Movie Reviews

Of course Babel lost, thats generally the end result for a movie that sucked.

I am not going to mix words since I lost 2 1/2 hours of life to this movie that ranks right next to Elizabethtown, Bandidas, Weatherman and I “heart” Huckabees for the worst movies I have seen in the last few years.

So if this movie came and went with a small amount of chatter that would be the end of it, as not all movies appeal to all people, but the fact that it was nominated is a complete joke.

This movie seems to have stacked up alot of good critic’s reviews and then a huge percentage of “users or patrons” that thought it to be beyond bad. I dont see this type of diverse opionion without issues.

This movie was and is boring, way too long for such little conflict or story, unconnected to itself and completely without a point, plot or actual story of interest.

This movie spends so long trying to unravel itself in a slow and interesting way that you will find that you just dont care anymore what the point is. The best part to this conclusion is that it never does get around to its point.

2 hours into the movie I was looking at the clock thinking “this cant possibly save itself with only 20 minutes left?!”. This never does save itself, it only gets worse with more plot holes at the end and unconnected story points and preaching.

The small group that praises this film says it a story about the “limits of communication”, which is a fancy way to say its about nothing but if you dont love it then you just aren’t insightful enough to “get it”. These people are fools, and this movie is just plain bad. If you find this statement harsh, please go rent this movie and suffer through it, then comment on how right I was to be harsh.

The movie has 4 main and seperate plotlines. Of the 4 main platlines any one could be completely removed from the movie and the story would still be exactly the same.

The entire section of this movie taking place in Japan, we will refer to as the ‘porn section’ of the movie, has nothing at all to do with the story. Those trying to say this is a good movie will make a slight connection about the “butterfly effect”, or how the action of this character in the past led to the other plotlines, but the connection is so obscure it really doesnt matter.

To make the matter of no story or plot of interest worse they pepper the movie with obvious political agenda which means way “over the top dramatic” injections about the world.

The movie gives us Middle eastern charaters “just try to live in violence” and illegal immigrants “just trying to be good American’s”, and in the background you see the purposely placed picture of George Bush.

This movie is bad, if you think its great then you are likely trying to make yourself feel superior. I can not find any other “Oscar nominated movies” where 30-45% of all viewers thought it sucked.

Visit Yahoo.com and pan through the user reviews and see what the people say about this movie. You will find that 2 of every 5 viewers hated this movie. I didnt just say 40% didnt like it much, I said they hated it. Also, you will see the reasons for this hate were the same across the board. This 40% of viewers all found it pointless with no plot, preachy and boring to the point of many walking out.

Take a look and see, and ask yourself how can so many people who walked out or thought this movie completely awful not have some basis of this opinion.
40% of Babel Viewers Hated it, the rest acted superior

Here is what an Oscar Movie looks like, it gets almost all A’s with perhaps 1 in 20 viewers saying they hated it as opinions come in all shapes and sizes.
A true best Picture - Amadeus

Any finally here is what the best movie of 2006 looks like. This is by far the best movie of 2006 without question. Read through the hundreds of reviews written by patrons of this movie and see that it is all A ratings with a handful of F’s. Those who didnt like this movie all had the same simplistic complaint, “too much violence”. You will see those who said it was bad because of “violence” all generally still commented on how beautiful the sets and story were. You will also see the very few who didnt love this movie all expected it to be like Harry Potter IE: for kids.

Pan’s Labyrinth is the best movie of 2006, and Babel is the worst movie to ever be a nominee for best picture.
Pan’s Labyrinth is the best movie of 2006

Pan’s Labyrinth

Just got blindsided by this great movie!

Don’t believe me, see what the rest of the free world says here.

Trying to get out to see the Departed, and got vetoed into a movie I wasn’t even aware of. Pan’s Labyrinth or El Laberinto del Fauno is a English subtitled movie in spanish, that despite this fact has somehow up for 4 Academy Awards I believe?

If your looking to take this one in it is Showing at the Concord AMC Theater here
Concord Show Times From Charlotte.com

I must first say the the Oscars are a joke ever since Lord of The Rings won 12 in one year, which proves they are all about marketing or that the cast of LOTR was the ones voting. I do acknowledge LOTR to have been a good movie, but to have won this many awards proves the Oscars to be a popularity and marketing contest.

Well this movie was such a great surprise, one that no moviegoers get anymore. The fact that I knew nothing other than the genre of the movie was “fantasy”, and that the movie had be said to be “very violent”, made the surprise so much better.

Not knowing all the best lines from spammy commercials made me want the story to go on for 4 hours, as it was all 100% fresh to me.

The movie is like a Timothy Burton film, something along the lines of LOTR, Harry Potter or perhaps Jim Carrey’s Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events is the best comparison.

BUT, and I cant stress this enough, this is not a kid’s film, it is rated R with good reason. The fact that this film allowed an R rating to stay on it proves it to be a non polluted non corrupted film.

Had this been produced in Hollywood, they surely would have removed a few violent scenes and gotten this down to PG13 and then marketed it as a dark fantasy film for kids. This is dark fantasy, but no kids under 15 should be at this one.

I did think it was overblow the amount of violence people claimed it showed, as it wasnt really that much, and in reality was a very light “R” rating. The violence shown was 2-3 scenes of someone taking a beating, or a bloodless bullet to the head. Ther was alot of blood shown, but nothing that would bring nightmares, it was all “wartime” style gore, and no “horror style gore”.

This movie was a very one of a kind blend of two genres that didnt belong together. This was a fantasy childrens movie trapped inside of a war film. This blend is a pefect anology for the films concept which was of a child wishing for this fantasy while she is stuck in a violent place and time in her real life. One represents an escape from the other.

I saw many comparisons to Narnia, or personal reviews saying it was “no Narnia” which I thought to be incredibly insulting to this film. Not in Narnia’s wildest dreams could it even be worthy of showing its trailer before Pan’s Labyrinth.

For Narnia represented one of the biggest dissappointments I have ever seen. Narnia was so much a childrens film it bordered on Barney Videos. Narnia was a kids movie that rode the shirttals of Harry Potter and LOTR, while Pan’s Labyrinth follows the footsteps of Edward Scissorhands. This film is one of a kind, very enjoyable, unique and one of the few things in the theaters worth the insane $9 ticket price.

This film did not get nominated for best Actor, Movie or Director, and is settling for the secondary Art Direction and Original Screenplay awards. It is a sad shame that agents pushing their product seem to keep getting big names and “stars” pushed to the stage while true artform and actual acting (not models pretending to act) is left unawarded.

Little Miss Sunshine has a good chance of walking out with the best movie award this year, and it was a good movie. I have seen both of these, and Pan’s Labyrinth is 10 times the film in many ways.

I am NOT a guy who puffs out his chest and pretends that “artsy” stuff is better in anyway, but this time it really is, this one time the best movie of the year was a tiny bit “artsy fartsy”, had subtitles and did not star Brad Pitt. (smell my sarcasm)

http://www.panslabyrinth.com/

Charlotte Critic
Review For War Of The Worlds

3 Stars

The summer of Competent movies continues. After the dry spell of movies to end all dry spells this summer is on a roll of good not great movies. Again for people seeing this, keep in mind that I dont go see crap, I read all other reviewers before agreeing to see a movie, and I am forever looking for the movie that does every part right….no matter the genre. Now,..throw in the fact that I am a huge HG well fan, and he is one of the writing geniuses of the last 120 years (if you didnt know his best books “Time Machine”, Invisible Man”, and “War of the Worlds” were written pre-1900) The genius of Well is that these concepts we take for granted like “heat rays” as he called them were not even imagined too clearly in his era. He created science fiction from true dirt and sticks. War of the Worlds was my least favorite of his classics but a good book all the same. I am also a Tom Cruise and Spielberg fan so its a given im seeing this. I went in looking to be that dick who says, the book is different blah blah. Overall they did a decent job of stay “somewhat” on target to the concepts of the original (unlike that piece of crap Time Machine Movie). The size and scope of the tripods was excellent, I think speilberg made great choices in the “little things that count” throughout the movie. When the “heat ray” kills people what to make it look like??? Too gory and its an R movie, too lame and its Mars Attacks all over again. He made a perfect in between as people turned to ash, and one lad gave a Raiders of the lost ark closeup of her face…POOF. So Spielberg,. a nice happy medium on the artistic choices throughout. I need to sleep so this is in all a entertaining movie. This movie did not go down the queer path of Independence Day and other Bling movies design to make money (25 yr old president who flies air force jets?). This movie also didnt go so far as that piece of crap AI movie did to try to pretend its art when it merely entertainment. Sidenote: Tim Robbins,…um was he really neccesary? Cant we give small/medium parts to actors that need them and will help us concentrate on the movie and not waste energy thinking HEY Theres the ShawShank Guy! All in all this is a summer “blockbuster” by the book with a few pluses on high quality spielberg touches throughout.

Cinderella Man

4 Stars 

Charlotte Critic
Review For Cinderella Man

Its 6:10am so ill keep this one on target. This is a very good movie, as have most of this summers movies been. This will likely mop up at the Academy Awards, which is fine since that is why this kind of movie is made in the first place. Frankly the Oscars rank right next to winning a title in the WNBA for me, no i take that back;since I have no respect for either but the WNBA title is still the result of hard work;.layups and hard work. This movie will win many an Oscar based on the theme, the time period which makes for nice sets and costumes, and the solid acting throughout. Crowe is very good and fits the part perfectly. He manages to carry just the right look in his eyes where you believe hes a fighter, and thats a little thing that makes a movie feel good look good without trying , and work perfectly. A few of the fights, and one moment of extreme poverty that I can relate to will definately even make the men watching pretend they have eye allergies. Which again is what this kind of movie is designed to do. If the mission of Ron Howard / Richie / Opie taylor was to win an Oscar or two I assume he will, and he is deserving to do so. A close second to Galdiator for Crowe.

Charlotte Critic
Review For Spiderman 2

4.5 Stars 

Spiderman 2 been to quite a few movies this month and quite a few in general. I like to think I go in with a critics eye looking for more that entertainment but how all elements that make a movie worked individually. Without further babble this summer has been very worthy after a long dry spell of garbage. Going into the summer I had gone about 2 years with only one decent movie in the theaters. The only movie I would consider good in the last two years would be Spiderman 2, which was an excellent movie, and by far the best superhero genre flick of all time w/superman 2. Spiderman 2 I am not a fan of Spiderman at all and expected mediocrity walkng into this movie, what was delivered was one of the few “complete movies” in the last few years. This movie escaped the MTV bling effect and clearly was counting on quality over BS advertising and marketing for success. The villians was played solidly, and Spiderman was the only hero character that was so well played he seeemed human which was the goal and idea of this movie, that fact that he is mortal underneath and reluctant to be busied with heroism. The line he delivers “this is heavy…” while holding up about 2000 tons of steel is the pinnacle of a great acting job and a complete well rounded classic hero movie. A solid deserving flick worthy of watching 3 times