Archive
REVIEW – The Iron Giant
Directed by: Brad Bird
Produced by: Allison Abbate, Des McAnuff
Screenplay by: Tim McCanlies
Story by: Brad Bird
Edited by: Darren T. Holmes
Cinematography by: Steven Wilzbach
Music by: Michael Kamen
Starring: Eli Marienthal, Harry Connick, Jr., Jennifer Aniston, Christopher McDonald, John Mahoney, Vin Diesel, James Gammon, M. Emmet Walsh, Cloris Leachman
Based on the novel The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
Year: 1999
Disney may have reigned at the box office in the 1990s, but by the end of the decade, the quality of their non-Pixar-produced films was undoubtedly beginning to slip, and so it’s no real wonder that other studios – particularly DreamWorks – were taking notice and trying to take a bite out of their share of the box office. Despite having the backing of a major studio behind it, however, Warner Bros. Animation struggled to find its footing with theatrical releases during this era. Space Jam, the studio’s first in-house feature film production, was a considerable success, but it relied upon familiar Looney Tunes characters and Michael Jordan (and an already existing and popular advertising campaign for shoes that already merged the two brands) to basically have the film market itself. Later films wouldn’t be able to use that crutch, however, and anemic advertising strategies for films like Quest for Camelot, Osmosis Jones, and even Looney Tunes: Back in Action – which no longer had the brand popularity and the basketball star to rely upon – did little to drum up ticket sales, and none of the films achieved the critical acclaim to even make them legit cult classics. There was, of course, one film released in between all this, however, that, despite the botched advertising (some of which, for some reason, used Scorpion’s “Rock You Like a Hurricane”) and underperformance, did manage to eventually make a name for itself not just as a cult classic, but as truly one of the most underappreciated animated film classics. Read more…
2013 IN REVIEW: The Films I Didn’t See (May – August)
Blockbuster season. Typically the season where most of the most anticipated films of the year — the ones that were hyped perhaps years in advance — are released. Since 2012 was the year when The Avengers gave us the first superhero team-up film and the year when The Dark Knight Trilogy came to a close, 2013 looked like it was going to be rather underwhelming this time of year. I already mentioned that Iron Man 3 was released in April, starting the season early, but Thor: The Dark World wasn’t coming until October!
So that left us with two major superhero films to look forward to: Man of Steel, which divided audiences and critics alike in its more serious, violent portrayal of Superman, and The Wolverine, which made good on its promise to improve upon its abysmal predecessor and managed to be both coherent and quite entertaining. Pixar and DreamWorks continued their rivalries, however, with the release of Pixar’s first prequel, Monsters University, and DreamWorks’ first sequel to cash-cow Despicable Me. (The less said about Turbo, the better.) World War Z finally came out and, predictably, did very well for itself, what with people being starved for zombie entertainment until the next season of The Walking Dead started. Summer also saw the release of some fairly big “prestige” films, however, the likes of which you’d normally expect to come out during the fall and winter Oscar season: Fruitvale Station, The Spectacular Now, and Blue Jasmine each received widespread critical acclaim.
Perhaps my most anticipated films of the summer were Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, and The World’s End, which were all released during this time, and I personally actually enjoyed each of them immensely, though to also varying degrees. This was the time period where I did get promoted at my job and also got a raise, so I was able to see a few more films that I just wanted to see during this time. Nevertheless, I couldn’t see them all, so, as with the last time, here are the films that, as of this writing, I did not see from May– August 2013, in order of release, as noted on Wikipedia. Please note that, as in the past, I still reserve the right to watch any film that is listed here and then re-remark on the film in one of the upcoming articles on films I did see from 2013. So, yes, again, you might see some of these films again, and soon… Read more…
Review: “Office Space”
Directed by: Mike Judge
Produced by: Daniel Rappaport, Michael Rotenberg
Written by: Mike Judge
Edited by: David Rennie
Cinematography by: Tim Suhrstedt
Music by: John Frizzell
Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman, Ajay Naidu, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, Diedrich Bader, John c. McGinley, Joe Bays, Alexandra Wentworth, Richard Riehle
Based on the Milton animated shorts by Mike Judge
Year: 1999
Funny story about this movie and me: There was a time when I had only ever seen the beginning of this movie, and then, for a time, also only the ending, but never the middle. I always managed to catch this playing on TV at some inopportune moment when I would never be able to finish it or when it had already been on for a while and was just shy of wrapping up. (It’s actually the movie that has convinced me to never again let a TV viewing be my only means of watching a movie ever again.) Like Braveheart, this was one of those movies when people would stare at me blankly, mouths agape, and then ask for confirmation as to what I had just admitted: “You’ve never seen Office Space?!” Read more…
2012 IN REVIEW – The Films I Didn’t See: January – April
2012 was a surprisingly satisfying year for movies, whether you wanted serious dramas or escapist fantasies, but it’s pretty much impossible to for any one person to see all the movies that come out within the span of one year, and I’m no different.
While I tried my best to see most of the big movies and the movies that came out in 2012 and all the movies that I was interested in, whether in theatres or on home video, there were many that I admittedly never got around to, didn’t care to getting around to, or had never even heard of to get around to them.
Though 2013’s just getting started, I’m going take some time to look back on the past year over the next couple weeks, starting with the films that I didn’t’ see. As with last year, the commentary below is not necessarily going to match up with my final impression of any given movie once I do actually come around to seeing them (if at all), and is solely meant to express why I never got around to it and, possibly, whether or not I intend to see it all. This is all based on plot synopses, Rotten Tomatoes scores, Wikipedia entries, a few external reviews, and, of course, the films’ trailers, and, once again, are not necessarily reflective of a final opinion of a film.
I start, of course, at the very beginning for this first part. Lots of films released during this traditional dumping ground period were smaller films, films that were released in foreign countries or film festivals back in 2011, or were just outright given their timeslot because the studio just had very little faith in the film’s performance at the box office. Sometimes films fall into all three categories. You’ve possibly even forgotten about them or haven’t even heard about them, or maybe you forgot you heard about them and only vaguely remember the name, maybe a few clips from the trailers you saw some time long ago. I know that was the case for me.
But that shouldn’t discourage you from seeing some of these films. Many of them actually look quite promising, and I’ve even added several to my various media queues, too. Hopefully you’ll find some films among the rotting corpses of the genuinely awful ones that were exiled to the early year winter and feel compelled to give these films a second (or third) glance once you remember what they are. Read more…
2011 in Review: The Films I Liked
As I stated many times over in my overviews of films I didn’t see in 2011, I was a pretty poor person this past year, which limited the number of films I could see in theatres. Luckily, I was able to make up for much of these missed showings through rentals.
Of the films I saw in 2011, few of them were truly bad films. A few were disappointing, many were just about as average as I expected, and a few turned out to be surprises. While none of the films on this list were truly awful in my eyes, not all of them were that remarkable either, with few exceptions. Before I tell you which films I considered to be the worst and which were my favorites, I am once again going to lead you through the year in review of the mostly average films that I actually did see throughout and from 2011 by the time I made this list.
The Viewer's Commentary 