Juno

Juno
a movie
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 5/10
Meets Expectations: -3 (due entirely to personal squick factor)
Apparent Rating: 2/10

Normally a movie about a pregnant woman would go on a list of things never to watch, like sports news or fly fishing tournaments. However, Juno was an award winning movie that was supposed to be extraordinarily well written. I am all about the writing.

First. Let me say that the overall experience of the movie was really good. The writing was good, the directing was good, the production values matched, the settings were good, the acting was appropriate. The story’s premise is still inherently wrong and immoral and disgusting. There isn’t a way to get past that. The movie scoring a 2/10 in my personal ratings, shows it must have been phenomenally well done.

Scooting aside what I thought, Juno has some really big flaws. Like where does she get all that money? Seriously? 3 pregnancy tests and a gallon of Sunny D? That’s like $30 right there. She drives an hour out to the boonies and back in a station wagon. That’s like 8 gallons of gas. Sure the movie is from last year when gas wasn’t more than $4 per gallon, but still. Juno buys Bleeker a case of TicTacs. I don’t know what the case discount is, but a box of TicTacs is more than a dollar. Juno is always drinking on something non-water. Slushies or whatever. Those are $3-5 each in that multi-quart size. And she’s always eating. Junk food, but always eating— not eating at home, but at the mall or quickie marts or whatever. I didn’t have a couple hundred bucks a week when I wasn’t working and was just barely 16.

Some spoilers.

Cruel Zinc Melodies — Glen Cook (fantasy)

Cruel Zinc Melodies
a fantasy book by Glen Cook
Amazon
Overall Rating: 5/10
Meets Expectations: +1
Apparent Rating: 4/10

There are a number of books in Glen Cook’s Garrett PI series. They are all adjectival metallic nouns. Cold Copper Tears, Cruel Zinc Melodies, Silver something. Whatever. Generally these foci are forced into the story and we’re made to put up with it. I can see it being a useful method for writing a series because the author can use it to hold things together. I really hate it when the technique is obvious though.

The main character used to be downtrodden and put upon and can’t seem to get past that. It’s really irritating to have someone who knows the chief of law enforcement, the heir to the throne, the best telepathic monster, a team of fairies, the head of the were rats, the biggest heads of the criminal underworld, the driving forces behind the biggest manufacturing enterprises, someone in every branch of the military, the best accountants, the royal tailor, the best security people… if there is someone at the top of any heap, Garrett knows him. And the guy cannot stop whining. He also can’t stop referring to himself in the third person–romance manner. (In romances, there’s this stylized referenced manner, people aren’t referred to by name but by descriptor. The red-headed lady. And because that can’t be constantly repeated like a pronoun, there are endless variants… Titian-maned, crimson locks, ginger girl, whatever. It’s always clear the writer bit off too much thesaurus and is burping it back.) Garrett refers to himself as “Mother Garrett’s Blue Eyed Boy” Or Mama G’s or Ma Garrett’s or whatever variant. I wanted to get in Mr Cook’s face and say “emulating pulp romances is a step down! Stop it.”

These are all irritations. But it’s been years since the previous book. And I spent the whole book trying to remember what was so interesting about these books. I liked it. But I have no idea why. If you are not a desperate fan, don’t bother.

The plot was really strange because about halfway through the narrator (who is Garrett having hindsight) said they should have been able to solve the mystery since they had all the information. Only the way the ending went, they didn’t. I think. I was amazed Garrett could follow along with the plot. He doesn’t seem that bright.

In summary, drunken asshole makes good, can’t seem to appreciate that, and story magically works out while idiot tells us we’re the stupid ones.

Heroes Adrift — Moira J. Moore (fantasy)

Heroes Adrift
a fantasy book by Moira J. Moore
Author’s Site | Amazon
Overall Rating: 8/10
Meets Expectations: +0
Apparent Rating: 8/10

Books seem to be much more about personal preference, I have higher expectations from the authors than I have been trained to expect from popular films. Heroes Adrift is the third in the series, and I liked it better than the second one. I liked it a little better than the first one just because it’s here now.

One of the things I really like is how bumbling the main characters are. Unlike a lot of fantasy series, especially the paranormal/urban kinds, the main characters do not get new god-like skills in every volume. They struggle through new situations and they learn from those things. But it’s not that they can solve the problem on their own, it’s more that they’ve learned who to contact in law enforcement when they have an important clue. Sure they have a few extra quirks so we know why the books are about them instead of other people they meet, but they don’t seem like things other people couldn’t have because the gods have a limited number of blessings to hand out.

What interested me about the books is the way the characters are paired up permanently but it’s not about sex, it’s about magic. I really liked that after a long batch of romances. That means there absolutely has to be a story and the plot and characters cannot just be glossed over. What was unfortunate here was that they decided to have a sexual relationship during this third book and it didn’t work for me. Not that they’re having a relationship at all, despite the conflict, but because it’s not written into the pages. It wasn’t hot, it didn’t seem sexy, and it really didn’t seem like they liked it all that much.

Some of the problems were in how there is a lot of detail about the world, but not enough of it was reiterated here. A lot of it was, parts where they summed up the plots, but not the parts where it’s explained how the main character doesn’t need to worry about contraception even though women around her do. So there were a lot of details that just didn’t track for me. I remember that being an issue with the previous books. So I have it in my head that the author isn’t very good at world building.

I liked the magic system in these books. Because it was clear why this magic was essential and important, but the effects were limited and far-reaching. I liked the economics described in the series and how they were differentiated when the main characters went away to another country.

There is a lot to like in this series, and not much to dislike seriously. Sure I think they could be better books, but this is not the heyday of fantasy fiction publishing when there are a thousand new titles per year. There really isn’t a lot out there that’s better than these are.

Heartlands

Heartlands
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 8/10
Meets Expectations: +1
Apparent Rating: 9/10

Heartlands was a movie where the summary covered the basics without doing anything to convey why the movie was wonderful. First things first, it’s not about the American heartlands. There are no prairie states here. It’s set in England.

The premise is that a man’s wife leaves him for his best friend and he travels across the countryside on a motorbike (not like a motorcycle, one of the skinny kind with a lawnmower type engine that requires it not be taken on major highways) to try to get her back.

Along the way he interacts with a huge variety of people, some of whom are nice, some are insulting, some good things happen, some horrid things happen.

What really made this film for me though was the ending. Colin, the main character starts to question his assumptions about his life and comes to realize what he really wants.

I want to talk about the ending, so please don’t click the “more” unless you want to be spoiled.

Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 6/10
Meets Expectations: +0
Apparent Rating: 6/10

There are frequently lowered expectations when seeing a movie or reading a book which is a classic that has been used as an archetype for others of the sub-genre, simply because exposure makes what was novel seem trite. I have seen a re-make of Roman Holiday, Chasing Liberty, without knowing whence it came. I remember thinking when watching Chasing Liberty that some of the things they did seemed unexpected, without conscious rationale— today I realize they were consciously emulating Roman Holiday and everyone was expected to have the reference.

From a coherency perspective, Roman Holiday is superior because it stands alone. From a story perspective, assuming one has seen Roman Holiday, Chasing Liberty is better because of the ending and because modern emotional reactions are much more approachable to me than someone from my great grandmother’s time. There was this big to-do about a woman wearing pyjamas and I have no understanding of what the problem is. The princess offers just the top half as an option. I suppose it might be uncouth for a woman to wear trousers in public, but in bed? There were a number of things like that where “common culture” meant they didn’t need to explain and I don’t have any clue why that’s a big deal. The princess seems honestly horrified when she wakes up in a strange man’s rooms but because she’s wearing pyjama pants. Doesn’t it seem like she’d be more upset to not be wearing anything on her lower half?

The ending… No one says Roman Holiday has such a downer ending. Gregory Peck was amazing in it, because he manages to typify the expected stoicism from men but is nearly in tears when the woman leaves him. That’s what makes stoicism so powerful, when we really believe it but are let inside the curtain anyway. It gives leading men an emotional depth because of expectations. I think male actors of modern times have a lot more room for demonstrable emotion, but the stoic thing works for me especially in old movies.

Roman Holiday is in black and white. They go through a lot of effort to tell the viewer that the movie is shot entirely in Rome. They want to indicate that the scenery is for real. But then they filmed it in black and white! Since it’s after The Wizard of Oz, we know color film technology existed. Thus it is sheer laziness and cheapness that they did not bother. I give them zero points for showing “the real Rome” since they didn’t bother to do it right and in color, like actual reality. I somehow doubt that a visitor to Italy would have found Rome to be colorless in 1955 as if color had been invented in California and just hadn’t spread all the way to Europe yet. Thus they did not show Rome and might as well have filmed it in Hollywood. I don’t mind that they didn’t do it in 3-D or smell-o-vision (even if it’s invented soon) because that technology was not readily available when Roman Holiday was made. Movies had been made in color for more than 15 years when this came out.

On the whole, I considered this movie spoiled by the ending. The acting was good. The writing was good. The story made sense. The camera work was good (unlike the hamster-on-crack kind of camera work modern movies use to make things seem frenetic.) I really liked how the movie actually seemed romantic. I liked the comedic parts (which did not have a laugh-track and did not need them.) But a totally unhappy ending made this movie depressing. I’m not surprised it won awards since only downer movies win major awards.

Oh and this is one of those movies with costumes by the famous bitch Edith Head who won a slew of Oscars by stealing other people’s work. That meant whenever I saw someone wearing a new outfit, I wanted to hiss and spit. Knowing she won the award for this movie made me really angry for the people who did the work for no recognition. I think the Academy should have stripped her of her Oscars or at least given retroactive acknowledgement to the actual winners.

I don’t know who told Audrey Hepburn to cut her hair, but I thought the shorter style was much less attractive on her.

I think I enjoyed Roman Holiday, I am sure I would have liked it more if I wasn’t bringing all the baggage along. If I had seen this when it was new and no one had done something like this before, it would have been phenomenal.

The Italian Job

The Italian Job
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 7/10
Meets Expectations: +1
Apparent Rating: 8/10

When it has been on TV, I have seen various parts of The Italian Job. I never managed to watch all of it straight through though. (This review refers to the 2003 movie with Mark Wahlberg, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, Seth Green, Donald Sutherland, and others.) I enjoyed the parts I watched enough to add the movie to my Netflix queue. I was pleasantly surprised that the whole movie was good.

I enjoyed this throughout, with the complicated caper, the double-crossing, the vengeance, the complicated plans, the way modern technology was used. All the actors were good. The final epilogue bit they did was good. It was just really nice throughout.

I had thought I didn’t like Charlize Theron, but it appears I have her confused with someone else, Uma Thurman. This woman did not have a mouth wide enough to use her head as a Muppet. We are not constantly told she is attractive, though there is evidence the male characters think so. But unlike Uma Thurman, when there is a man looking at Charlize Theron’s body, I’m not having the wheels fall off the brain in my head because I’m mentally picturing Grover’s purple fake-fur body and hinged face.

The whole mini-Cooper thing is kind of stupid, but it was also kind of cute. The explanation as to why they chose those cars makes a lot more sense when the movie isn’t edited to fit in the time allotted.

I like really well written and well done action movies. The Italian Job was one.

Things To Do

Things To Do
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 5/10
Meets Expectations: +2
Apparent Rating: 7/10

Things To Do is also listed as an indie comedy. I know that my opinion of this movie is buffed up because compared to Garden State, it was actually funny. Compared to stuff that’s actually funny, it was lousy. If I had watched this during a week when there was new TV or the movie selection was better, I know my personal rating would be lower.

The premise is that a guy comes home from the city to recuperate mentally and emotionally after his best friend kills himself. Though you don’t find that out until about 2/3 through the movie. It helps to know the guy has a reason to be where he is.

His parents are horrible creatures. His home town is full of people who keep saying “Al Gore’s Internet” and “Al Gore’s the eee-mail”. The place has nothing going for it and the people who didn’t leave really just got stuck in some sort of Purgatory.

The weird part of this film really is how the guy finds an old acquaintance who really functions as some sort of fairy godmother and therapist. The guy decides to make a list of things he really wants to do— because who knows, he might die suddenly. The new friend makes a lot of these things happen for him. Many of them are quirky. They skydive from a little prop plane. They build a soapbox car. It started with putting a board on top of a wheel barrow with a little ramp so the main character guy could slam dunk a basketball. He gets a little banged up from it, but seems to think the sacrifice is worth it. One of the things on the list is beating up a school bully from ages ago and it turns out there really was karma.

A lot of the things seem kind of risky or juvenile or immature. But I think people really have those kinds of desires. It’s certainly the stereotype of young men (which is sexist and doesn’t tell you whether I did crazy things at that age). And I think people really are hurt when they lose someone. It’s easy to become disconnected from everyone around you by losing one person. The process by which the threads of life are ferreted out again is different for everyone. I liked very much how a lot of the things the main character wanted to try didn’t work out so well. It seemed like a growing experience.

I was honestly touched by this movie, but I didn’t think it was funny.

There is one major problem, I received a damaged DVD from Netflix, nothing I did made it spin up. There was a tiny chip in the rim, so I returned it and flagged for replacement. The replacement DVD did the same thing. I was only able to watch it by coaxing it along. Then I could not stop once the movie actually started because it was unlikely I would be able to baby it enough to get it started twice. This left me with the impression that the manufacturing standard for this movie was extremely low— two discs in a row with hidden imperfections that keep the DVD from spinning up? (And I did not get the same disc back, I checked.) I actually hesitate to recommend the movie in case all of the DVD copies of this are defective.

Garden State

Garden State
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 4/10
Meets Expectations: -1
Apparent Rating: 3/10

The summary for Garden State says it is a “whimsical comedy”. What? Nothing in this was funny. Oh, sure, people tell you that a movie about someone going home for their mother’s funeral and seeing what their old friends have gotten up to is bound to be hilarious. But the mother killed herself after being stuck in a wheelchair for 20 years because the son broke her neck when he was 9. The old friends are grave diggers, but only for Jewish funerals. Everyone uses hardcore drugs at the post funeral party. The main character has been medicated by his doctor-father for decades in a way that is tantamount to child abuse.

While “back home” the main character meets a woman at the neurologist’s office. She’s a chronic liar and wears a The Thing helmet and kills her pets.

The whole thing is like this 90 minute stoner meltdown and I really have absolutely no idea why anyone thought this was a good story. Perhaps if one is desperately aching for more fiction from Stalinist Russia and the Gulag era, then this might be worth watching. But in my opinion, all these characters are so crushed, hopeless, and miserable that death would be a kindness.

Total downer of a movie. Zero comedic value. If you have to watch it, put the subtitles on and fast-forward so less time is wasted. This was bad.

The Derby Stallion

The Derby Stallion
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 4/10
Meets Expectations: -2
Apparent Rating: 2/10

The Derby Stallion really suffers from failure to implement formula. We are all familiar with “underdog makes good over bully because the bully doesn’t deserve success” formula. When you get the main character in the “underdog” role who is the son of a professional baseball player, it’s hard to see him as disadvantaged. There was no question that the bully was a bully, but that just looked like a complete breakdown in law-enforcement. (Someone should have put a camera up, taken video of the big-name kid doing thousands of dollars of damage and put him in jail. The kid says no one will believe the old man who is complaining, but that problem would have been solved by evidence… and chronic vandalism should have garnered the attention of the sheriff whose investigation would have generated the evidence necessary.)

We’re told that the reason people don’t like the old man is because he’s an alcoholic and black. But there’s no real evidence of alcoholism before we’re told that, so it does look like racism. He’s the only main character who isn’t white, which leaves the impression that the suburbs grew around him and he’s now unwelcome.

We’re told that the old man buys a racing horse. Then a handful of months later, the county forecloses on his property. It seems rather ridiculous that a house could be foreclosed upon without seizing the horse and truck… but having the house foreclosed doesn’t change anything.

We’re told that the winner of the steeplechase derby gets a college scholarship. Er. Not where scholarship==free ride, not to a real school anyway. There is no possible way that the purse for a steeplechase is more than $50K. Maybe they mean it’s enough to cover in-state tuition at a backwater school…. but even so, why does the son of a professional ball player desperately need a scholarship?

This movie was ridiculous, full of holes, it flings prejudices around but doesn’t deal with them, and is a really bad implementation of a feel-good family film. I am not the only one who thinks this because the movie has dropped $12 in price since it was released on DVD. I found it hard to finish watching and if I had known how it would turn out, I would have spent the 90 minutes watching paint dry instead. Originally, after first watching it, I was less offended. My Netflix rating says 2 stars out of 5, I know that is a rounding error. It is at most 3/10, and I talked myself down through the process of explaining what was wrong with this movie.

Herbie: Fully Loaded

Herbie: Fully Loaded
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 6/10
Meets Expectations: +0
Apparent Rating: 6/10

Shockingly, this movie did not suck. All I knew about Lindsay Lohan is that she has no modesty and the news likes to show her scantily clad and misbehaving. I recorded the movie on TV, I would never have rented it because “skanky ho” is not to my taste. But I was home sick, there were no Netflix movies needing watching, so I watched this. Lindsay Lohan looks like the pretty version of the girl next door. If they had put Amanda Bynes in this (if you don’t know who she is, she’s the current iconic image of that in almost every teen movie I’ve seen this year), I would not have been surprised. There were some big names in this too, actors I’ve seen in bigger movies. The pleasant shock did not translate into the movie being better than I expected of the movie. It was definitely better than I expected from Ms. Lohan though.

There weren’t any really major flaws beyond the obvious– and you really have to suspend disbelief on this or you’re not going to watch the movie– sentient car bit.

The plot is trite in every single aspect: Father wants to protect daughter and squashes her dreams because girls can’t be race car drivers. Girl went away to college and learned how to lie and backstab her friends. Spoiled guy who is the current record-holder who feels like he deserves everything because people who are on top don’t deserve it unless we’ve seen the movie about them making it from nothing. I understand the need to have the underdog coming from behind, so we can all see how they deserve to win and how making the current king-of-the-hill deserve losing lessens the internal conflict for the audience. But sometimes I really want the plot of a feel-good story to actually have conflict— what if the person on top of the world came from nothing and earned their place and is beloved by fans for more than just the image of humility? Not everyone who wins is a bully who loathes hangers-on—— that’s the whole point of having the girl next door win, right? She’s not going to be the bully who doesn’t deserve the honor like the current jerk. But why won’t the power go to her head and everything float her up to the top until she thinks she deserves it all and becomes the same jerk?

Some things could have been improved, like the scene where the current driver of the family race car, the brother, was getting checked out by the doctor and fakes a vision problem. If that had been signaled by a wink or gesture, that would have helped. Also, 85% of the way through the movie, the mechanic who loves the girl discovers that he has no more credit to buy parts—- you’d think he might have noticed before then eh? Or at least mentioned money before this.

This movie was sheer cotton-candy fluff, designed for times when you can shut off your brain and just watch a feel-good movie without thinking too much.