Category: movies

As the usual weekend routine dictates, Friday and/or Saturday nights are movie nights. This week Chrys and I rented Valiant and X-Men 3: The Last Stand on Saturday (since my grandparents were in town and we spent all Friday night in Maple Ridge visiting).

I woke up later than I was wanting to (1:00pm-ish) and had to run to the store right away to pick up wine, beer and various other goodies for drinking and making Irish buffalo stew. Got home, got the stew going, finished off the left over 1/2 bottle of wine, 1/2 can of guiness, grabbed a beer and flopped onto the couch to watch movies while the stew cooked away in the slow cooker. Which leads up to this weeks movie review:

Valiant:
Rating: 3/5

Valiant is an animated classic underdog steps up the challenge and prevails in the end style movie, ala Rudy. Valiant is a tiny little pigeon, much smaller than the average pigeon, but he has a dream and nothing will stop him from making it come true. He leaves his home and mommy pigeon and flies to London in the hopes of joining the RHPS (Royal Homing Pigeon Service) to fight for queen and country against the evil Falcon forces. The movie is set in 1944, the end of WWII, and the RHPS is given the task of retreiving a critical message from the French Mouse Resistance, one that will change the course of the war.

The entire story revolves around the premise of the little pigeon that could, Valiant, trying to fight his way through the RHPS and battle the evil Falcons to retreive and return this critical message to his superiors in London. The animation is sub-par when compared to Monsters Inc. and movies of that sort, the story line has been used way to much and the movie is just barely over 1hr long. Overall, it was slightly entertaining, had a couple remotely funny spots and killed some time while waiting for Irish buffalo stew. Nothing to write home about, but not bad for killing an hour.

Official Valiant Website

The irish buffalo stew had been stewing away for a while before the movie and all the way through the movie and STILL wasn’t even bubbling (this was around 8:00pm), so we decided to stick the second movie in and give the stew another 2 or so hours. Which brings us to the second movie of the night:

X-Men 3: The Last Stand
Rating: 2.5/5

X-Men 3: The Last Stand, is the third movie in the illustrious X-Men series and, in my opinion, is the worst of the three. One of my main reasons for wanting to see all of the X-Men movies, besides the fact that I loved the TV show as a kid, is that they are all filmed in Vancouver and on Vancounver Islands, and I love being able to pick out where certain scenes were filmed. This one especially interested me filming wise, as I actually saw them filming the protest scenes downtown outside the Sheraton Wall Centre and two churchs across the street. It was really cool to watch, which is more than I can say for the movie.

Only a short time into the movie two of the main characters, Professor Charles Xavier and Scott “Cyclops” Summers, are killed off. I was incredibly happy they finally offed Cyclops, I couldn’t stand his whiney bitch of a character, but it came as a bit of a surprise that they would kill off Professor Xavier, but as a friend pointed out in his review “I guess because his power isn’t action oriented, writers just don’t know what the hell to do with him, so best to knock him out of the majority of a story.” Which is a very valid point.

The story line of X-Men 3 is based on the fact that a pharmaceutical company, through the use of a miracle child, has developed a “cure” for the mutant gene sequence, which will revert any mutant back to a human state. Naturally, Magneto, played by Eric Lensherr, doesn’t like that idea at all and assembles an army of mutants to attack the pharmaceutical company and destroy the cure and miracle boy. But before he can manage to achieve his goal, he has to convince the alter-ego Jean Grey character Phoenix to join his forces. Phoenix is one of my all time favorite X-Men characters from the old show and they did a terrible job adapting her to the movie, her character is nothing like it was in the TV show and is a horribly bastardized version of the original. I was incredibly disappointed by the lack of a roll that Phoenix played, even though she’s supposed to be one of the strongest mutants to have ever existed.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I knew phoenix appeared in this movie and I knew it was filmed in Vancouver, I probably wouldn’t have been terribly interested in seeing it. I thought the story was a great idea, but wholey under developed and terribly acted. If it weren’t for the coolness factor of this being filmed in Vancouver and the fact that phoenix at least appears, this wouldn’t have even got a 2.5 rating. Another steaming pile of crap from renowned underwhelming director Brett Ratner, good work chum.

Offical X-Men 3: The Last Stand Website

The worst part about X-Men 3 is the fact that the damn Irish buffalo stew STILL wasn’t done when the movie finished, had to kill time by watching TV for a while before it was finally good to go. We didn’t end up eating until about midnight last night, but it didn’t turn out to bad at least. Note to self: Allow a lot more time when cooking stew in a SLOW COOKER, hence the name of the device used to make the dish, dumb ass.

I am actually surprised to be able to admit that there are quite a few movies I am very much looking forward to seeing in the near future. Chances are I won’t see very many, if any, in the theatres, since it’s hard to justify $12 to see a movie, but I’ll certainly be renting these ones as soon as they come out.

Thanks to the coolness that is Apples Movie Trailer website, click on each title below to watch the movie trailer:

Deliver Us From Evil
Road to Guantanamo
Fast Food Nation
Saw III
300
Stranger Than Fiction
The U.S. vs John Lennon
Marie Antoinette

Of the above list, the two movies I’m really looking forward to seeing are Deliver Us From Evil: which is essentially a documentary about a priest that abused 25 children and fully admits and confesses to it during the movie while showing little to no regret. And Road to Guantanamo: which explores how 2 (or 3) U.S. citizens are “mistaken” for terrorist’s, imprisoned in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre  and the things that happen to them while they’re there.

Both of these movies have incredibly powerful messages within them and should prove to be very interesting. I can’t wait to see them both. Never know, I may even be willing to drop $12 for a ticket to see these in the theatre *gasp.*

The other night we made use of a free DVD rental we had amassed at Blockbuster and took the oppertunity to pick up a copy of Kinky Boots. We’ve been trying to get the movie since it came out, but the Blockbuster near our house only got two copies of the movie for some reason and it was out everytime we went. But we got lucky and finally got a copy, yay! Now, on to the Kinky Boots Mini-Review:

Kinky Boots is a UK flick that came out late in 2005 and was just recently released on DVD. The movie is based on a true story and, from the special features included on the DVD, it seems like they actually kept the movie quite close to the true story, which is definitely a rarity now-a-days.

The Price & Sons Shoe Factory has been in business for years in Northamptonshire and has been passed down from generation to generation. In a sudden change of events, Charlie Price’s father suffers a sudden and unexpected death, forcing Charlie to follow in his dear ol’ dads foot steps, only problem is, he’s terrible with shoes and the industry is taking a huge dump. For years the Price & Son’s factory has produced well made, high quality oxford shoes but there’s no longer a market for plain, well made shoes with cheap, foreign imports flooding the market.

Continue reading “Kinky Boots Review”

So last night was the first night in our movie night marathon. We only watched two movies since we started watching a little late and neither of us were up for a third since we finished the second at a bit after 1am this morning. So, the movies we watched last night were:

Death To Smoochy:
Rating: 3/5

Death to Smoochy featurer Edward Norton as a kiddy network mascot with the Smoochy show and Robin Williams as the psychotic kiddy show host Rainbow Randal. Smoochy starts off by playing gigs in methadone clinics until Rainbow Randal gets caught taking bribes and is booted off the air. In search of the next big kiddy show star the network hires the straight-arrow, goody-good Smoochy and the show becomes and instant success. From then on fowl play, assasination attempts, penis shaped cookies, nazi rallies, corrupt charity networks and the irish mafia riddle Smoochy’s life.

This is an older movie and I’ve seen it before, but it’s always good for a laugh, and it’s still entertaining. Even though I’d seen it before I still couldn’t stop laughing when Robin Williams spilt tea on his nuts and freaked out, one of the best bits of the movie. If you’ve never seen Death to Smoochy, it’s certainly worth checking out, just for the fun of it.

Napola (Before The Fall)
Rating: 4/5

Napola (Before The Fall) is a German made indy movie from 2004 staring Max Riemelt and Tom Schilling. The movie, much like Downfall (which is a MUST SEE MOVIE!), offers a lot of insight into the appeal of the Nazi party to German youth in the early 1940’s. Many of Germany’s youth were forced to drop out of school or not go on to college or univeristy because they and their families could not afford it, so they would instead go to work in factories for crap wages to survive. The Nazi Party used this to their advantage and make offers to strong young men that they could not refuse. Max Riemelt’s character Friedrich Weimer comes from a poor German family where his father expects him to go to work in the factory he works in. Friedrich, a strong and athletic boxer wants more and is draw in to an Elite Nazi training school known as Napola with the promise of better jobs, higher pay and an education. Napola shows what the students of these kinds of schools had to endure and tells a fantastic story of the prestige and recognition one receives by attending such a school.

Napola is a great movie that shines light on what it was like to be a young man in Nazi Germany. This movie is one of a few, like Downfall, that has come out in recent years showing WW2 Germany from a German perspective, not from the glorified ‘all 1930’s and 40’s era Germans were Nazi’s’ perspective as is so widely portrayed in US and British films on the same subject. Napola and Downfall are both very much worth watching to get insight into exactly what WW2 Germany was like for the Germans. I highly reccommend seeing both of these movies.

So, that was movie night #1. Movie night #2 will begin shortly after dinner and we’ll likely get through another 2 or 3 movies. Yay!

Der Untergang (Downfall)
Napola (Before The Fall)
Death to Smoochy

I think the wife and I have found our ways back into a movie watching mood again. Last weekend we rented V for Vendetta and The Wild.

The Wild is a cute kids flicks about animals from the zoo. The star attraction of the zoo is, of course, the king of the pride, a lion, who’s cub has some depression and anger management issues and is sick of living in his dads shadow. He decided to run away and ends up stuck in an animal transport container, shipped to a small tropical island where the containers are being filled with the local wild life in an effort to save them from the impending doom that is the islands Volcano. The big lion brags all the time in the zoo about being wild and it turns out, once he and the other animals land on the island, he’s just as scared as they are and has never been in the wild before. Then the movie continues to following the big lion and zoo animals as they try to rescue the lion cub.

Overall, The Wild was a cute movie. Madagascar was better and the best character by far was Nigel the Koala who’s voice was done by the hilarious british comedian Eddie Izzard.

2.5/5

V for Vendetta was an absolutely fantastic movie. The entire movie has a very Orwellian feeling to it and has similarities with Gattaca, Pi and A Clockwork Orange, only with more explosions. The movies main character, V, makes it his lifes goal to bring awareness and freedom back to the british people who have been without ever since a totalitarian regime took over. The government runs and controls everything, including the media, and they fabricate whatever they think is needed to keep the people scared enough to fear the government. The secret police take away anyone that isn’t religious or doesn’t fit in to the governments beliefs and they are never seen again. This movie is full of fantastic quotes from start to finish, has a great story line and a number of twists and turns along the way.

V for Vendetta is by far one of the best movies I have seen in the last few years. My only complaint is when a relatively un-needed, as far as I[m concerned, love interest comes up and seems to be drawn out for a little bit. All be it a very short segment, I don’t think it was needed. Overall thoug, fantastic. A must see movie if you haven’t seen it yet.

4.5/5

Tonight we went out and picked up a mixed bag of old and new movies to take for a run. The cinema for the next few nights will be featuring:

• An American Haunting – This is chrys’ pick and I don’t really know a whole heck of a lot about the movie.
• Napola (Before The Fall) – Napola is a German made indy movie about an athletic young boy with boxing talents and his life in a private school for the elite where future leaders of the Nazi Party are trained.
• The Closet – A French made indy film where a factory worker on the verge of losing his job “pretends” to be gay in order to make the factory foreman back off for fear of a discrimination lawsuit.
• Death To Smoochy – Robin Williams, Edward Norton and a big purple dinosaur costume. Need I say more?
• Dazed and Confused – The classic 70’s stoner flick. I don’t know what it is, but I have ALWAYS loved this movie, it’s just so goofy and fun. It’s one of those don’t need to think at all movies that are just really enjoyable. Not to mention it has an all star cast of actors about 10 years before any of them became super popular.

So, that’s that. The wife and I have a busy weekend of movie watching ahead of us. Better get started.