District 9 – 0 out of 10
Now comes the review that will apparently kill my credibility with an entire nation of moviegoers. But, I’m dumbfounded. I read the rave reviews and couldn’t wait. I should have. This was the worst movie I’ve spent money to see since The Black Dahlia.
Ted Williams, Drew Brees, Bill Mazeroski and all the other 9-wearers should even be insulted. Couldn’t it have been District 4?
I guess I just completely missed it. I don’t usually laugh out loud at a movie – but this one is so ridiculous in almost every way, that I just couldn’t help myself.
6 Reasons I couldn’t help laughing at the screen:
First, the movie is subtitled. When the aliens speak, you get subtitles. When they are talking, the main character seems to understand them only part of the time. So, who subtitled the movie? Think about it.
Second, same old aliens. Why is it that every alien on screen is a dressed up 2 eyed, 2 armed, 2 legged creature. These are just dressed up grosser than most. Just once wouldn’t you like to see a round ball alien with eyes all over, so it could see in all directions, rolling through the streets? Go back over all the movie aliens – why 2 eyes? Think about it.
Third, (spoiler alert) the main character gets some alien fuel splashed in his face and begins to become an alien. So if I pour gas on a turtle, it will become a man? Ridiculous. Think about it.
Fourth, I’ll take my allegory a little lighter please. The social references, apartheid, man’s inhumanity to man, is layered on so thick it’s laughable. I get it – we suck. I’ll think about it.
Fifth, the action is laughable. I’m serious, every time a body exploded I laughed. Out loud. I kept thinking, “so this is what it was like to experience Planet 9 from Outer Space in a theater.” Think about it.
Last, the “coming attractions” before the movie were horrible. Now, this may be quibbling, but when every preview is basically the same slasher movie, and the previews go on for 15 minutes, you realize you are being targeted as a lowest-common-denominator audience. The previews were actually insulting, and so repetitive they put me in doze-land. Think about it.
So, go see this if you want to. Reviewers and audiences seem to love it, so I could be wrong. Maybe it will go down as a classic. That seems to be the consensus. I’m short, so it’s not hard for things to go over my head. I’ll chalk this up in the “am I that out of touch?” column. I’d have rather spent my money on cookies.
500 Days of Summer – 8 out of 10.
This is a good movie. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should see it. You’ve lived it.
Hasn’t everybody?
You know the story. Boy gets girl. One of them thinks the other is the “one.” One little problem – the vote is tied 1 – 1. Heartbreak ensues.
This movie is a natural descendant of Annie Hall. I looked on line at the Metacritic scores (my favorite web site) and 3 of 15 reviews mentioned Annie Hall in the first sentence. But, I watched this movie thinking the same thing. Let me make this perfectly clear – I knew Annie Hall, and you’re no Annie Hall.
In other words, 500 Days of Summer isn’t quite that good, despite what the guy who was sitting behind me thought. Laughing that loud should be reserved for someone watching Congress. Nevertheless, while it’s not Annie Hall, what it is, is a multi-media presentation of the natural progression of that doomed relationship where one participant is more convinced than the other that “this is it.”
Joseph Gordon-Leavitt wonderfully plays the likeable guy who wrongfully believes he’s hit the love jackpot. The great Zooey Deschanel plays the girl – you know the one – the blood sucking tramp who rips your heart out, shreds it to little pieces, then boils it in a pot of heated spit, takes it out and stomps on it, while she screws with your head, makes you spend money you don’t have in a doomed-to-failure attempt to impress her or even make her happy or convince her you’ll do anything for her, while she’s seducing you like you’re the only one at the same time she’s plotting her escape in such a way that it will devastate you and make you not to ever want to see a woman again, except she teases you to keep you hanging by a fingernail while your last shred of dignity slips away and you wish she’d just go ahead and kill you by hanging you from your toes off the tallest building in town and beat you with a bat til you fall and split your head open so that your brains flow all over the sidewalk and she tromps through your blood with her new boyfriend, whom she used to make fun of, off to that commitment she said she’d never want to make, when what she meant was she would never make any commitment with you because she wanted to just be friends which was the farthest thing from your mind and the very thought of “just being friends” made you want to take a blow torch to her hair and toast her like a marshmallow until she came to her senses, and her hair grew back and she took you back.
You know, that girl.
So see this movie if you want to be entertained, or if you want to see some really inventive movie-making, or if you want to re-live that time the blood sucker told you “I think we need to take a break….”
You know, that girl
Speaking of having been at the first screening of Planet 9 From Outer Space, as I was in my first review, here are my Time Travel 10, the 10 Entertainment things I’d really like to travel back and see live:
The Beatles in Concert
Woodstock
Camelot on Broadway starring Julie Andrews, Richard Burton and Robert Goulet.
Al Jolson
The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway with Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman
Billie Holiday
My Fair Lady on Broadway with Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison
Louis Armstrong
Buddy Holly
Monterey Pop
What’s your time travel 10?
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