How to Train Your Dragon 2 Review
Well trained.
When you see every movie the week it comes out upon occasion you encounter a confluence of bad movie scheduling wherein you have seen everything that interests you and nothing comes out that seems worth the photons burned projecting the film from the screen to your eyeballs. This weekend looks pretty awful, with Think Like a Man (22% on Rotten Tomatoes) and Jersey Boys (56%, but the trailers make this film look like my worst nightmare. I have zero interest in the Four Seasons and actors talking to the camera is one of my personal grinds. Unless your name is Deadpool the 4th wall is there for a reason). I will see them both this weekend but couldn’t find the motivation to see a early late night showing last night.
Fortunately there is always my old friend the animated feature to fall back on. I did not see the previous How to Train Your Dragon. I wasn’t doing reviews back then. However I seem to stumble across it every time I write something else as pretty much every celebrity in Hollywood seems to have done a voice for it. I don’t really feel the need to see it as my point that any film should stand on its own without a prerequisite stands doubly true for kids films as a lot of the audience in 2014 were at best in diapers back in 2010. If I feel lost watching a sequel to an animated film for the lack of the first one then the creators are on the fail boat for sure.
Thus I must deem this film a success. The relevant points from the first film (dragons used to be bad but were tamed by the main character and are now friendly and happy domestic creatures who fly and breath fire) was communicated relatively seamlessly, leaving us with a coherent story and some great characters. I thought at first I was going to hate Hiccup, the main character buecause he’s kind of a skinny young metrosexual wimp and his name is Hiccup (the trend these days seems to be to keep male leads in all movies as androgynous as possible in order to hide that fact that men sometimes have penises and the desire to use them. Sure seems like every girl I go out with has had that fact hidden from them) but then I realized he is actually pretty cool, has a mechanical leg, a flaming sword, and a really cool dragon to fly around on.
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 35 the Doomsday Machine #StarTrek
This is one that nearly made my top 10 best episodes and on the right day definitely would. I love this one. It has everything a great Star Trek episode should have: honor, sacrifice, courage, duty, friendship, and the struggle to defeat a clear cut enemy with dire aims on masses of helpless people. This is one of those special episodes that is everything that makes Star Trek great refined into a fine wine.
This is also one of those episodes that got them a lot of heat back in the early 70’s. You don’t have to have a masters degree in literature to figure out that the Doomsday Machine was a less-than-subtle allegory for the a-bomb and the madness of a policy of mutually assured destruction. Back then there were some people who found that kind of criticism unpleasant.
In reflecting on this episode I suddenly realized something that distinguishes my favorite episodes from the ones I only really enjoy. I think I really like it when Kirk is in trouble. By that I mean he is so cool and in command at all times, but when circumstances force him out of his comfort bubble he is at his most awesome. When he has set the Constellation on it’s death plunge into the Doomsday Machine and the Enterprise transporter starts to fail he sounds honestly worried. Think about some other great episodes. Arena, Amok Time, City on the Edge of Forever; in all of these he is getting his ass kicked either physically or emotionally (sometimes both). Great drama comes from characters we care about overcoming adversity and there aren’t many characters I care about more than Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (and yet ironically I couldn’t care less if the new three were sucked into a Black Hole in the next JJ Abrams travesty. Read into that what you will).
the Infamous Dave Inman
Note-the image on this Star Trek t-hirt for once has the Episode numbers actually match. This one was both production #35 and release #35.
15 “Flawless” Science Fiction Movies #Sciencefiction
So a few days ago I did my review for Edge of Tomorrow and lamented the fact that an otherwise great movie was ruined by a dopey ending and it got me thinking: “What is a flawless sci fi movie and how many are there?” Now, by flawless I don’t mean the highest grossing or even the best or most entertaining. Often times the best movies are chalk full of flaws. Rather I mean what are some great sci fi movies where I cannot actually find a single flaw?
Now of course these films are highly subjective and definitely stem from my own sense of good or bad in science fiction but it’s my blog. I am going to restrict myself to hard science fiction and keep away from horror and fantasy (so no Lord of the Rings), even when they have some sci fi elements. This list is also going to differ from a list of flawless non-sci fi movies in that things like character (while important and highly appreciated by jaded reviewers such as myself) have less bearing than than concept and story. This list is not presented in any particular order and if you have one that you feel I missed feel free to post in the comments and I will agree or disagree with you.
22 Jump Street Review #22jumpstreet
A really funny movie with good characters. Too bad they wasted the R rating on language.
I’ve seen an ugly trend in film marketing and that is most film trailers pick clean all the best lines and moments from a film leaving us with the dregs and recycled remnants to process like a raccoon digging through the garbage. I’ve developed a serious dislike of trailers for this reason and since I see pretty much every film and have a decent memory it tends to drag down my enjoyment of most features. I sometimes wish I were more the complete sociopath most people assume I am and were willing to watch something on my smart phone until the movie starts.
The point is this film managed to avoid that issue by first of all having so many great, funny moments that you don’t begrudge having seen a couple previously and secondly by taking a lot of the trailer off the footage that never made the final cut. In the past I resented that but these days I’m quite glad. It avoids having all the steam taken from the film and gives me a little more to see than the basic run time of the film. If I really care about the missing scenes I’m sure eventually they will come out with 22 Jump Street the Directors Cut (or at least put the scenes on the added features of the DvD release).
So I laughed a lot at this film. It was very funny and knew enough about how much sequels suck to make a lot of fun of itself. That level of humorous self awareness is a rarity in Hollywood these days and quite refreshing. The characters from 21 Jump Street are back and even more intriguing now that I know them. The tongue-in-cheek humor was still present (albeit considerably less subtle than the last film). Plus while I hated my high school experience like I would a four year root canal sans Novocaine I quite enjoyed college (I almost got laid twice. One of the two was super religious and the other was technically a lesbian, but close twice is infinitely better than close zero. Not bad for seven years) and therefore was better able to connect with the characters.
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 36 Catspaw
This is one I both love and hate. For one I think the basic premise-creatures from a place so alien they cannot survive without their technology using illusion-to be pretty cool. This episode did some amazingly cheesy (in that they were both amazing and cheesy) perspective and camera tricks to make the cat look huge. In the days before CGI studios actually had to use talent to make effects work. Also as a kid I really, really wanted one of the voodoo model Enterprises but never got one. I should look around now.
Image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category.
However, can anyone tell me what the hell Korob and Sylvia were doing on Pyris VII in the first place? Was this some kind of Halloween trick-or-treat prank? Their plan was to build a castle on a desolate world and wait until some random losers happened to come exploring just to scare them with ghosts and witches? I seem to recall something about studying humans but if you have the technology to assume any form and keep completely hidden why not just go to Earth and participate in Lebowskifest? Odds are you will learn more about humanity there than you will by scaring a bunch of guys to death.
Also the furry blue and yellow mud bugs that Korob and Sylvia turn into kind of creep me out even to this day and I’m going to give Checkov a D- for his worst haircut in the entire series (and that is saying a lot). Seriously, I know they brought him in to try to capture some of the younger Beatles fans but this was ridiculous. Thank god he sharpened up a bit by TWOK.
Anyway, not the first episode I would look for but not the last. It did introduce the idea of VR as a means of maintaining illusion so I guess that’s good. Decent episode overall.
By the way I recently started reading TrekMovie.com and they just posted a notice that the rumors about Netflix doing a new Star Trek series are not true. Given the dross we were fed with Enterprise I’m kind of OK with that. That being said if they did do so I would be very curious to see what they came out with, as long as they stuck to the original story line and not the mutant medical waste that the canon has turned into to ever since the JJ Abrams reboot. JJ burn in hell.
the Infamous Dave Inman
The Fault in Our Stars Review
Yes I cried dammit.
I’m not even going to try to mask this under my usual thin layer of machismo. I naturally assume most of my readers are at least of above average intelligence and as such are generally perceptive enough to see that most of my macho bravado is a facade. I guess that’s the joke. During this movie two burning tears scalded tracks down the side of my face in what on a different day I might have called marks of shame but today I am just going to be OK with. Odds are within the next 30-40 words I will be back to my usual sarcastically bitter self but for now I will be OK with being vulnerable (my therapist would be highly pleased I think).
OK, enough of me spouting estrogen. Yes I saw it and in spite of the fact that I will now have to turn in my manliness card I quite enjoyed it. I think I see what women love about movies like this; it’s weirdly refreshing to feel a strong emotion (even a negative one) for a short duration and then be able to move on with your life (you know, when I think about it that’s kind of like how most guys see watching porn. Weird). You know, cry a little but not have it be something that sticks around with you. There wasn’t a dry eye in the very crowded theater (no way was I the creepiest person there. I was a perfectly normal dude in a Dickies shirt by himself in a theater full of women watching something I really had no business watching without a chick strong arming me to sit there). In my defense I did call a couple of my female friends in an attempt to get one of them to come with me but they all seemed to have other things to do.
So the movie was not what I would call great but was very effective. I am going to coin a new term here (Copyright 2014 David Inman): emotional waterboarding. This film holds it’s audience down with a towel over it’s head and forces a gushing hose of emotions into your face until you give it the response they want. Heavy handed does not begin to describe the emotional manipulation and by the end of the film I was feeling a little resentful for the lack of organic emotional flow. No one likes being told how to feel and this film does it in spades. Fortunately they do have a huge pile of talent both in front of and behind the camera to hide what they are doing but on some level you can’t help but feel it.
Chef Review
Charming and fun.
I saw this a few days ago. I am a John Favreau fan and enjoy his work. When he gets a sci fi movie gig I have hope for that franchise (unlike films that fall into the Bay hole or the Abrams triangle) and am of course a huge Swingers fan. He is a talented director and writer and I will give anything he does my best consideration.
So Chef. A very fun movie, greatly enhanced by both John Favreau and the rest of the cast. It reeks of vanity project but it is a good reek. John is too talented to do a vanity project badly, and honestly he is one of the few directors who in my opinion rate a one. He also has a prediction to cast all his hottest friends giving viewers such as myself (solo loser in the back of the theater eating popcorn, Whoppers, and a huge slice of loneliness pie) some nice eye candy.
All that being said it’s not amazing. The story is kind of lightweight and once the main plot element is established – a guy loses his job and starts a food truck – the movie tends to meander about for another hour. In spite of a ton of opportunities for conflict – the ex wife, the kid, his ex wife’s insane first husband, the former sous chef who more or less stole his job, the struggles someone starting a small business always faces (believe me I know), the a-hole former boss – nothing pops up. Everyone gets along great. About halfway through the film the truck is selling food in South Beach in Miami and a cop comes up asking for a permit. In a film with more oomph this would have been the perfect point for John’s character to get into trouble with the local law, maybe get into it with the cop and spend a night in jail, or have his business raked over the coals by the local city business officials but no, he whips out his permit and is told just to move down a few blocks. The cop even poses for a bunch of photos.
Edge of Tomorrow Review
Groundhog Day just got real.
SPOILERS INCOMING I’m going to have a hard time doing this review without spoilers so feel free to skip ahead to the last paragraph where I highly recommend this movie. This film managed to meet almost all of my hopes and expectations. It had a solid script, the hardest core science fiction you can possible get, excellent acting, edge of the seat action, and literally the latest and greatest in CGI and special effects. I would say this film is 95% of an awesome movie, and that the bad 5% comes in at the last 5 minutes.
The ending, while very (very, very, very) Hollywood caught me so off guard that I had to look at the source material, All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sikurazaka to see how much they changed the ending. However the original story is that very special Japanese sci fi that is to sci fi what Forbidden Planet is to regular movies. Uber sci fi and somehow always seems to involve monsters with tentacles. No help from there really.
As I have said before time travel as a plot device is a tricky beast, always waiting to jump up and bite you on the nuts. It can be done badly easily and using it correctly is the sign of a talented writer and director. The problem is time travel by its very nature has massive plot holes built in and if not treated right these holes can swallow your script. The time travel device here (resetting your day like in the movie Groundhog Day, or in every other sci fi series ever including Stargate SG1 and Supernatural) manages to avoid a lot of that pesky “conservation of mass and energy” business. Of course since human memory is theoretically chemical how memories can survive traveling back is still an issue, but this film managed to avoid that problem and the rest of the time paradox issues by more or less ignoring them.
Million Dollar Arm Review
Cute and fun.
I actually saw this film a while ago but have not been able to get to writing it up. My life has gotten even busier if that’s possible. I quite enjoyed it. Say what you will about Disney but in the execution of positive, uplifting movies they have no equal. When you see a Disney film you will have your heart warmed whether you want to or not.
Regular readers should recall that the list of things I would rather do than watch baseball is massive and includes things like sort my sock drawer and watch paint dry (I have found you can pretend you are watching a continent slowly being flooded out due to global warming if you look at it properly) yet I love baseball movies. I’m sure there is some kind of psychological reason that will inevitably boil down to a screaming need for approval from my father but the fact is I hate sports but love sports movies. However that kind of deep psychological investigation into my head is a dark and dangerous path so I will simply leave it by saying I have no idea why.
This film has a lot of the things I love in sports films and adds some wonderful cross cultural acceptance elements. My favorite parts were set in India as the main character tromped around the countryside looking for a cricket player who could pitch fast. The cheerful yet mercenary good will of the locals was very entertaining and seeing the protagonist learn to appreciate and love the countryside was refreshing.
Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 38 I, Mudd
All good things in entertainment go their start in Star Trek (at least in my mind) and in this episode we see the origin of the recurring villain (I know, Doctor Who probably did it first but throw me a bone here people). Yes, the great Harcourt Fenton Mudd (and no, I did not have to look up his whole name. I’m too big a fan for that. Challenge me with something hard, like what are TOS space outposts along the Nuetral Zone made of? (Cast rodinium)) resurfaces to once again plague the crew of the Enterprise.
I’m going to give this episode an A++ for continuity in that everyone from the ship recognized Harry EXCEPT Chekov. Why not Chekov you ask? Because he did not join the Enterprise until Season 2 and Mudd’s Women was Season 1. This is the kind of fact checking and professionalism I long for in modern entertainment writing. It’s almost like they knew 50 years in the future loser nerds such as myself would have nothing better to do than analyze and notice things like this (what’s that you say? Kironide? Psycho-tricorder? Yangs? Gary Seven? You just reminded me of something important-shut up).
I have to say this is also one of the most fun episodes ever. Mudd is great, and the way Spock and the crew foil the androids is pure Star Trek brilliance. Plus the punishment Kirk thought up with for Harry was awesome (“Stella, dear”. Again, no need for me to look up her name. Am I not awesome? Hot female Trek fans should be throwing themselves at me, unless this is Mirror Earth again. I couldn’t find an image I liked for this post from Star Trek but this Weyland-Yutani android logo from Aliens seems to fit in with the androids from Mudds world. I pulled it from the movie t shirt category).
Speaking of quality writing over the last couple years I have gotten a certain amount of heat from my fellow nerds (I refuse to call them Star Trek fans) for my brutal and unforgiving review of the last awful, awful JJ Abrams space fiasco (I also refuse to call it a Star Trek film). Well, I was very gratified to come across this very accurate Star Trek Into Darkness Honest trailer by the good people at Screen Junkies. If you have always felt like there was something wrong with that film but couldn’t put your finger on it (and are too busy to read the 3,833 words I wrote on it in my own Into Darkness Review) watching this will shed a lot of light on your puzzlement.
the Infamous Dave Inman
