Day 38: Brazil (1985)

Terry Gilliam is the one of those directors I've heard nothing but great things about, who's work I am mostly unfamiliar with. Not counting 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail', this will be my first foray into Gilliam's visual wonders.

Starring: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Ian Holm
Directed by: Terry Gilliam

The Positives:

- It's like 'The Office' meets 'Minority Report' with a dash of 'V for Vendetta' peppered about.
- The humor is excellent, especially the take on the government being completely self reliant on paper work.
- Also a very excellent/humorous observation: Despite making our lives easier, technology is getting more and more complicated.

- The score of 'Brazil' is the perfect blend of peppy and chilling.
- I love the design of the futuristic computers. Type writers + iPhone sized monitors + Magnifying glass = Genius.
- Shoe hats. Equally genius.

- Jonathan Pryce plays a very good well-to-do government paper pusher.

- The scene toward the end where Sam is hanging in one of those straight jacket hoods, moving down the assembly line of executives as the screaming gets louder and louder with each one, genuinely frightened me. The forced perspective from Sam's hood certainly helped.

- The thing that creeped me out the most, however, were the extremely unsettling baby masks.

- For a flick that takes place in all of about three buildings, the scope of the film feels epic. I believe this falls back of Terry Gilliam's excellent visual direction.

- The end is a schizophrenic nightmare... and it's perfect.

The Negatives:

- Holy crap, this film is long. While it drags at times, even the most dull scenes are kind of charming.
- The film's color scheme is made up of mostly grays, and though it fits the drab tone it kind of makes the film feel dull and lifeless at times, and thus loses my attention.

Grade: B

While the flick could've used a good thinning out, Terry Gilliam has created a hilarious dystopian tour de force.

Day 36: Alien 3 (1992)

A movie infamous for its budget troubles, script problems, and control issues. I know it as the only rotten film on David Fincher's Rotten Tomatoes directing filmography. How could this be?

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Pete Postlethwaite
Directed By: David Fincher (Who happens to be my favorite director of all-time.)

The Positives:

- I've seen enough of the Alien franchise to know that in space no one wears a bra.

- I like it when children die in movies. It's a morbid thing to admit but I think it's a ballsy move on the storytellers behalf.

- The splicing of two scenes together at a time felt like a real effective narrative method. Ex. The credits and the ship crashing or the funeral and the alien bursting from the dog's chest.

- It's beautifully shot. Even the muted colors in the film are gorgeous. It's rare to see a movie with a yellow color scheme and it sets this flick apart from other sci-fi flicks.

- I love my action/horror movies romance-less. No better way of curing that than to kill the potential love interest off early.

- There's a certain David Fincher-esque quality about this film that I really enjoyed. You can tell this is one of his pictures and that he really wanted to tell a dark and twisted story. However, it's clear to see where this went wrong: Handing a virgin director a quality franchise that came with a great deal of studio interference is naturally a bad idea. Especially a director as cold and emotional as Mr. Fincher.

The Negatives:

- Even though I've seen both Alien films that precede this (and remember enjoying them immensely), it hasn't really been a franchise I've kept up to date with. At best I am familiar with two of the characters (Newt and Ripley) and I remember vague details about both films (though I can't really place in which movie they belong). Alien 3 doesn't help with this at all. It just throws you in the middle of the action and hopes you know enough to keep up.

- I actually believe that "throwing an alien into a maximum security prison and watch what happens" is a great concept, yet the execution feels bogged down with exposition.

- The performances, especially the inmates, were hit or miss.

- Some of the effects are obviously models or piss poorly rendered CGI and have an extremely distracting vibe to them.

- All of the inmates looked practically the same and it made it very difficult to identify with them. I could've sworn Pete Postlethwaite died on three separate occasions.

- I don't know if it is the transfer on my DVD or if the movie was actually released like this, but I'm afraid 'Alien 3' is another flick where the sound effects are much, much louder than the dialogue.

- Even though the run times comes in at a little under two hours, the film seems to drag on a bit too long.

- The movie was almost completely void of suspense since the characters fell into the "Don't do that stupid!" category. Ya know, the cliche concept of yelling at your screen in frustration because the characters are so stupid they go against natural human instinct, practically saying "Oh, there's a monster down this hole? Let me stick my head it to take a gander." and your only response is "Don't do that stupid!"

Grade: C-

Maybe it's the David Fincher fan boy in me but I actually didn't find 'Alien 3' nearly as atrocious as the internet wants me to believe it is. While it's in no way a good film, it still kept me entertained for a couple of hours. I'm sure there's enough slaps in the face to the franchise's die hard fans to keep them from enjoying it but to the casual viewer this is nothing more than your average sci-fi fodder.

Day 34: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

What better way to kick off the first day of Comic-Con than with the grand-daddy of nerdiness itself: Star Trek.

Starring: William Shatner, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy
Directed by: Robert Wise

The Positives:

- Bones look like Barry Gibb in his very first scene. What a badass.
- Some of the banter betwixt the crew members is both smart and funny. At times... Really only when Bones is talking.
- 'Bout time somebody was killed via transporter.
- The wormhole's cheap Photoshop blur effect won me over. I don't have any idea how.
- Somehow, the film-makers (or better yet, the make-up department) actually made a bald chick sexy. Congrats all around.

The Negatives:

- A good portion of the effects look dated, even for the 1979.
- The movie sets off on a slow start. It doesn't get much more exciting. The film-makers seemed to focus more on the effects than the story, treating their outer space shots like they were being filmed for '2001: A Space Odyssey'. It doesn't come off as mesmerizing but tedious instead.
- Besides the 'Star Trek' theme song peppered throughout, the score was nonexistent or extremely unoriginal.
- The new Enterprise uniforms look bleak and devoid of all personality.
- I feel like I should feel something toward Decker. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not supposed to be detest.

- The living machine cloud that served as the antagonist of this film reminded me of a mute Melllvar from 'Futurama' and Kirk of Zapp Brannigan. Actually... I found that to be pretty entertaining in its own right.
- I honestly stop caring about this movie by the half-way mark and started thinking about better uses of my time.

Grade: D

The biggest flaw of the film is that it's just plain boring, which says alot considering this film is about an intergalactic star fleet fighting against a giant machine.

Day 15: Total Recall (1990)

Arnold Schwarzenegger fights corporate business men, mutants and the authorities on Mars, all while believing he's another man.

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Ironside, Sharon Stone
Directed by: Paul Verhoeven

The Positives:

- Good ol' fashioned 'head exploding on Mars' effects.
- Three tits. Awesome.

- The story premise was both original and exciting, even twenty years after it's release.

- I love futuristic films that are gritty and dirty instead of sleek and lustrous.

- Michael Ironside was the most entertaining to watch out of all the characters. He made you love to hate him.
- While some of the futuristic props leave a bit to be desired, the VFX are fantastic.

- There is enough fake blood in this film to fill at least three of the elevators in 'The Shining'. Got to love excessive violence.
- "The perfect mind-fuck" indeed.
- I remember reading somewhere that 'Minority Report' was going to be Spielberg's attempt at making a sequel for this flick. While it of course became it's own, superior film, I can definitely see how the two movies would and could fit together.

The Negatives:

- Some of the dialogue is groan-worthy to say the least.
- Now I see why Arnie was perfect for 'Terminator'. He can't act worth a shit. He's just as plastic and wooden here as he is as the T-600, and that's not a compliment.
- While Verhoeven is a great visual director, I don't think he always gets the best performances out of his actors. For ever actor who under performs (Arnie, Rachel Ticotin) there are an equal ammount who over-acts (Sharon Stone, Mel Johnson, Jr.)

Grade: B

If memory serves, after making this film both Arnie and Verhoven had about one good movie left in them. That's a shame considering how damn entertaining this film is. While the performances were lacking, the plot and effects make this one of the better sci-fi films of the '90s.

Day 12: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

If the 'Transformers' series was personified, it'd be the macho, douchebag prettyboy... and I'd be the slut he abuses that still comes back for more.

Starring: Shia Labeouf, Patrick Dempsey, Leonard Limoy
Directed by: Michael "Bay-splosion" Bay

The Positives:

- If you're going to see this movie, do yourself a favor and see it in 3-D. It was glorious.

- We FINALLY get to see some fighting on Cybertron! Though it's only about two minutes at most and everybody is in spaceships, but still. Dope.
- If you're thinking about skipping the film due to an excessive lack of Megan Fox, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley provides plenty of hotness to the final installment of the series. Think you'll miss Megan's ass bending over in short shorts? Bay provides the audience with enough Huntington-Whiteley upskirts to keep the perv in all of us satisfied. Oh, and just so you know, she's introduced ass-first, and the camera stays on her langerie-clad rear for 80% of her first scene.
- Actually, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was a much better actress than I expected, and she provided much more to the story than the previous bullet point indicated. (Even if there is about twenty-minutes of cohesive story.)

- So many 'Star Trek' references (Okay two, but one was an on-screen cameo by Limoy as Spock as seen on Sam's television.)

- Lazerbeak was bad-fucking-ass. Just sayin'.

- A Mexican standoff? With Transformers? Dear lord, my fan-fics have come true!

- Alan Tudyk!

- Was that John DiMaggio's voice I heard? Yes! Yes it was.

- Hey, Barricade retuned! Albeit briefly.

- The final fight scene was at least 45 minutes to and hour. It was tiresome yes, but damn if it wasn't epic, more than making up for the weak ending of the second film.

- I know most people had to admit this about a "Transformers" film, but I really did have a lot of fun watching it. I may have a lot of negatives below, but those couple of irks didn't take too much from my enjoyment. Too much.

The Negatives:

- Even with the two racist Autobots removed from the series, Michael Bay still found a way to annoy us with Brains and Wheelie.

- John Malkovich's character was annoying as hell too.
- Not to mention, Ken Jeong's scenes felt way too cartoonish for a 'Transformers' film... Wait. Yes I know how crazy that sounds.

- Going into this movie, I believed Shockwave was going to be the main villain, as the press would have you believe. However, he was a third-teir baddie at MOST. Hell, I think Starscream did more damage than Shockwave did.

- Luckily, Sam's parents have hardly any screen time, but when they're there, you notice. Mom's talking about the size of their son's penis should not be allowed to ever be filmed. Ever. It's not funny.

- Actually, I'm surprised by how many jokes fell-flat in this film. Normally, the writers provide one-or-two chuckles, but either all the jokes in this film felt forced or just poorly timed.

- Apparently, somewhere between filming and the final release, the Transformers formally known as Wheeljack and Mirage had their names changed to Que and Dino, receptively. While I understand that a lot of the original series's fans are happy their classic characters weren't bastardized, I would've much rather they kept the names seeing as Que and Dino don't sound especially Autobotic. Also, the former names would've made the final scene with Que calling Bumblee "Old friend" all the more enchanting considering Bee and Wheeljack shared the very first scene of the original cartoon with each other. (Though I suppose this won't bother anybody who's unaware of this change, like most of the viewing audience.)
- I think Michael Bay just ends his movies when the final fight is over. "Okay, boys! That's how you end a movie!" "Uhh... Sir, shouldn't you probably provide the film, nay, the series with some kind of closure?" "Oh... I suppose. Somebody film me a montage!" I actually kind of like this, considering how exhausting the final fight scene was, but I have a feeling that enough people care about a film's story that I should probably file this under the Negatives section. (Don't worry, I never plan on being this lazy when I direct movies.)

- This is less a critique of the film and more of a complaint about society in general. The men in the row behind me at the cinema constantly talked about the dumbest stuff, like "Dude, does that Chernobyl place really exist or was that something that happened between this and the second film?" while the man in the row in front of me thought it was okay to answer is phone in the middle of the damn movie and talk about it with his buddy. Dear lord, doesn't anybody have respect for the average movie-goer anymore?

Grade: B

The 'Transformers' series is loud, dumb and obnoxious, yet I still always manage to have fun. Somehow.

Day 1: Green Lantern (2011)

A quirky film for first choice, I know, but I have eagerly been awaiting it's release for over a year now and I feel it's well-advertised enough to be a proper first film pick.

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Tim Robbins, Blake Lively
Directed by: Martin "Casino Royal and the lesser Quantum of Solace" Campbell

The Positives:

- Peter Sarsgaard. He was creepy. He was demented. He was fun. Sarsgaard should be more famous than what he is, and unfortunately I feel that this movie won't put him on too many people's maps. He's performance is worth praise though.
- Mark Strong! They might not have gotten Sinestro's comic book story correct, but dammit if Mark Strong didn't work with what he got.
- Michael Clarke Duncan and Geoffrey Rush were entertaining as Hell, even if they only received four minutes screen voice- time collectively
- The make up for Abin Sur and Sinestro was fantastic.
- I'm insanely glad that Hal Jordan used a plethora of green entities instead of just focusing on one, even if that did cause a few stupid objects to slip into the film (See below).
- If there was a 'meh' section, this next bit should probably be placed under that considering this isn't necessarily a positive note. However, it must be said that Blake Lively wasn't nearly as bad as the trailers suggested. She wasn't good mind you, but she's no Megan Fox.
- On that note, this movie isn't nearly as bad as the critics are making it out to be. It's not 'The Dark Knight' good, but it's definitely no "Ghost Rider"

The Neagtives

- But when this movie's negativity shows, it feels worse than 'Ghost Rider'.
- What the fuck Tim Robbins? What. The. Fuck.
- Ryan Reynold was an exceptionally good Super-Van Wilder. He was a horrible Hal Jordan though. At least he looked the part.
- Sadly, that doesn't prevent him from becoming the most entertaining part of the film.
- Everybody who knows me knows I HATE bad/overused CGI with a passion. If done right it's very enjoyable, but for every Star Trek and Scott Pilgrim there's a Hulk and Lost in Space to piss me off even more. Green Lantern gets a good portion of the CGI right, but every once in a while, notably when Paralax is on screen, the shit hits the fan and takes me out of the movie. One very noticeable moment of bad CGI involves what looks like Ryan Reynold's disembodied head hovering over a green screen as a video game cutscene plays behind him.
- The Story does what it can with the character I suppose. I mean, you have sixty years of background info, I guess one can only cut and paste so much of it to make a proper okay script. That might be why this film feels so disjointed.
- FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK that built-in Hot Wheels advert that randomly shows up during a major action sequence. Everybody who has seen this film knows it was only thrown in there so toy companies can make thousands of race-track play sets to pawn off onto vulnerable children. Not only was that shameless product placement, but it made no damn sense in the film. There were hundreds of better ways to rescue a helicopter than to give it wheels and race it on a plastic green-energy track. Hell, a giant green baseball glove would've worked better.
- This has very little to do with the film but instead with Green Lantern himself. If this is the DC Universe, and the ring does select a guardian based on his/her will-power, wouldn't Bruce Wayne, Superman, or Wonder Woman have been a much better choice than a hot-shot pilot?Though, to be fair, I believe when they explained why Hal was a good choice for the ring, I had already phased out and began focusing on the half-assed effects.

Grade: C+

For all its flaws, the child in me was very entertained.