Let's Get Critical
When you review movies on a part-time basis, and you're not represented by an outfit such as the Online Film Critics Society (yes, it's a real thing), work tends to be pretty slim pickin's during the summer months. The studios are all trying to make the bulk of their yearly earnings right now and they certaintly don't want some internet punk messing up their cash flow by bad-mouthing their product on these new-fangled "chat rooms" and "bulletin boards," ergo, we in the online press tend to get the royal shaft. Suddenly, press screenings are Print Media only, which is the studio's condescending way of saying, "Only the real media is allowed; please go play Pong or download porn or whatever it is you kids do with your long hair and your rock n' roll." Anyway, point is, it sucks ass being an unrepresented, online film critic in the summer because you never have any idea when you're going to get to do the thing you genuinely enjoy doing and you start to think that maybe you should just give up and resign yourself to working in an office for the rest of your life, every now and again kicking your dream hard in the ribs to make sure it's truly dead.
Then a week comes a long like this one and you think, "Oh, okay, mabye it's not all that bad." I'm reviewing, all of a sudden, three movies in the next week for the various magazines that I work for, and while I don't exactly feel like doing a celebratory tap dance, I'm certaintly a bit more optomistic on the whole "resigning myself to defeat" thing.
So, just for funsies, I thought I'd do a bit of pre-reviewing... take a look at the movies I'm about to watch and try to divine what my own opinion on them will be when I actually do see them. Is it dangerous to play around with preconceived notions like this, especially when you're all but required to go into each and every movie with an open mind? Sure, but... eh... I'm a rebel. Or something.
Anyhoo, here we go:
Lady in the Water - I've got a bad feeling about this one. M Night Shyamalan's movies are the very definition of a mixed-bag. He's made every thing from an elegent, scary, suprisingly moving horror film (The Sixth Sense) to one of the worst, contempt-for-the-audiance-having, witless psuedo-thrillers in recent memory (that'd be The Village) and, from the looks of it, I'd say Lady in the Water is probably going to favor the latter pretty hard. He seems to be working the "it's a bedtime story, a fable, a fairy tale, oooh!!!" angle pretty hard, which, to me, is a lot like saying, "be prepared to suspend disbelief like a motherfucker, folks." His stuff can be pretty hard to swallow anyway (see: the ending of Signs), and if we've got a whole movie of forced coincidences and specious logic to look forward to... well, it's going to be a looong night at the movies.
The Ant Bully - Eh. I'm kinda over animation, or at least current, computer-driven, "Shit, let's just have some more talking animals," animation. The Incredibles was the only thing I've scene in the last five years or so that's really clicked for me, and that had more to do with the script being airtight than anything else. The Ant Bully, to me, looks like half of an effort, at the most. First, wasn't there already a movie about talking, animated ants (I believe it was called Ants or possibly Antz)? Second, from the trailer, the actual visuals look like something the Pixar B-team threw together on a few consecutive lunch breaks, just to keep their minds busy. And third... again, a resounding "eh."
Miami Vice - Despite all logic, I'm actually kind of interested in seeing this. Not because Colin Farrell is dreamy (though he is, grrrrowl!) and not because Ray Charles is in it, but because its director, Michael Mann, actually knows his way around an action movie (see: Heat). Given his uniquely gritty, all-digital visual style, it's at the very least going to be something a bit different. Unfortunantly, the advance screenings have been something south of positive, but from what I understand, there has been a bit of re-editing, re-shifting of scenes, and they took out all the song and dance numbers that really didn't fit with the whole "undercover drug running" story. I'm holding out a little bit of hope, still, but I've been hurt before.
So there ya go. I'll post the actual, informed reviews when they come out and we'll see how close my predictions were. Can't you feel the excitment? Movie magic, at it's finest.
Then a week comes a long like this one and you think, "Oh, okay, mabye it's not all that bad." I'm reviewing, all of a sudden, three movies in the next week for the various magazines that I work for, and while I don't exactly feel like doing a celebratory tap dance, I'm certaintly a bit more optomistic on the whole "resigning myself to defeat" thing.
So, just for funsies, I thought I'd do a bit of pre-reviewing... take a look at the movies I'm about to watch and try to divine what my own opinion on them will be when I actually do see them. Is it dangerous to play around with preconceived notions like this, especially when you're all but required to go into each and every movie with an open mind? Sure, but... eh... I'm a rebel. Or something.
Anyhoo, here we go:
Lady in the Water - I've got a bad feeling about this one. M Night Shyamalan's movies are the very definition of a mixed-bag. He's made every thing from an elegent, scary, suprisingly moving horror film (The Sixth Sense) to one of the worst, contempt-for-the-audiance-having, witless psuedo-thrillers in recent memory (that'd be The Village) and, from the looks of it, I'd say Lady in the Water is probably going to favor the latter pretty hard. He seems to be working the "it's a bedtime story, a fable, a fairy tale, oooh!!!" angle pretty hard, which, to me, is a lot like saying, "be prepared to suspend disbelief like a motherfucker, folks." His stuff can be pretty hard to swallow anyway (see: the ending of Signs), and if we've got a whole movie of forced coincidences and specious logic to look forward to... well, it's going to be a looong night at the movies.
The Ant Bully - Eh. I'm kinda over animation, or at least current, computer-driven, "Shit, let's just have some more talking animals," animation. The Incredibles was the only thing I've scene in the last five years or so that's really clicked for me, and that had more to do with the script being airtight than anything else. The Ant Bully, to me, looks like half of an effort, at the most. First, wasn't there already a movie about talking, animated ants (I believe it was called Ants or possibly Antz)? Second, from the trailer, the actual visuals look like something the Pixar B-team threw together on a few consecutive lunch breaks, just to keep their minds busy. And third... again, a resounding "eh."
Miami Vice - Despite all logic, I'm actually kind of interested in seeing this. Not because Colin Farrell is dreamy (though he is, grrrrowl!) and not because Ray Charles is in it, but because its director, Michael Mann, actually knows his way around an action movie (see: Heat). Given his uniquely gritty, all-digital visual style, it's at the very least going to be something a bit different. Unfortunantly, the advance screenings have been something south of positive, but from what I understand, there has been a bit of re-editing, re-shifting of scenes, and they took out all the song and dance numbers that really didn't fit with the whole "undercover drug running" story. I'm holding out a little bit of hope, still, but I've been hurt before.
So there ya go. I'll post the actual, informed reviews when they come out and we'll see how close my predictions were. Can't you feel the excitment? Movie magic, at it's finest.
posted by Clinton at 5:36 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home