Hunger Games – the first movie

The Hunger Games (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Things I liked:

• Katniss – actress I liked how athletic and real she looked and her braids were great.
• Lenny Kravatz as Cinna.
• The 1930s era clothes for the District 12. Is this right?
• Action part – the actual games – done very well.
• The opening scene was very tense and scary.

Things I didn’t like:

• The shaky cam at the beginning. It went on too long.
• The flaming capes were more dramatic in my imagination.
• Peeta came off as emo and wimpy rather than compassionate and smart. Kat didn’t like him at all from the movie version. They skimped too much on the bread saving Katniss backstory.
• The big ending was a little lacking in tension because they undercut it earlier.

I’ll watch the film sequel which might be more fun than the second book – Catching Fire.

Summing up Sci-Fi Movie Project

I had fun watching all these science fiction movies but my recording of the experience was a mess.  I enjoyed it but it wasn’t as satisfying as the mystery movie experience or really the horror movie project which I didn’t record at all.  Which is just as well, a lot of famous horror movie haven’t aged well.

• Space Travel 5
• Dystopia/Postapocalypse  4
• Robots 1
• Mad Scientists/Experiments 6
• Time Travel 3
• Adventure 3
• Psi powers 2
• Aliens 7
• Virtual Reality 2

Would Watch Again:  Star Trek, Children of Men

Most disappointed: Primer, The Thing

1. 1902 Trip to the Moon C
2. 1924 Aelita: The  Queen of Mars C
3. 1933 Invisible Man B
4. 1936 Buck Rogers C
5. 1942 Dr. Renault’s Secret C
6. 1951 Thing from Another World B
7. 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers A
8. 1957 Monolith Monsters B
9. 1958 I Married a Monster from Outer Space C
10. 1964 Last Man on Earth B
11. 1970 THX 1138 C
12. 1972 Solaris A
13. 1975 A Boy and His Dog A
14. 1982 The Thing B
15. 1983 Videodrome B
16. 2002 Minority Report B
17. 2004 Primer D
18. 2006 Children of Men A
19. 2008 Journey to the Center of the Earth C
20. 2009 Push C
21. 2009 Star Trek A
22. 2009 Surrogates B

 

Surrogates (2009)

Cover of Surrogates

Human perfection. What could go wrong?

In a world in which everyone has an android avatar, one man seeks out the truth in his own skin.

Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) is an FBI agent investigating the murder of a young man in a case that includes many players and possibly a conspiracy.  He’s also ticked off that his wife is hiding behind her surrogate and partying rather than sharing his grieving for their deceased son.

It starts off really well with the son of the inventor of the surrogates being murdered in a mysterious manner.  It’s mysterious as the human interfacing with the surrogates is not supposed to die even if their surrogate has been killed.  I like the idea of changing one important aspect of society and then examining how that changes the whole of society.  Failing that, I like a mystery.

This movie turned out to be an action movie with some tut-tutting about people using computer mediated communication rather than talking to each other in real life.

It’s an OK action movie.  As a science fiction movie, it’s pretty lackluster.

Reviews

Roger Ebert’s review

ReelViews’ review

Salon.com’s review

Fletch’s review

One more review

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Star Trek (2009)

Image by Dallas1200am via Flickr

Star Trek 2009

The future begins.

I admit I teared up in the first five minutes of this movie.  I think what I liked best about this movie is that it was so much fun.  I didn’t have to excuse it or suffer through poorly done bits – it was just right.

The  story takes place in the salad days of  James T. Kirk, Spock, Uhura, et. al., and they have a rollicking good time and there’s an easily dispatched villain and Old!Spock makes an appearance.

All the actors exhibit a few mannerisms of the originators but they are not too broad.  This was a treat for me to see if I could pick up all the allusions to the role originators or the rest of the Star Trek opus but I’m sure I missed a lot of them.

I wondered if a person who was unfamiliar with the original shows would get anything out of it.  But my friend had never seen any Trek shows or movies and she liked it as much as I did.

I am happily anticipating the sequel.

Tidbits:

Fun – Spoiler

Leonard Nimoy on the cast

Gene Roddenberry on his legacy

Zachary Quinto’s casting

J. J. Abrams on Star Trek’s technology

Simon Pegg’s casting

Sulu’s fencing

Spock’s parents

J. J. Abram’s take on the tone

John Cho’s casting

Chris Pine and William Shatner

Zachary Quinto and the Vulcan salute

Chris Pine’s preparation

Conclusion:  Popcorn movie at its finest.

Reviews:

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• “Writers Kurtzman and Orci Talk Star Trek Sequel” and related posts (beyondhollywood.com)
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Push (2009)

One push can change everything.

How do you make a movie of teens with psi powers being chased by ruthless villains devoid of interest?  This movie shows you how.

director: Paul McGuigan

actors:  Chris Evans (Nick Grant); Dakota Fanning (Cassie Holmes)

plot:  Americans Nick and teen Cassie have psi powers who are seeking to destroy the Division, a covert government agency bent on turning powered young people into super soldiers.  Nick and Cassie learn about another young woman who has survived the Division’s usually fatal experiments, and they include finding her as one of their many objectives.

My take:  The Hong Kong setting is vibrant and rough-edged, the character histories are arresting, the acting is passable.  The story faltered and fell flat on its face but popped up and pretended that it hadn’t happened.

In essence, the heroes don’t clear their levels but they get a free pass to the final cut scene anyway.  What’s worse is that they are nonchalant about it, and considering the gravity with which their tale began, it’s just aggravating.

But here’s the good part:

Watchers:  prophets, seers, precognition.

Movers: telekinesis.

Pushers: implant memories.

Bleeders:  super screamers, like the movie Scanners only sillier.

Sniffs: psychometrics.  trackers.

Shifters: illusionists.

Wipers: of memories.

Shadows:  psychic camouflage.

Stitches:  medic, healer.

Tidbits:  I think there’s a comic book which would probably be better.

Conclusion:  You could be forgiven for really liking this movie, it’s a like a preview for another very entertaining movie.

Reviews:

ReelViews – link – positive

Roger Ebert – link – negative & funny about it

AV Club – link – positive

Chud – link – negative

Film Jerk – link – negative

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

Image by Thomas Roche via Flickr

Same Planet. Different World.

director:  Eric Brevig

actors:  Brendan Frasier (Trevor Anderson) , Josh Hutcherson (Sean), Anita Briem (Hannah)

opening:  My heart still belongs to the somewhat dopey 1959 version with Gertrude the duck.  But this version sticks closer to the original novel.

plot:  A benignly mad volcanologist Anderson and his nephew Sean travel to Iceland to find the center of the earth.  In Iceland, they acquire their skeptical guide, Hannah to lead them to the amazing underground world.

my take:  It’s a pity that they do stick closer to the original because it was dry read as I recall.  They could have souped it up a bit.  It is a visually attractive film – the “ocean” voyage was particularly impressive.  There are a few caving jokes that made my caving friend laugh, so that’s a plus.  It’s also family friendly (some of the sexual tension between James Mason and Arlene Dahl is a bit weird nowadays).  Frasier and Briem cause any trouble in that way.  Sean and Trevor seem to fit better as would be adventurers – if the film hadn’t kowtowed to the special effects department and upped the two-guys-seriously-adventuring vibe, it might have worked.

tidbits:  My caving friend stated that the rappelling that Trevor does in the movie is very difficult and it was very impressive.

It was originally scripted by Paul Chart but he left the project which doomed it.

Conclusion:  It was OK, innocuous but not worth making.

Reviews:

Reel View link – negative

Roger Ebert link – indifferent

Salon.com link – positive

Flick Filosopher – link – positive

Christian Science Monitor – link – negative

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Children of Men (2006)

Cover of Children of Men [Blu-ray

The Future’s a Thing of the Past

No children are conceived any more.  The youngest “child” is 18.  Humanity is doomed.

Plot

Once upon a time, Theo (Clive Owen) was an activist and once he was in love.  Now he morosely observes as the world crumbles around him.  He sees the government discriminate and mistreat immigrants but does nothing.  He sees the decay of society whose main pleasure is a pointless worship of the last “child” but does nothing.  He does nothing at all till an old flame Julian (Julianne Moore) shows up with a secret.

Religious Symbolism

Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) is pregnant, father unknown, her child is unique and will save the world.  She reveals her pregnancy among a small herd of donkeys.  She gives birth in a filthy and begrudgingly given room.  The man who shelters her is not the father of the child.  They must go on a journey and avoid those who would harm or at least abduct the baby.  She and the child are almost regarded as holy, particularly the characters who let her past un-accosted in the midst of war.

Political Symbolism

The real meat of the story is the political one concerning the  strife between the oppressed and the oppressors and the difficult circumstances which precipitate them.  Reviews listed below and the trivia page at IMBD are good starting places to learn more about that.

Female Characters

I feel the female characters were given short shrift.

There is little hint that Kee can care for herself or that she has any sort of agency.  Her personality is fairly uneven too: she makes a few sarcastic comments and pouts a bit and then basically gives over her future to Theo.  She doesn’t appear to have a sense of  the enormity of her pregnancy and how it will affect her personally and the world at large.  Not that she needed to be overly self-aware but she could have been more to the story than a pot to grow a baby.

Julian, too was a disappointment.  How has she managed to guide an operation as successful as she has in such a volatile political stage, and be such a flake?  She acts ditsy, always spouting whimsical stuff and displaying her distinctive red hair.  Frolicking with an ex-flame and completely oblivious to the intensity of the possibilities of danger in carrying out the mission.   She was as blank as Kee, and just a plot point to get Theo involved.

It appears that the filmmakers took the title Children of Men at face value.

ETA.  The inn keeper as noted by RoseKat is neither devoid of personality nor is she slow to react to the situation as it changes.  I believe her name is Marishka (Oana Pellea). Kudos.

Conclusion

Clive Owen was perfect for the role.  I loved him in this movie and his story kept me on the edge of my seat.   I like his chivalry, his protective qualities, his everyman qualities.  I bought him.  I believed that he was a real guy, somewhere.  It’s an engrossing movie and worth the time.

I would watch it again.

Minority Report (2002)

Image via Wikipedia

Quotation: Everybody Runs

Elizabeth I is quoted as saying that she did “‘not [like] to make windows into men’s souls and secret thoughts.”    In practice, that sentiment is not especially popular in governance.  In Minority Report, the authorities open window to everyone’s secret thoughts and the results are convoluted to say the least.

Philip K. Dick, the darling of sci-fi movie makers, provides a short story as the framework for Steven Spielberg.

Futuristic oracles, 3 genetically altered pre-cogs, predict when someone is about to commit murder.  The murderer’s name is inscribed on a ball which is a nice visual but makes no sense.  Then the cops of the future like John Anderton (Tom Cruise) work backwards and figure out who is the most likely suspect and arrest him or her before the crime is committed.

All is well in Anderton’s life until he is tagged as a potential murderer.  Thereupon, he has to elude the cops and figure out his own motive and stop himself before it’s too late.  The key to the puzzle is the minority report.

I’m surprised that this system is not shown to be unacknowledged but widely abused.  Wouldn’t politicians rid themselves of undesirables right and left?  Would there be any marriages or families intact?

It’s a Hitchcockian thriller in that an innocent man (for now) is being hounded by authorities and he must extricate himself.   As reviewers point out, there is a lot of film noir lighting in this film.  Anderton is cynical, drug addicted, and morose.  He is also the purest man in a very corrupt world.

It was entertaining and had an interesting premise.  I didn’t even mind Cruise, though usually I have little use for his acting.

Videodrome (1983)

Cover of Videodrome

First it controls your mind…then it destroys your body

Here’s a gruesome sci-fi horror from David Cronenberg.  I’ve been nervous about watching it for a long time.

Max Renn (James Woods) is a fast-talking cable tv programmer with a taste for sleaze and a kinky girlfriend, Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry).  He gets the opportunity to watch a mysteriously broadcasted show named “Videodrome,” which is nothing but sexualized torture. He thinks he’s found gold. As he learns more about the people behind the show, he finds the whole thing is more than he can stomach.*

Renn begins the movie as a sadist-in-denial but his girlfriend has completely embraced her masochism.  Half way through the movie, these two turn out to be as straight-edge as the characters get.

According to the reviews I’ve been reading, Renn represents society’s corruption and its perverse desires being controlled by technology that is supposed to sate those desires.

Cronenberg gives a nod to Marshall McCluhan’s theories of media in the characters’ pontifications.  Renn meets a digital fanatic named Brian O’Blivion (Jack Creley) who only appears on a screen not in person.  O’Blivion has opened a Cathode Ray mission house for the homeless, and he thinks virtual life is superior to real life.

A Boy and His Dog (1975)

Image via Wikipedia

A rather kinky tale of survival.

It’s not so much kinky as it is vicious.

The boy is Vic (Don Johnson) and the dog is Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire).  In a post apocalyptic world, the clever and telepathic Blood and young Vic struggle to survive.  Vic’s two goals are to find food and to find women.  Blood simply wants food.  Vic discovers a different kind of woman in Quilla (Susanne Benton) but she may prove more of a challenge than he anticipated.

Bad Movies.org says that it influenced the making of Road Warrior, and I can see that.  Everything is scrappy, dirty, derelict.  People are focused on survival and violence above all.  The world feels destroyed.  Even worse are the hints that people have mutated into dangerous and alien beings.

I must say that A Boy and His Dog is not a feminist film. In fact it’s pretty much anti-woman.  The only woman with any kind of strength in the movie reveals herself to be controlling and cruel.  It is not pleasant to watch how women are treated in the movie but at least it is overt misogyny unlike many Hollywood movies.

There is an interesting emphasis on literacy.  The dog teaches the boy how to read and prods him into reciting the presidents of the USA.

It is based on a novella by Harlan Ellison.  Different reports have him approving or disapproving of the result.  At least, it’s irreverent and scrappy, and surely some part of him approves.

Good movie but hard to take in spots.

Reviews:

Roger Ebert review.

John Smyth review.

Bad Movies.org review.

Light Views review.

Richard Scheib review.

Scifimoviepage review.