Before watching the movie:
I found this because I was looking for Christmas movies. I thought I knew what this movie was about, then I read more than one description. Now I’m less sure. Something about a crisis hotline, and somehow a tangled mess of relationships is involved.
Lots of big-to-medium names here. It’s sold as a comedy, and Steve Martin is in it, so it should be fun.
Before watching the movie:
My impression of this movie is that in many respects, it got out of hand. The intent was to deliver a realistic example of what traveling on the Titanic would have been like, but the detail got out of hand. Also it’s impossible to get people to sit in the theater for over three hours of beauty passes over grand staircases, so a generic love story had to be dropped in, which also got out of hand.
Finally, Neil Degrasse Tyson got out of hand. I have a lot of respect for the docent astrophysicist, but even though I’ve heard the argument for fixing the sky to have accurate stars several times, I don’t buy it. Yes, there was a lot of detail lavished on the ship and costumes that would go overlooked by most people, but that detail has a lot more chance to impart valuable information about the setting than the positions of points of light in the sky. I like to be complete, but there’s a point where returns on detail diminish. Nobody was looking at the stars before Tyson complained.
Before watching the movie:
Way back in my first year of doing this blog, I found a four-movie set of Michael J. Fox comedies. For practical reasons, the only one I ended up reviewing, or even seeing, was For Love or Money (though I prefer the other title, The Concierge), which happened to be the one I was least interested in. It was still a very enjoyable movie.
I recently remembered that and got around to tracking down the other movies from it that I hadn’t seen (I already own one from the set, which I’ve been wanting to watch again), and now that the musicals theme has reached its end, I can watch this one.
I know I’ve seen other stories of families backstabbing each other to get in good graces with the rich dying relative, but I can’t name any. The closest specific thing that comes to mind is a sketch by The Frantics.
Before watching the movie:
When I read the blurb, I realized I’d let the title trick me into thinking of it as a direct parody of “Space Odyssey”, which is a reasonable assumption but unusually late. It appears that it’s more a genre parody that got stuck with the title because everything got titles with “2000” in the late 90s.
I’m hoping this is more “enjoyably passable” like Spy Hard than “barely tolerable” like the Scary Movie series. Continue reading
Before watching the movie:
I get the sense that the 90s were a rough time for sci-fi movies, especially the early 90s. However, I can’t back that up with anything, and all the examples I can come up with are good.
I was never very interested in this movie as a killer vs. killer in the future action flick, but I’ve recently learned that it makes culture shock jokes about how society has changed, which is an interest of mine. I like to think about how the future will get us wrong, and otherwise how foreign it would probably be.
As an action sci-fi this never stood out. As a sci fi action comedy, Demolition Man might actually be a fun experience. Continue reading
Before watching the movie:
This is a big award-winning film. Tom Hanks’s first Oscar. Apparently he liked drama so much only Pixar can get him to come back to comedy anymore.
This feels like one of those safe messages that Hollywood likes to play with to net awards, but a lot has changed since 1993. The stance was more controversial at the time. Well, it’s still controversial, but the prevailing opinion is now more aligned with the film. I can’t really speak to how it was received because I was five years old at the time.
So much as I’m ever excited, I’m looking forward to starting something fun next week.
Before watching the movie:
As I think about what to write about my preconceptions, I realize that I know a lot about this movie, more than I remember at first glance, but I still don’t reallyknow about it. It’s just a thing that’s been there, and at the same time it makes perfect sense and is completely alien.
Johnny Depp’s character is a Frankenstein-type monster, I guess? That or an automaton. What’s important is that through a quirk of fate, he has vicious blades instead of hands, which is ironic because he’s actually very gentle. But somehow, that doesn’t seem powerful enough for such a popular movie.
Before watching the movie:
I hadn’t intended to create a theme, but here’s another theater movie set during a historical time of unrest. This time the Cuban Missile Crisis, and somehow screening a movie too close to reality for comfort causes a plot to happen.
I’m mainly here for John Goodman, but I’ll probably find something good that the blurbs haven’t been able to express.
Before watching the movie:
Well, I liked Hairspray, and Johnny Depp disappears into his roles entertainingly. A John Waters musical with Johnny Depp should be fun. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a movie where Depp seriously sang other thanThe Nightmare Before Christmas, so I can’t predict how well he’ll be able to lead a live-action musical.
As this is a musical set in the 1950s about kids in leather jackets and their relationships, I’m expecting a movie more like Grease than Grease was.
EDIT: I have been reminded that Johnny Depp was not in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Trying to hear him in Jack Skellington is probably part of the reason I have a hard time identifying him.
Before watching the movie:
This movie stars Alec Baldwin and Sean Connery, is based on Tom Clancy’s work, and the main thing I’m thinking about is that the plot reminds me of the Star Trek episode “Face of the Enemy”. That’s how my mind works.
Alec Baldwin’s obviously in the “taking things seriously” part of his career, and I have no great expectations for Connery other than being his usual brand of incongruous greatness (A Scottish Russian, you say…)
Yesterday's Movies 