Dune - a few comments

So I actually enjoyed it.  A few things that stuck out but overall wasn't too bad.  Keep in mind, however, that I am judging it based on the original Kyle Maclaughlin version which was horrendous, and the abortion that was Lord of the Rings, which was less horrendous than the first Dune movie but still pretty bad when it came time to judge it against the books.  So that's the background.  Here's the things that bugged me:

1) Soundtrack.  The whole movie was so full of ominous mood music that it was hard to actually just follow the plot.  It almost never stopped.  There was one point, about 3/4 of the way through where it did, when Paul and Jessica were in the desert and it was noticeable mostly because it was such a relief.  Whoever did the music should never be allowed to do a movie soundtrack again.

2) Why were the Fremen warriors in Paul's visions wearing motorcycle helmets?  Strange. Doesn't really matter but I just never envisioned the Fremen looking like that.

3) Why did Liet-Kynes commit suicide and kill Saurdaukar?  In the book he died in the desert and the scene was used by Herbert to introduce us to a key point regarding the relationship between spice, the sandworms, and water.  Her death in the movie served no purpose at all for the story.

4) Battle scenes when the Harkonnen invaded were choppy.  Lots of Atreides troops running towards battle without armor or weapons while Harkonnen troopers mowed them down.  Also the little vignette where a bunch of troops on the stairs have a standoff with Harkonnen and then more troopers drop down behind them.  Again, the whole scene seemed ill thought out and pointless.  I just think this whole bit could have been done more coherently and smoothly with some thought.  Instead someone seems to have thought that lots of smoke and special effects would suffice.  Perhaps filmed to indicate the effectiveness of the surprise attack but it just seemed incoherent to me when I was watching it.

Ended very abruptly.  I had no idea it was supposed to be more than one movie so was a bit surprised when it suddenly stopped.

So there's that.  I'm looking forward to the next one (two?  three?  Beats me.  How many are there supposed to be?)

Movie review - Jumanji: The Next Level

I don't normally go to the theater, I also don't often review movies, but figured since I did one I might as well do the other.

Took my niece at college to dinner and a movie since I was in her town.  We chose Jumanji as a neutral offering.    She rarely watches TV or movies as my sister hasn't had a TV in years.

She had, however, seen the original with Robin Williams.  This is important.  I will also refer to the original as "original" and the next one as "Episode 2" since it wasn't actually a remake but a sequel.

My observations, followed by hers.

1) Lots of swearing.  I don't remember this from Episode 2.

2) Somewhat incoherent and rushed.  I had some struggles following what was happening.  Things seemed to just fall into place when they needed to and plot elements were added for no apparent reason other than to make it more "exciting".

3) The overacting by some of the characters was painful.  Jack Black, brilliant in the first, seemed to be going overboard to make his character work.  The exceptions were Kevin Hart, outstanding when playing the slow talking Milo; and Awkwafina, who plays Ming perfectly as the avatar of Spencer.

Her's.

1) She hadn't seen the second movie so frequently had idea what was going on or why things were supposed to be funny.

2) There was lots of swearing.

I'd say that I'd give the original and the second Jumanji 5/5 within their category and style of film.  This one might be 3/5 but only because a movie has to be practically unwatchable to get 2/5.  I'd suspect that my niece would have given it a 2.5 if that were a thing.  

Overall I'd rate it as "could have been so much better" considering the first two.

Christmas movie review

Yeah, that's right.  I went there.  What are you going to do about it?

January 9, just watched Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas.  Faith Ford, Tom Cavanaugh (you may remember him as JD's brother in Scrubs), Gil Bellows (awesome as Tommy in Shawshank Redemption), and Gabrielle Miller (mmm!).

Hey, it was fun.  Ford and Cavanaugh trade houses for Christmas, him to her Christmassy town near Seattle, her to his un-decorated apartment in Boston.  Romance ensues, but not between the two of them.  That's all I'll tell you.  I enjoyed it even if it is after Christmas (and New Years).

So there you go.  Put it on your list for next year or just say "the heck with it", go crazy and watch it now.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Minor spoilers but I'm going to be very careful not to give away any major plot lines.  If you haven't seen it, by all means go, but maybe don't read on.

First of all, I went in with very low expectations.  Those expectations were significantly exceeded.  The acting was, for the most part, worlds above the PM trio (again, not a particularly high bar to meet).  There was one speaking-part character who was so formulaic that I was annoyed just watching him, but fortunately he played a relatively minor part so I didn't have to deal with it for long.

Good job surprising me with plot twists and, in my opinion, true to the original story lines from A New Hope.

Plot quibbles, if you REALLY need the droid that got away from you on the planet, why do you send two stormtroopers when you have a whole Imperial Star Destroyer packed with them floating just above the planet, and why do you send two Tie fighters to stop the good guys escaping when you have said Star Destroyer also packed with Tie fighters.  (This might fall under items to consider from The Evil Overlord List, which is well worth a read if you are considering taking over the universe)

Technical quibbles: WTW is the one storm trooper doing with a light saber proof nightstick looking weapon attached to his armor?  It was clearly inserted into the movie to provide a little suspense as to whether the good guy could actually win the fight, but it makes no sense that a) anyone would bother developing light saber proof weapons when the Jedi are extinct, and 2) in an army which is outfitted in the same armor and with the same weapons, thousands upon thousands of them, where the soldiers aren't even allowed to have names or remove their helmets without permission, one guy and one guy only has this different weapon hanging off his armor.

Side note on clones: I've heard some discussion about why you would have different types of clones in your army, rather than having them all be the same.  I think this is actually confusion about the composition of the Imperial army and the use of clones.  Most importantly, stormtroopers predated clones, and after the clone wars still existed as the shock troops of the Empire and its successors (in the books the successor is referred to as The Imperial Remnant).  The clones were an effort to secretly build a large army (most of which was outfitted as stormtroopers).  The Clone Wars occurred around the times covered by the Phantom Menace series of movies.  Important to remember that stormtroopers exist independently of clones and clones were just a way to bolster the number of stormtroopers available.  There is an interesting sequence in the movie where the stormtrooper who bailed to join the good side talks about being taken away from his family to go into stormtrooper training, so clearly the troopers are not volunteers and are conditioned to be obedient fighters.  They are not, however, all clones.

My feelings on the Legend vs Canon debate:  If you don't know, Disney announced that the vast repertoire of books, comics, information, etc on the Star Wars universe would henceforth be known as Star Wars Legend.  It would not have any relationship to the actual Star Wars universe.  The Canonical Star Wars would include the six movies and the two TV shows, Star Wars Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.  I was not too thrilled but having seen the movie, I think they've done a good job.  Presumably they will start licensing fiction to fit into the new timeline and that will give us fans of fantasy/sci-fi that much more to read.  I am told by a source who I consider reliable that there are some timeline issues even between the movies and the aforementioned TV shows, as well as some storyline inconsistencies but I guess you can't have everything.  I am planning on watching the Clone Wars and Rebels as I haven't yet so we will see.

Movie review Tuesday

See how it just keeps changing?  Keeping you intellectually off balance to help you deal with your pre-conceptions. 

Not really, just a bit of fluff for a Tuesday morning.  I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy last weekend.  I didn't really enjoy it.  I don't read comics anymore and haven't for years.  I don't know the characters in this particular series and was completely lost as to who these people (and raccoon) were and why they were doing what they were doing.  After the movie was over and I had a better sense of what was going on, I then understood what had happened during the first half of the movie, but during the first half I was bored. 

I don't like it when studios make movies that assume you have background that not every moviegoer has.  Of course this doesn't apply to sequels or trilogy type movies, but GotG was not advertised as a sequel, it was just presented as a stand-alone.

It wasn't all bad.  Lots of good action and humor.  The raccoon was very funny and the dialogue between the characters well done.  Worth seeing, I guess, so long as keep in mind that it is going to develop.

The Bechtloff loved it.  So did Captain Capitalism.  So maybe don't take my word for it but remember that if you don't have any background in the characters it is going to take a while before it makes sense.  I'll see it again when it comes out on DVD and maybe I'll enjoy it more now that I know what is going on.

Movie review Monday

OK, so I just made that up.  It's Monday, just finished watching the second movie on my "25 Movies" DVD and figured I'd do some reviews.

Nothing to Good for a Cowboy.  I'm going to give it a C+.  Time not wasted.  Good story, two friends decide to start a cattle ranch in the interior of BC just before WWII breaks out.  Their hands all leave and enlist.  One of them meets, falls in love with, and marries a girl who insists on following him up to the interior to help with the ranch and be with her new husband.  Starring Chad Willett (who hasn't been in anything I've ever seen other than a few TV show episodes as supporting cast), Ted Atherton, (also never been in anything I've ever heard of), and Sarah Chalke (Rosanne and Scrubs).  Acting was pretty decent, lots of story lines left hanging, it actually could have been longer but maybe they left it open to make room for the TV series that came along the next year.  It almost had the feel of a pilot but is listed as a TV movie on IMDB.  I can honestly say that I don't feel like I wasted my time watching it.



Oh, and it was a book first AND a true story. Written by Richmond Hobson Jr, the main character. I'll be checking that out. Books are almost always better AND he wrote two more after this one. I love it.



Hooded Angels.  I was going with an D or maybe a charity D+, but it got a little better at the end so I'll go with a C-.  Twelve good looking women whose town is destroyed during the civil war and all of whom were raped by the guerrillas who raided the town turn into avenging, man-hating outlaws.  They pretty much kill everyone they come across for no particular reason and rob lots of banks along the way (presumably because that's where the money is).  Most of them also pair up  (remember the man-hating part?  Hey, not judging, they all got raped).  The movie is sort of pointless, mostly serving to show scantily clad, good looking women who ride around shooting people and riding horses (not while scantily clad, of course).  The only reason I gave it a higher grade is because it gets a little better in the second half when one of the posse chasing them develops a relationship with one of the women.  So as not to spoil the plot I won't tell you any more, but there's some soul searching about the type of future for avenging, man-hating outlaws.  At the end, OK Corral time.  Gary Busey plays the sheriff in the town the posse is from.  Not sure why, in 2002, he would take a role like this but maybe he doesn't care that much.  As one would expect, he does a decent job and the acting is generally OK.  Was it a waste of time?  Well, if you like westerns and you don't have anything better to do, why not. 

Back to the Future

In 2005 Back to the Future celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a special trilogy release.  I hadn't watched the movies in years so decided to throw them into the player.  Here's a few notes.  (SPOILER ALERT but WTH, it's been thirty four years)

1) Back to the Future was excellent except for the parts where they feel that the best way to build tension is by having Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd shout at each other over really loud background noise.  As someone who has increasing trouble with background noise (shut up, I'm not getting old) this becomes increasingly annoying.

2) Back to the Future 2 was not as bad as I remembered except that the wild success of BttF 1's shouting tension (see note 1) was apparently so successful that most of MJF and CF's conversations are written this way.

3) BttF 2 and 3 are actually really long movie split into two parts as movie 2 ends with MJF stuck in 1955 having just received a letter from CL sent to him from 1885.  Not sure why he couldn't have just showed up in the Delorean to pick him up (it is a time machine, after all) instead of sending a letter but I guess that would have eliminated the possibility of a third movie.  I haven't watched the third yet on this go around but at this point might as well.  I'll let you know if there is anything ground shaking that you should be aware of, otherwise you can assume that it was probably just OK.

Update: 3 was quite good.  Less yelling (perhaps because there were fewer noisy things to yell over in 1885).