Before I start with the movies, Selene brought up something in the comments of my anime post: She wondered if I could have a short index of the anime I write about at the top of the post, and if people see something they are interested in reading about, they can scroll down and find it pretty easily with a bit less fear of spoiling any of the other shows I write about. Would this be helpful for anyone else? If so, I would be only too glad to implement it -- I'd even go back through the other posts and do this if, for whatever reason, someone has a buttload of time on his or her hands and decides to journey through my archive. (And I encourage this because the posts are all tagged!)
Anyway, movies, hooray!
Escaflowne (2000): Already wrote about it earlier this week, but yeah, not that good. The worst part of it is 1) the mains have these dopey, extreme personalities (Hitomi is depressed and confused, Van is ANGRY!1!1!!11! and Folken is bitter and nihilistic) and 2) Everyone else has boring, vanilla personalities. Allen, for instance. What the hell does he do?? I think he told Van to settle down once and slashed some guy. That's about the extent of his characterization. Dilandau is just a generic crazy villain instead of an awesome crazy villain. Millerna is a textbook Faux Action Girl. And so on and so forth. There is probably a way to make a good, streamlined version of an anime movie, but this isn't it. This is real pretty, though! (To be expected, since it is animated by BONES.)
X/1999 (1996): ... and this isn't the way to do it, either. The worst part of the X movie is how it suckers you in during the beginning by being sort of halfway decent and making you think, "Huh, this isn't really quite as bad as its reputation -- at least it's making an effort right now!" and then everything is blown to little violent chunks. When I watched the X anime, I didn't like the main antagonist because he came off as a generic villain to me, but he's even worse here. At least he does some intriguing things in the anime. He just blows shit up in the movie (including his subordinates, because they don't have time to get proper backstories he doesn't need them). And god help you if you are a Dragon of Earth or Heaven other than Kamui or the main villain, because you get absolutely nothing. Seishirou and Subaru -- the two best characters in X!!!!! -- get killed in the first few minutes. Kusanagi is morphed from a conflicted man to a boring villain. (Never thought I would hate a Jouji Nakata-voiced character, but congrats, you made it possible, X. You, too, Escaflowne!! *shakes fist at the both of them*) Yuuto is just ... there, as is Nataka. Everyone else gets a bare bones story. It's just so bad, and the violence is ramped up to absurd levels because there really is no way you can care about anyone in this movie. (Even Sorata's awesome Heroic Sacrifice is butchered because there is no reason to give a shit about him.) And the ending ... WTF is that??? What is the point??? "Sorry, kid, UNMEI is going to shit on you every chance it can get, SUCK ON THAT." Good lord.
Dark Passage (1947): Pretty good noir movie. It's notable for being shot in first-person for about the first half hour or so (for plot-related reasons I won't spoil here). Lauren Bacall is a better reason to watch this than Humphrey Bogart. She has this great calm self-assuredness to her character, but there is a fire lurking just below the surface. Bogart is good, of course, but it's more "generic Bogart" than "really good Bogart". The ending took me by surprise, though. It's kind of crazy.
Watchmen (2009): Probably about as good as a movie adaptation of Watchmen could possibly be. There is plenty of stuff cut out, and the ending is very different, but I think that decision is for the better because to do the original ending would introduce a level of complexity that would just ruin the flow of the movie. (Not gonna lie, though: I do miss the squid. :P) For the most part, however, it is pretty damn faithful to the story, and I think it is a credit to how fantastic Watchmen's story and characters are that it is not at all boring now matter how many times I go through it, and no matter the medium. (Compare that to, say, the Death Note live action movie, which is boring as shit if you already know the story.) And the visuals ... oh my god. I really wish I could have seen this in IMAX. That would have been a hell of an experience. If there's one complaint I have, it's that I wish the movie could have gone a bit deeper into the past of the first generation of superheroes, but I can understand that they probably didn't have the time to fully flesh that out ... and I will say that the beginning montage is pretty freakin' wonderful. Don't know how tough it would be to piece together what is happening if you are a newbie, but I loved it.
High Anxiety (1977): Eh, kind of a misfire for Mel Brooks. There are funny parts, but Hitchcock is a tough guy to satirize since a lot of his movies are inherently self-mocking. Cloris Leachman is absolutely hilarious in this, however. She plays a hardline nurse who is in a sadomasochistic relationship with one of the doctors at the asylum Mel Brooks' character works at. The way she has complete control over everyone there made me laugh so much. I also love all the fourth-wall breaking jokes regarding the suspenseful music and the camera movements. But then there are other parts that really drag, and the plot itself isn't as funny or interesting as, say, The Producers or Young Frankenstein or even Spaceballs.
On the queue for this week: Uh, whatever I feel like/have time to watch from the ginormous list I put out last week.
Total Movies: 131 (Gaslight, The Last King of Scotland, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Diary of the Dead, Bullets Over Broadway, Interiors, Husbands and Wives, The Professional: Golgo 13, Lars and the Real Girl, Lolita, Quills, Hamlet, Iris, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Savages, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Stranger, Love and Death, Harold and Maude, Spartacus, Scarlet Street, Sabrina, Zelig, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Stardust Memories, Barry Lyndon, Be Kind Rewind, Radio Days, Deconstructing Harry, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Creating Rem Lazar, Undefeatable, Ninja Terminator, Ninja Dragon, Rumble Fish, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, In Bruges, The Bank Dick, Marathon Man, Clannad, Air, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, MirrorMask, Slither, It's a Gift, Splendor in the Grass, Waitress, North by Northwest, Monkey Business, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, The Brave One, 3:10 to Yuma, Bringing Out the Dead, Gurren Lagann: Gurren-hen, There Will Be Blood, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Spellbound, Frenzy, Anatomy of a Murder, Clue, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Changeling, Shadows and Fog, Into the Wild, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1987), Synecdoche, New York, Carlito's Way, Shoot 'Em Up, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Up, Yor: Hunter from the Future, Tropic Thunder, True Romance, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, A Woman Under the Influence, Casablanca, Frost/Nixon, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Le Samouraï, Inland Empire, The Reader, Doubt, Arachnophobia, Manhunter, Wild At Heart, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Omega Man, Hitman, Leaving Las Vegas, Cape Fear, Say Anything ..., Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Chasing Amy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Point Break, 500 Days of Summer, Man Bites Dog, Burn After Reading, Glory, Training Day, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, White Heat, All About Eve, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Big Heat, Death at a Funeral, Valkyrie, Shane, Stalag 17, Secondhand Lions, Bride of Frankenstein, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Witness for the Prosecution, In a Lonely Place, Dracula, Escaflowne, Dark Passage, X/1999, Watchmen, High Anxiety)
