Friday, October 30, 2009

#19 Beowulf: Beooowuuuuuulf!!!

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Genre: Fantasy/Animation/Action/Lame
Key Players: Ray Winstone, giant sea creature

With the right amount of playfulness Beowulf could have been an over-the-top action fest. An animated Conan The Barbarian if you will. But entertaining. Instead it turned out to be a piece of crap filled with clunky dialogue and poor mocap. It's so dull and moves along at such a slow pace, that when he actually kills something, you don't even care! The only redeeming moment (and this is how the movie should have been all the way through) though, is a quick skirmish between Beowulf and a terrifying monster of the sea, ending with Beowulf erupting through the monster's eye, covered in blood and gore (at least that's how I like to remember it), screaming his name, like any great hero would. Pretty immense. But this is about a five second long sequence and given the length of the film, this alone does not save it from being a meaningless waste of time. It seems the only thing that could have saved this movie, would have been if Angelina Jolie (as a golden Grendel) would lie spread eagle in her dank cave where she resides. No such luck.

Beeeeocrap!

Saturday, October 24, 2009

#18 Blazing Saddles: Tumbledown

Director: Mel Brooks
Genre: Comedy
Key Players: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman

For me, growing up in a home with the likes of Peter Sellers and Monty Python, seeing Mel Brooks' classic western satire Blazing Saddles, were, even at an early age, nothing out of the ordinary. Sure, I didn't get all the gags and the comedic subtleties. But entertaining nonetheless. It's so weird and it's aware of itself being weird. And this becomes so clear in the end with it's off the chart wacko ending. While the good guy's are throwing down fisticuffs with the baddies, they accidentally tumble though the wall of their set to a totally different studio, where they are shooting a totally different film. And this goes on. For quite some time. And the brawl just keeps on growing and getting bigger, more and more people getting involved. It all ends with our hero and villain watching themselves on the big screen, in real time. It's so bizarre and brilliant it has got to be one of the craziest endings ever put on film. Hilarious.

Friday, October 2, 2009

#17 Spider-man 2: Birth of the octopus

Director: Sam Raimi
Genre: Action/Superhero
Key Players: Alfred Molina

Until The Dark Knight broke loose in the summer of 2008, Spider-man 2 was regarded as the biggest (and perhaps the best?) thing around, within the comic book movie industry that is. So even though the franchise came crashing down with it's third installment (too many villains and weirdo segments!), Spider-man 2 delivered some pretty cool moments (the train-run-amok fight sequence for one), but the birthing of Doctor Octopus, and the series so far best villain, is classic Raimi. Shot in a style that breathes his old and revered horror films (the Evil Dead series), this particular scene is so unexpected and raw (for a child/youth oriented type movie at least) it's a no-brainer really when it comes down to singling out a particular moment. Pretty good movie as well.