.  But what no one could have predicted was Toy Story and the emergence of Pixar. Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Scare – The Exorcist

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

I have a bit of a complicated relationship with Halloween when it comes to movies.  I’m not big on “scary” movies, where things are designed to jump out and get the audience to scream.  However I do love suspenseful movies that create a sense of dread that hangs with you for days afterwards.  I love the films of Hitchcock, the classic monster movies of the 30s, and other films that set out to create more of an atmosphere than to get simple scares.  I’m also a fan of “spooky” settings and the macabre in film, but I don’t watch movies to be spooked.  Slasher movies have no interest to me, I don’t want to see creepy children climbing out of TV sets, and the trick of loud bangs and things jumping out is just annoying to me.

However, there are exceptions.  Continue reading →

Trailer Tuesday: Frozen

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies.

We’ve been given a third trailer for Frozen, at the end of which all fans of musicals shout, “Hallelujah.”  Or, maybe we sing “Hallelujah,” since we’re talking about music.  Feel free to choose your favorite musical instance of the word, whether it’s Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” or Handel’s “Hallelujah” Chorus.  But regardless of your chosen form of angelic singing, celebration is in order because Disney is finally marketing Frozen as a musical.  Before I get too far ahead of myself, take a look below at the new trailer, which features many scenes we’ve seen before but is also full of new goodies:

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What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1994

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

After a disappointing slate of nominees at the 66th Academy Awards, the speculation was that another year of mediocre nominees would doom the category once and for all.  Fortunately, there was a savior on the horizon, in the form of another big release from Disney, The Lion King.  It was even speculated that the film could take all five of the nomination slots, given the strength of its casting, its popularity and yet another dearth of competition.  Even if The Lion King ended up with all of the nominations, it was already predicted that the film’s mere presence would be enough to grant the category a stay of execution for at least another year. Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Favorite Songwriting – Beauty and the Beast

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Welcome to “Friday Favorites” which highlight some of my favorite movie-related things.

I’ve seen Beauty and the Beast more times than I could possibly remember, and have listened to the soundtrack even more frequently.  It’s one of my favorite song scores for film, particularly as its structure and styling is very reminiscent of traditional Broadway musicals, filled with reprises and cast cues that feel very familiar to those on the stage.  (It also helps that the songs for the film were largely recorded live with the orchestra, helping it to feel more like a Broadway cast album rather than a studio recording.)  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons its stage version was so successful.  However, until just this week I had never picked up on one of the most clever aspects of the song score.

During the opening number, “Belle”, we’re introduced to the film’s protagonist, who is viewed by the villagers as too dreamy and bookish for their tastes despite her beauty.  Continue reading →

Trailer Tuesday: Grudge Match

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Welcome to “Trailer Tuesday” where I talk about trailers for upcoming movies, since I’ve always found them to be endlessly fascinating.

I’m a big fan of the Rocky film series.  The first one is nearly perfect, the next three are all good fun (the less said about the 5th one, the better) and I absolutely love Rocky Balboa, the 6th film in the series which was released in 2006 and featured an aged Rocky returning to the ring to face a young champion based on an ESPN computer simulation.  I also happen to like Raging Bull, the Jake LaMotta biopic by Scorsese which featured a tour de force performance by Robert De Niro.  However, I had no desire to see the two films combine into the travesty of a trailer that I was presented with at the theater this weekend.  Take a look and read on for my comments:

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Review: Machete Kills

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Machete Kills is in many ways inferior to its 2010 predecessor, Machete, which was itself based on a fake trailer from the Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature Grindhouse.  It lacks that film’s madcap energy, its strong ties into Mexican culture, and its emphatic political message.  The sequel heads things much more in the direction of a James Bond parody, which robs it of some of the unique spirit that made the first film feel so fresh.  It even tones back the gore, if you care about such things, though that was never what brought my interest to the series.  But despite all that, Machete Kills does some very creative and interesting things that allow it to stand out in an era of bland action movies full of computer generated destruction. Continue reading →

What if there was a Best Voice Performance Oscar? – 1993

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(Note: This is a fictional creative writing exercise, inspired by hours of contemplation of which animated performances have been most worthy of attention over the years.  This feature imagines that a Best Voice Performance category was added to the Oscars following Beauty and the Beast’s nomination for Best Picture at the 64th Academy Awards.  Each week I’ll cover the hypothetical nominees and winner from one year of animated performances.)

Following Robin Williams’ win of the first ever Best Voice Performance Oscar for his role as The Genie inAladdin, industry experts began looking ahead at 1993’s slate of animated films, trying to anticipate who the next winner might be.  Both the experts and the Academy were more than a little dismayed to find that not only was Disney not releasing a classically styled animated films along the lines of Beauty and the Beastand Aladdin, but that there were very few animated films lined up for the year at all.  There were calls from opponents to drop the category entirely, while even some supporters of the award thought it might be best to hold the award back and only bring it out on years with better prospects.  Nevertheless, the Academy decided to press on with the award as an accepted part of the ceremony, not knowing exactly what the nominations would bring. Continue reading →