206 - Five Easy Pieces

    A skilled pianist lives an aimless life as a drifter.  After his father gets closer to dying, he visits home.
    While I haven’t ever seen this movie before, I feel like I’ve seen it.  This type of story is recycled quite a bit.  It’s a pretty standard “coming home to deal with psychological issues” story.  Sometimes, I like these.  I felt like About Schmidt was a quality one.  This one is kind of… aimless.  It’s a shame, because it’s pretty interesting, but by the end, I felt like it was missing a point.
    As a character study, it’s good.  It’s a pleasure to watch Jack Nicholson work.  The script is interesting.    The personality traits that come through are interesting.  It’s tense, mostly because you keep waiting to see how Nicholson will react to whatever else is happening.  He isn’t an especially likable character, even after we see more of his home life.
    The only idea that seemed like it was worth exploring was the issue of people ignoring their gifts/talents because they get bored with them.
    The ending is bleak.  Even bleaker than the rest of the movie would imply.  It’s easy to spend most of the movie hoping that Nicholson will turn around and do something good, but most of his dialogue and behavior tells us that he won’t.  And at the end… he doesn’t.
    There isn’t much I have to say about the movie.  It’s interesting, but not especially entertaining.  The highlight of it is that there’s a character named “Terry Grouse.”  This is pronounced exactly like the NPR host.  Making it funnier is that the character is played by Toni Basil, who went on to release the hit single “Micky.”

205 - Invaders From Mars

    A young boy runs as an alien invasion begins.
    When I was young - probably younger than 10 - I saw a portion of this movie on broadcast TV.  I didn’t see the whole thing, but I remembered liking it.  I only remembered the details about the neck-related implant, and the image of the fence running up the hill.  I decided to watch this because it’s coming down from Netflix shortly.
    It’s better than I expected.  I’ve always been a little disappointed with Tobe Hooper’s direction.  His work isn’t bad, but it tends to be weaker than I expect, or at least more forgettable.  This is probably the most distinct work he’s done.  It’s a remake of a 1953 movie of the same name, but this retains a lot of the flavor of that time period.  In fact, there isn’t much to date it to the 80’s.  There’s a color palette… there’s this fantastic lighting, something that makes houses look like they’re on a massive soundstage.
    The effects work is varied, but it’s generally good.  The aliens are interesting, because they have horrific elements - like the teeth - but they also have things that seem almost comical or silly - like their leg/arm arrangement.
    The dialogue is a bit campy and over-the-top, but it’s exactly what should be expected for this kind of movie.  What’s more impressive is how fast the story runs.  It’s roughly the second scene when his parents are taken over by the aliens, and the story just runs forward incredibly fast.
    There are two effects that I really like in this movie.  One of them is the frog-eating scene.  The other is the sand-pit effects.  Really well done.

204 - Ishtar

    A pair of bad songwriters get a booking to play in the Middle East.  They wind up becoming entangled in a rebellion and the CIA.
    Ishtar has a remarkably bad reputation, and when I started off watching this, I had no idea what to expect.  When someone describes The Room as bad, they normally focus on the bizarre acting, the awkward script, the continuity, etc.  But no one ever says anything specific about Ishtar; it just became a punchline.
    Ishtar is a good movie.  It’s funny, but I think it was ahead of its time.  I think it was actually a pretty influential movie.  It’s a buddy comedy with two characters that are simultaneously miserable, deluded, and occasionally dumb.  They fall into a story that is beyond their understanding.  Their performances as songwriters are amazing.
    Things slow down a little during the back half, but it still isn’t too bad.  The movie still ends on a high note, and I finished by wondering why this has a bad reputation.
    It may have been an issue of casting.  Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman are both great, and play their parts well, but the problem may have been that the audience expected them to both be smart or charismatic.  This may have attracted a more adult audience that didn’t appreciate their lack of talent.  I can imagine that if you don’t understand how silly their performances are, it might be easy to ignore that it’s a comedy.
    The writing is solid, if a little understated.  It’s funny, but many of the jokes don’t pop to the forefront the way you expect them to.  It requires some listening, and the editing, performances, and direction aren’t going to tell you when to laugh.

203 - Swiss Family Robinson

    A family is shipwrecked, and left marooned on an island.  The family builds a house, tames a variety of animals, and enjoys an idealistic existence.
    A Disney movie, so my expectations were low.  It’s a strange movie, especially by modern standards.  I think it would play better to kids, but as an adult, so many things seem laughable.  The island somehow has at least one tiger, an anaconda, elephants, ostriches, zebras, hyenas.  Somehow, the family is able to build an absurdly fancy house using salvaged scrap from the shipwreck.  The absurdity of this is compounded by the way that the movie avoids giving a sense of passage of time.  As far as I can tell, it took about a day or so for the house to be built.
    There are a few interesting things going on.  One of the primary plots involves a love triangle between the two brothers and a girl they rescue from pirates.  The tension is interesting, and it doesn’t play like normal Disney material.  The boys actually fight.  There’s a big finish battle at the end, during which the family kills a good number of pirates.  While the violence is kept in check, near the end, pirates are shot, and some of them fall off the side of a cliff.
    A lot of the running time is devoted to the family having fun, playing at a swimming hole, playing with animals.  There are a few sequences that have family members riding an ostrich, which seems cruel, but it seems to be something you can do nowadays.
    There was also a scene where the two Great Dane dogs they have fight with a tiger.  They seem to legitimately fight, which was really puzzling.  Neither of them seemed to be injured, but I really wonder how they did it.
    But the most important thing about this movie is how the imagery and ideas shaped the fantasies of children for a long time.  I see elements of this movie present occasionally in The Simpsons and Life in Hell.  The image of the fancy jungle house is silly, but it’s charming, and it captures the imagination very effectively.
    My biggest complaint about this movie is that there’s no indication that there was any struggle.  They never address how they get food, or clean drinking water.  I don’t mind that they have a good time… but it just seems like they should have had to earn it.  They don't even seem to be worried when the ship is wrecked!

202 - Stoneheart Asylum

    A new doctor travels out to an asylum in the middle of nowhere to finish his training.  Shortly after arriving, he discovers that the asylum has been taken over by the inmates, and that the head doctor is a patient.  He must manage his appearance and behavior until he can figure out a way to free the real staff, and prevent them from being slaughtered.
    I’ve been putting off watching this for a long time, even though I generally like movies set in asylums.  Plus, this is directed by Brad Anderson, who made Session 9, a fantastic movie.  It’s good.  They’ve got a strong cast, a great location, a great budget put toward set dressing and props.  Everything is wonderfully done in a period style.
    But it’s a bit slow.  I can’t point to anything that should have been trimmed, but the pacing is just luxuriously slow.  And even with that feeling, it still seems like developments happen at the right points.
    The highlight is the twist ending.  I really didn’t see it coming.  It doesn’t quite add that much to the story, nor does it tie up any loose ends, but it’s somehow a satisfying one.  It seems fitting, even if it isn’t necessary.
    The weirdest thing about this movie is that Kate Beckinsale got top billing.  I would make the argument that Ben Kingsley is the lead, followed by Jim Sturgess, then maybe a tossup between Kate Beckinsale and Michael Caine.
    I’d say this is worth a watch if you like asylum movies… Edgar Allan Poe… or period pieces like this.  But it requires a little more patience than I expected.  On the other hand, Session 9 required a bit of patience as well.

201 - Raptor Ranch

    A sleepy town in Texas has a scientist that has somehow created a handful of dinosaurs.  When the scientist dies, the dinosaurs stalk a handful of characters.
    It’s hard to talk about how terrible this movie is, because there was never any inkling that it would be any good.  If you know you’re getting into a cheap, poorly made movie, what else do you expect?

    For this occasion, I’m going to do a bigger, more comprehensive writeup, since it’s hard to explain everything that’s wrong about this movie.

    We open on some Native American drums and flutes, as a girl gives some voiceover narration about who and where she is.  Her name is Abbi Whitecloud.  There are a few shots of bare trees.  Then we see Abbi doing some kind of ritual.  There’s actually crosstalk during this bit.  Abbi’s narration continues as she speaks words during her ritual.  The narration talks about how she wants to be a successful singer.

    Abbi is suddenly attacked by a dinosaur!  We know that it’s coming at her, because we get dino-vision - a green filter.  The dinosaur attacks and eats her!

200 - RoboCop 3

    OCP has a plan to redevelop part of Detroit.  They do this by taking over the neighborhoods, and forcefully evicting everyone there.  Robocop winds up getting involved, joining forces with the resistance to prevent them from losing their homes.
    It’s a bad sign when I start watching a movie, and immediately think that something is wrong with the plot.  The city has clearly made a deal with OCP.  Why do they have to go in and round people up?  They aren’t actually homeless there, some of them clearly own and rent.  I shouldn’t start the movie by thinking that the bad guys are in the right.
    To make matters worse, Robocop overreacts.  He threatens the forces looking to evict people.  Even if we agree with him, if this were real life… I would consider the cop to be out of control.
    Like the second movie, Robocop is out of commission for much of the movie.  In this one, I’m not really positive why he is.  Yes, he was damaged, but his problem seems to be electrical.  How does he get enough power to remain functioning?  Why does Robocop seem to prefer absurdly destructive methods of doing things?  Instead of driving up to assist his fellow officers, he drives to the top of a building, then drives the car off the edge so that he can land nearby.
    The story has a bunch of weird little turns, even as the core of the plot is very simplistic.  It’s not very rewarding either.  The specialized baddie that Robocop has to fight in the last reel is bizarre, but doesn’t have much personality.  It seems to be some kind of sword-fighting robot.
    What the movie has going for it is a pretty notable cast.  In particular, it’s great to see Stephen Root in an earlier role.  Lots of familiar faces sprinkled throughout.
    There’s a tone throughout the movie, and it becomes more obvious near the end, that this movie was adjusted in order to sell toys.  Robocop gets to fly around with a jetpack near the end.  It’s absurd.  There’s a cameo by ED-209, again, strangely conspicuous.  And even with these kid-centric developments, the movie is violent.  It’s really violent, just less gory.  It’s a strange distinction, but Robocop sprays bullets all over the place, unlike his usual method of careful targeting.
    A pretty bad movie.  At least it’s out of my queue now.

199 - Scream 4

    Years later, Sidney returns to her hometown.  Upon her return, a killer begins trying to re-create the original murders.
    I had heard that this movie was a return to form.  Given that I think the original Scream was actually a pretty weak horror movie, this isn’t a selling point.  To be fair, they did a good job with the opening scene.  It’s a nice, nested version of things.  This is always the peak of any of the Scream movies.
    Once the story gets going, I realized that it was remarkably boring.  There were a few things that I enjoyed - developing Gale and Dewey’s relationship was a real plus.  It’s nice to have them moving forward instead of resetting with every movie.  Sidney remains just a much of a non-character as ever.
    There’s the usual twist upon twist, adjusting the audience expectation of who the killer(s) will be.  As usual, it’s hard to care.  I guess I just don’t like that it’s not nuanced.  I’d rather that there were small, subtle hints that actually felt like you could unravel them.
    When I reached the last fifteen minutes of the movie, I actually felt like the pre-ending sequence would have been a really great way to end the story.  It would have opened the door to a much more interesting franchise of movies.  Instead, they undo the possibility of that, and put everything neatly back in place.  Everyone who needs to, survives.  Everyone evil, doesn’t.
    Why did I watch all of these movies?  I’m not sure why.
    One of the things that has bothered me with all of the movies, but I’ve never put my finger on it, is the acting.  Everyone involved in these things is good enough, but I think it’s a direction problem.  Everyone amps up their acting as far as they can.  It’s fun, and a little campy at the beginning.  Then the longer it goes along, it gets exhausting.  Really exhausting.  By the last act, everything is nonstop hamming it up, people yelling and delivering everything in the most ridiculous over-the-top dramatics they can think of.

198 - Scrooged

    A misanthropic TV executive goes through his own version of A Christmas Carol.
    I like Bill Murray.  I should have had more interest in seeing this, but something about the box art always put me off.  But I wanted to watch something, and I wasn’t in the mood for horror, so…
    It’s good.  It’s really good.  But it’s not something I would return to for the holidays.  This is a peculiar problem, since it should be some really solid holiday fare.  Bill Murray is as good as ever.  He even gets some of his trademark singing in at the end.
    What makes it hard to handle as a holiday movie is that it’s probably one of the darkest adaptations of A Christmas Carol that I’ve ever seen.  Part of this might be because the story has been transplanted into modern times (yes, most adaptations of the story made for TV have transplanted it, but they also usually play it as a straight comedy.  This is mostly played as a comedy, but there are some really dark things - like a frozen dead guy in the sewer.).
    Carol Kane, who I usually really love, is in a very manic part, and she mostly spends her time on screen pushing Bill Murray around.  It’s entertaining, but it feels like they could have gotten nearly anyone for that part.
    Even though most of the movie is so much more potent than the other adaptations I’ve seen, Murray’s transformation at the end isn’t handled quite right.  He’s scared straight by the vision of his corpse being burned up, but he doesn’t seem to be distressed by his legacy.  The result is that he jumps a little too quickly into being a good person.
    However, he does deliver a nice talk at the end that expresses a good philosophy of positivity.  I’m also really impressed with how well the handled the equivalent part for Tiny Tim.  It was obvious from the start, but it still paid out really well.

197 - Quick Change

    After robbing a bank in disguise, three friends struggle to escape New York, fighting against typical New York difficulties.
    This is part of a small family of comedies that I really love, that are under-appreciated, and don’t get decent video releases.  I’ve seen this several times, and it holds up really well, but seems to struggle to find an audience.
    Most of the credit for how good this movie is can be attributed to Bill Murray.  It’s a little more straight than most of his roles, but he delivers almost all of his jokes with a dryness.  Occasionally, a hint of a smirk.  It reminds me a little of how he performed in What About Bob?
    The story is really solid, but it somehow seems almost understated.  The most memorable sequence of the movie is the opening bank robbery, and after that, there’s this calming feeling.  Maybe the problem is that the leads don’t feel like they’re any closer to being captured.  Even the close calls don’t seem like there’s a real sense of risk.  But this brings up another issue that holds this movie back.  There aren’t any real bad guys.  The cop that’s trying to catch them isn’t a mean guy.  He’s a little gruff, and he’s concerned with his reputation, but he doesn’t do anything wrong.  In fact, he tells a more aggressive cop to back off later on in the movie.
    So the ending makes sense - everyone comes out of this well.  But it’s hard to feel like it’s an effective movie.
    Oh, it’s good.  And I’d suggest that anyone watch it.  It’s nice that it’s a bit different.  But this might be why it hasn’t attracted the full audience it deserves.

196 - Dolls

    Five people take shelter at a secluded dollmaker’s house during a storm, then fall victim to the animated dolls within.
    Another movie with memorable cover art that I never bothered to rent.  It’s an interesting movie, at least in a few regards.
    As a horror movie, it’s not that strong.  The characters are broadly drawn, and no surprises are anywhere to be found.  The effects are suitably gory, creepy, and clever.  But where it fails is in the story.
    This is hard to say, because in another way, I actually like the story.  The dolls are willing to kill, but they aren’t bad most of the time.  They only kill people that seem to have earned it by being jerks.  Not just to other people, but specifically to the dolls.  Knock a bunch of dolls off a mantle?  That’s pretty jerky.
    There’s one aspect of the story that plays out in a way I didn’t anticipate involves the good male lead.  It seems pretty obvious that he will be spared the wrath of the dolls, but there’s an interesting twist to his story.  He’s actually willing to go against our expectations of him, at least for a short time.
    The slightly campy performances, the broad characterization… it’s all enjoyable in a weird way.  This isn’t a timeless classic, or even the best of the creepy doll subgenre (that would probably go to The Twilight Zone’s episode Living Doll.)  Still, this movie held my interest better than expected.

195 - Don't Blink

    A bunch of college kids go on a vacation, running out of gas as they reach their resort, which is mysteriously deserted.  People start disappearing.
    I think I like these mysterious types of horror movies.  I think I was pretty forgiving to Vanishing on 7th Street, which never explains itself to satisfaction.  But this movie is really pretty bad.  The script is ridiculous and unsatisfying.  It tries to offer some kind of philosophy, but it comes across as a desperate attempt to give the impression of depth without saying anything.  Do I need a serious message to the movies I watch?  Not at all!  But I can’t stand to be told I’m seeing something important when it’s obvious I’m not.
    Wow, I sound really angry about this movie.
    Okay, let me start off with the bad stuff.
    First, the movie kicks off by introducing the characters as they chat in their cars as they make a long trip.  There’s some silliness, some gags about urinating in a bottle.  (This gag should be pretty funny to me.  A friend of mine insisted that he really wanted to do the same thing during a drive we made.)  During this sequence, I realize that I’ve seen this setup happen.  It’s happened many, many times before.  Nearly every dead teenager movie since the 90’s has done this kind of setup.  It’s cliche, but I’m not too picky about this kind of thing.  We move on.
    Then they arrive at the mysterious luxury cabin.  They look around, and seem mildly wary of the fact that no one is around.  This is okay, but this also takes up about a half hour of running time.  In that time, they make mild incremental discoveries.  This would be okay of this was setup, but this is just developing atmosphere.
    This makes me wonder what the structure of this story is supposed to be.
    Eventually, people start to disappear.  They just blink out of existence.  This is a little puzzling, I suppose.  The other characters have the weirdest reactions to this.  I would expect the experience to just be creepy to them, but in this movie, half the time, characters start screaming in reaction to it.  Why?
    Mena Suvari got top billing.  She’s got a minimal part.  She’s the first person to disappear, and her disappearance happens off-camera.  It’s almost like her character was written out unexpectedly.
    Pretty early on, I noticed that there were references to the characters being in college.  One of them is specifically supposed to be 23.  (Maybe 22?  I’m not positive now)  I realized that they all looked a bit old to be playing college-age kids.  I looked it up on IMDB… and most of them are in their late 30s, some of them in their early to mid 40s.  I should also clarify; this isn’t the kind of thing that I normally complain about.  I don’t notice it in most movies.  In this, it seemed weird.
    The rest of the story doesn’t have much of any development.  It’s characters overreacting, people occasionally disappearing.  There doesn’t seem to me any real speculation about what is happening.  They go through a phase of that early on, but they never offer any ideas that seem worthwhile.
    Then, we reach an ending that doesn’t explain anything at all.  I feel ridiculous for complaining about this, since sometimes the absence of an explanation can be very effective.  In this case, the whole movie was built up around getting the audience to wonder what was happening.  When we end without any explanation or clues, it’s only natural that the audience will feel cheated.  No characters developed.  No mysteries were uncovered.  No deeper meaning was explored.


    Now that I’ve addressed the bad qualities, maybe I should talk about some of the good things.
    The movie is shot reasonably well.  There are a few notable sequences, including a fairly long scene of talking and argument, as the camera runs around in a circle.  Some of the decoration is effective and clever.
    There are occasionally a few nice moments in the script.  There’s an exchange where a guy says that he was concerned that a girl had melted.  This felt genuine, and probably one of the nicest bits in the story.

    I hate saying that it’s a bad movie, but it’s a pretty poor script.

194 - Robocop 2

    Detroit has difficulties with the city’s relationship with OCP, as well as a popular new drug called Nuke.  Robocop is on the case.
    The first Robocop is a really fun movie.  It slows down a little now and then, but it’s delightfully satirical, violent, and it has some real thought put into it.  Paul Verhoven wanted to put more time into developing the sequel, but Orion wanted to rush right into it.  The result is that there’s a story that could have been good, and still hits a few interesting notes, but it misses a lot of things that the story really needed.  Robocop doesn’t have an arc.  He has one thing that he has to overcome, he does it, then he fights the bad guy.  In fact, none of the characters seem to have arcs.  Maybe Hob does, but that’s a little hard to tell.
    An effort is made to retain some of the surreal commercial elements that sprinkle the original movie, but the ones that appear here seem to be mostly irrelevant.  They appear as bumpers, but they don’t provide any useful information - or even useful cultural information.  (To be fair, the opening with the car alarm system is pretty fun, and it does establish tone, but the other one(s) are just padding.)
    There are a few improvements.  Most of the effects shots are a bit more interesting, and they do a decent job of using them.  There’s a bigger cast.
    The bad stuff… Detroit is portrayed as such a hellhole, it seems like there’s no purpose in attempting to police it.  There’s no one worth protecting.  This idea is pushed so hard that it’s hard to feel like there was any point.  When there’s only crime, and no innocent civilians… there doesn’t seem to be a use for Robocop.  The story is enjoyable, but it doesn’t leave much space for character development.  The primary villain, Cain, is supposed to be an interesting villain, but he doesn’t get a chance to do much to define himself, except take drugs, and occasionally deliver some pseudo-philosophy about drugs and mankind.
    The body count is much higher in this movie.  And yet, it’s meaningless.  The especially violent sequences in Robocop were effective because of the context.  Here, they seem like they’re just being included for the sake of trying to up the action.
    But I didn’t leave this feeling like it was a terrible movie.  It’s flawed, and seriously so, but it’s still enjoyable enough for a single viewing.

    One little thing that I’m not sure about.  I know that the costume for Robocop was made of lighter material, and he was able to move around better.  But it was strange.  It had a blueish tint, and it seemed bulkier, especially around the torso.  Sometimes, his movements looked weird or comical.  I think I preferred the thinner, more chrome look of the first movie.

193 - Summer Rental

    An overworked air traffic controller goes on a vacation to Florida with his family.
    I remember the box art for this movie.  It wasn’t the content of the art, but it was the layout that made it stand out.  I never rented it, but I was always a little curious.  I’ve grown up to really love 80’s comedies; particularly sex comedies.  They’re formulaic, but there’s always a little something interesting or bizarre about them.
    This is probably one of the worst 80’s comedies I’ve seen.  It’s a real puzzle though, since Carl Reiner directed it, it has some of his sensibilities all over it, and the script actually has some very good jokes in it.  So what went wrong?
    There are two core problems, and in a way, they’re the same.  John Candy is the lead, and he’s just not very likable.  He doesn’t quite have a save-the-cat moment.  When the movie opens, we’re introduced to him leaving for work.  He takes two eggs with him to eat in the car.  One of them turns out to not peel easily, and the other one isn’t cooked at all.  The good thing is that he doesn’t get outrageously angry because of this.  The bad thing is that he still gets annoyed.  This reminded me of seeing the original pilot that became The Dick Van Dyke Show; it was a story that got reworked later, but they had Carl Reiner playing the lead.  The story wound up playing terribly.  There were funny gags, but the whole thing seemed like the lead was such a jerk, there was no reason to want him to do well.  The same thing is repeated here.
    At first, I wondered if this was the first feature Carl Reiner directed.  Then I checked his credits, and this is actually a late period one.  Prior to this, he directed The Jerk!  All of Me!  The Man with Two Brains!  He knows what he’s doing, and yet, this movie seemed sloppy.
    There isn’t much of a plot until pretty late in the movie, when a boat race becomes the big finish event.  Even this is shot in a way that seems to be the most dull way possible.
    Seeing this also made me wonder what makes John Candy likable.  He isn’t a bad presence, but he isn’t especially funny.  I don’t think there were any deliveries he had that stood out.
    Maybe it’s just a sign of the times, but this didn’t seem funny.  It was clearly intended to be a comedy, but the laughs just aren’t there.

192 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

    Four mutated turtles and their mutated rat master fight a crime wave run by the mysterious Foot organization.
    I would have been nine years old when this came out, but I never cared that much about the turtles.  I was aware that the movies came out, but they weren’t even ones that I wanted to see, unlike Masters of the Universe.  That’s a long way of saying that this is the first time I’ve watched this movie.
    This movie is firmly aimed at kids.  There are very few lines that might appeal to adults, and the story seems focused on delivering what kids want to see - the turtles goofing off, and the turtles fighting.  For what it is, it’s fairly successful.  It moves along, it delivers enough laughs.  They don’t skimp on the action.
    That’s the most remarkable thing about the movie.  There’s action all over the place, and they aren’t shooting it poorly.  Most of the sequences are built from modest-length shots that show a clear action.  There aren’t these tight-closeup shots of a swinging arm and weapon, or a connecting hit.  These are choreographed fight sequences.  They’re made more impressive by knowing that these are four guys in layered costumes having to jump around.
    The story is pretty weak, but it seems appropriate for the audience.  There’s just about nothing for adults, maybe one or two jokes.  But I did find the costumes interesting.  Logistically, they were a difficult thing to pull off smoothly, but they managed to do it.
    The weirdest thing is how unbalanced the characters are.  Through most of the movie, Raphael is angry for some reason.  The other turtles aren’t developed in any meaningful way.  April and Casey Jones are developed more than the other turtles.  It isn’t a terrible thing, but it’s a little puzzling.  Seeing most of the turtles pal around, they came across more like Bill & Ted than anything else.

191 - How to Train Your Dragon

    An inept young viking befriends a disabled dragon, counter to his culture’s habit of killing them.
    I just… don’t know.  It’s not a bad movie.  It’s not a good movie either.  I have a hard time dealing with these ones.  Disney, Pixar… these movies are so calculated to manipulate the viewer, that even as I have an emotional reaction, I’m acutely aware of a voice in the back of my head reminding me that I’m being forced into this.
    There are some very fun elements to the story.  The handling of the dragon’s playful behavior is really well done.  There’s a good amount of energy to the story.  But then the script seems annoying.  I think this is just me, but I’m really sick of scripts that are written to appeal to young audiences.  This has been a problem for a long time, but I’ve started to realize that there is good scriptwriting available.  It’s just very rare.  One of the things that really made me love The Hole was that it was aimed squarely at kids.  It was an introductory horror movie.  But it didn’t rely on annoying kid-speak to sell it.  It worked well for adults watching it as well.
    I felt like there were a few more things that bothered me.  It felt too clearly manipulative as far as the color schemes went.  We open on a dark night, lots of fire.  The goal is to make the dragons as scary as possible.  For each sequence, the surrounding day or night and location informs how the viewer is supposed to feel about the dragons.  By the end, I was thinking that the dragons looked like they were left over from Monsters, Inc.
    I would never watch this again, but I feel this way about most Disney/Pixar movies.  Even ones like Aladdin, which I really loved, I have no interest in returning to.
     One possible good influence this movie might have is that it might make young viewers less scared of dogs.

    Also, I really hated the love interest in this movie.  The hero likes her, but she's a jerk until she finds out how she can use him.  It actually felt kind of bad to see her kiss him at the end.

190 - The Taking of Deborah Logan

    While filming a documentary on the deterioration of an Alzheimer’s patient, the crew finds that weirder, more supernatural things are going on.
    I didn’t expect this to be a found-footage movie, but it was.  It plays like most of them.  The typical scares, the shaky camera, the occasional steady shot, the running-in-the-dark sequences.  I’m tired of that.  The story itself is decent, and it sets up some interesting backstory, and a few interesting visuals for the finale.  But there are still things - like the teleportation bits - that are never explained, and they’re only there to make things strange.
    The characters are mostly irrelevant, although the cameraman that leaves before the end is probably the best drawn of them.  And actually, the lead, playing Deborah Logan, is actually pretty good, since she plays her symptoms very well.
    I know this sounds like I didn’t like it, but it’s an alright movie.  For what it is, it kept my attention, and there’s something to be said for that.
    I wish that Blair Witch hadn’t established so much of an influence on all of these found-footage movies.  I think it helped to sell the idea that people are especially scary when they stand motionless, looking away from the camera.  It was the most effective portion of Blair Witch, but shouldn’t these movies strive for more?

     Mild spoiler - the highlight of the movie is some of the effects work during the last few minutes, as the possessed Deborah Logan somehow attempts to swallow a young girl whole.  It's much stranger to see it in motion.
     There are odd ideas in the movie that are never explained to satisfaction.  She's possessed by the spirit or of a dead serial killer, who was trying to achieve immortality, but was killed before the last victim could be killed.  His rituals had a lot to do with snakes and things like that.  Somehow, as the possession of her grows, she takes on a few snake-like qualities.  Scaly skin on her back, spitting venom, and finally, being able to try to swallow people whole.  Strange stuff.

189 - Good Will Hunting

    Will Hunting is a blue-collar janitor who solves a publicly posted math problem, making his mathematical genius known to MIT.  As the professor tries to take him under his wing, he finds that Will has some personal issues to work through.
    I have no idea why this is 129 on IMDB’s top 250.  It’s an enjoyable movie, but it feels like something’s missing.
    I felt like the movie was opening with a caricature of Boston.  I lived there for four years.  I didn’t grow up there, and I wasn’t nearly the blue-collar type that is focused on, but I felt like this was a strangely dated picture of Boston.  It was released in 1997, but something feels like a relic from the 80s.
    The good things are out there.  Matt Damon is a pleasure to watch, although he isn’t as charming as some of his later roles.  The script is fun, but it also feels a bit padded.  There are scenes that are there solely to add flavor, and they become a little conspicuous.  Sometimes I can like these kinds of things, but when they show up around the middle of the movie, they tend to drag the pacing down a little.
    After the setup has gone through, it seemed like a pleasant movie… something inoffensively good.  Like Shawshank Redemption, which also has a strangely high ranking.
    It’s hard for me to point to specific problems, but I guess it might be that I expect really good movies to be a little conflicting.  There should be a sense of mystery to the proceedings, something that would reward multiple viewings and cause you to recognize genius.  I just don’t get that with this one.

188 - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

    Katniss and Peeta go on tour for some reason, which stirs up the oppressed people.  They get roped into a big event for the 75th annual Hunger Games, which results in them being put back in the arena with a bunch of past victors.
    I came out of this movie feeling much more conflicted.  The first chunk of the story has the couple going on tour, inadvertently stirring up dissent.  The story started to feel a little more complicated, placing the characters and their oppressors in a situation where neither would be able to gain a clear advantage.  Then the bad guys make their move and… decide to repeat the first movie.
    As a sequel, there’s an effort to push everything to an extreme.  The other kids in the tournament are prior winners, meaning that they’re all driven, tough, and generally, willing to kill.  The game designer is a bit more ruthless, using poison fog (?!) aggressive apes, and a lack of fresh water as a means of making a more punishing game.  These seem like things that should make for a more exciting movie, but they aren’t.
    The problem is that they removed the central conflict that made the original more interesting.  How do you win the games while being hunted, and still remain a hero?
    The story ends on a cliffhanger, but it isn’t especially interesting.

    There’s a larger problem with this story, and it becomes clearer the longer I’m exposed to it.  The premise simply doesn’t make sense.  This isn’t an effective means of the government showing its might.  This wouldn’t prevent the districts from rebelling.  For all the discussion of symbolism, it ignores that this kind of event would encourage revolution, not prevent it.

187 - My Little Pony: Equestria Girls - Rainbow Rocks

    A trio of evil girls arrive at Canterlot High, and their magic turns students against each other.  Twilight Sparkle is called in from Equestria to help the girls save the day at a battle of the bands.
    I was pleased with the first Equestria Girls movie, far more than I expected to be.  It’s a real shame, this one feels half-baked.  The writing is sub-par.  The jokes are rarely worthwhile, and the songs are pretty bad.  While I didn’t feel like any of the songs in the first movie were really good, they were decent.  In this one, there’s too much of an effort to make everything seem cool and cutting edge.  This really hurts it.  I especially dislike when they switch to a different person to voice the singing.  Part of what makes Apple Bloom and Apple Jack’s singing enjoyable is that they remain in character.  I hate hearing Twilight sing, since she loses most of her character.
    There’s a repeated theme of referencing the last movie, talking about how monstrous Sunset Shimmer was.  These aren’t enjoyable jokes.  They don’t even seem like jokes.
    Honestly, even the messages about friendship seem to be forced.  It would help if we saw the main characters actually getting along well before we see them go through hard times.

     Even though the subtitle for My Little Pony is "Friendship is Magic" - an idea to be taken literally - I wish that these features would try avoiding magical aspects in favor of a stronger script.  Maybe that wouldn't be as appealing to kids though.

     The highlight of it - Pinkie Pie playing the theremin.  It should have gone on longer, and I didn't care for the punchline, but it was nice to see that animated.