self-promotion

New movie review (Get Him to the Greek) posted at Gargyle Reviews. 

It took a little longer to get to it than I meant for it to, but I finally got around to posting a movie review on Gargyle Reviews.  Check it out.  Leave feedback if you want.  And, hopefully, enjoy.

-M

Gargyle

It's been a while since my last post.  Busy busy busy, and some pretty significant changes over the past several months.  And now, time for a new post.

Those of you out there who know me (or, who have talked to me for more than about 5 minutes) know that I enjoy puns.  I know that they are lame.  I know that most of them are not all that funny (some of you might say "not at all funny").  But, I enjoy them none the less.  And some of you also know that I'm a fan of argyle.  So I was pretty stoked when I was talking to one of my friends a while ago and came up with something that combined puns and argyle.  I don't remember exactly what led up to it, but at one point I started talking about a gargoyle wearing an argyle sweater and I referred to it as a gargyle.  A few days later, I was bored at work, so I drew up the sketch below.

At the time, I was kinda proud of it.  This was around the time that I started doing movie reviews on my blog, and I said that if I ever decided to make a drastic career change and just focus on doing movie reviews, I would use the gargyle as my logo.  Even though I saw plenty of movies over the past year, I clearly have not been keeping up with my posts as much as I would have liked.  Despite the lack of posts, I kept thinking about the gargyle and would share the story of it with those whom I know enjoy puns (and sometimes those who hate them).

Even though I think the sketch isn't half bad, I knew that it isn't what I would want it to be if I ever did actually make it my logo.  From the relatively skinny frame, to the reptilian head...it just ended up looking more like a chic, anthropomorphized pterodactyl.  And something about that didn't quite work. 

What didn't work about it was that it wasn't quite "me" enough.  It was based off of several of my interests.  It was created by me.  And whenever I would tell people about it, it was always in reference to movie reviews...which is another part of me.  So, with it representing so many aspects of me (and from talking about it with a few friends), I decided that it needed to incorporate more of me into the actual drawing. 

So, after a few modifications, I came up with a new sketch.

There is still some work I would like to do on it, but this version is much more like what I was picturing the Gargyle should look like.  I plan on making some minor revisions, but I actually really like the sketched look...so I don't want to make it look too refined.  Plus (as mentioned before), I'm still developing my skills as a drawer, so I probably wouldn't be able to make it look much more refined even if I wanted to.

While I clearly have not been posting very often, and am definitely not making a drastic career change, I have decided to go ahead and start using the Gargyle for my movie reviews.  I'll still be posting here for sketches and random musings.  But from now on, I plan on posting my movie reviews (and, perhaps, reviews of things other than movies on occasion) at http://gargylereviews.blogspot.com/.  

So far, nothing is posted over at Gargyle.  Hopefully I'll be able to remedy that this weekend. 

Movie review: The Other Guys

Well, my plans for the summer didn't exactly pan out quite the way I expected. As some of you may remember, my plans for the summer consisted (in part) of watching plenty of movies and subsequently doing reviews. But, as you can clearly see, I haven't posted any reviews for the past couple months. I've been watching movies, but just haven't been able to do the reviews. Mostly because I spent the majority of the summer with my family, so I chose to spend my time with them rather than sitting in front of a computer. But now that I am back home, I'm able to catch up on some of my reviews. Since I have several movies that I need to catch up on reviewing, and since I'm probably going to be pretty busy with the semester starting next week, these reviews are probably going to be pretty brief...at least until I'm able to catch back up on them.


The Other Guys (2010)
Netflix streaming
Rating: 2.5/5
viewing: initial

I wasn't all that impressed with this movie. I had heard that it was pretty funny, and it's from the same director (Adam McKay) of movies such as Anchorman and Talladega Nights, so I was expecting it to be pretty humorous. But there were only a few scenes that I found myself briefly laughing. It was pretty disappointing. Most of what McKay does is usually hilarious. Mostly because he has found a formula for his comedies that he has been able to make work. Of course, the downside of that is that most of his movies have started to all feel the same. That might be due in large part to the fact that Will Ferrell usually plays the lead role...and that role is usually practically the same character. The first few movies, it was hilarious. But the more that he plays that role, the more it starts to just feel annoying and like it's the same thing I've seen time and time again. In The Other Guys, Will Ferrell's character did start out as somewhat more of the straight man...but there was enough of a presence of his "zany" character to begin with that it never really felt right. Then, as the movie went on and he got zanier and zanier, it just felt like "ugh...not this again." I did think, however, that Mark Wahlberg did a great job. He is a much funnier actor than what some people might give him credit for. As you could probably guess from my review so far, my recommendation is: pass. It wasn't unpleasant to watch, but I wouldn't have been missing out on anything if I had never seen it. If you are wanting to see a McKay/Ferrell movie, I say just stick to either Anchorman and Talladega Nights. Even if you've already seen them, I think you'd have a better time re-watching them than you would watching The Other Guys. If you are wanting a movie where Ferrell isn't playing that same type of character, I'd say go with Stranger Than Fiction. And if you are wanting Wahlberg in a comedic role, go for I Heart Huckabees.

Ok...that's all for now. I'll try to get more reviews up in the next few days.

Movie review: Thor

Sorry it's taken so long to post this review (it's been a week or two since I've seen Thor). I was busy making sure that everything was finished up for the semester, then I was busy taking advantage of the fact that it was summer and doing practically nothing for a few days. I'd prefer to do my reviews within a day or two of seeing them, and if it had taken me this long to review a DVD, I would probably have just rewatched it. But, seeing as how theatres have gotten too expensive for repeated viewings, I'm just going to have to do a late review.

Thor (2011)
Theatrical release, IMAX, 3D
Rating: 4/5
Viewing: initial

Being a bit of a geek, I'm really happy that the trend of comic book movies over the past several years has resulted in an increasing effort to make good, quality movies. Sure, there are still a few bad eggs out there that bring the genre down (*cough* Ghost Rider *cough*). But for the most part, comic book movies are being taken seriously, with big budgets to produce the special effects needed to keep the visual style, and big name actors and directors to actually deliver the plot...both of which are needed to do justice to the source material. The action in these movies is definitely important...it's why most people go see comic book movies. But the plot and the character development is equally as important, if not more so. This is what helps you care about the characters and what happens to them. If you don't care about the characters, then the action sequences don't have the same level of tension, because you don't really care who wins.

I thought that Thor did a really good job of delivering both the action and the characters, especially considering that this was an origin story. In most origin stories, it's easy to spend so much time developing the character that there is little time left for action sequences. Or, in attempts to combat that, it is also easy for origin stories to swing the other way and spend too much time in battle and not properly introduce the character. Finding this balance is difficult for most comic book (and other various action) movies, but it is even more so in origin stories. Part of the reason that Thor was able to find this balance was because the action and the plot development went back and forth. Rather than spending the entire movie building up the character and building the hopes of an epic final battle, only to be let down by a disappointingly short action sequence, the action in Thor was interspersed in such a way that not only did each action sequence feel satisfying, but also felt like the action was actually helping to drive along the character development.

Another reason that I feel like Thor worked so well was because of the directing from Kenneth Branagh. Branagh is probably most commonly known for his adaptations of Shakespeare. And I think that his Shakespearian experience definitely aided this movie. In most movies, when a character is not American, he/she is portrayed by someone British. I understand that it's because a British accent is just foreign enough for American audiences to say "hey...he/she's not from here!" but still understandable enough to not have to use subtitles. I sometimes have a problem with this, when it is just one character that could just as easily have been cast by someone actually from the country the character is supposedly from. But in Thor, it was easy to accept that the majority of the Asgardian citizens were British. In part because of the commanding performance by Anthony Hopkins (he might be pushing 75, but he is still totally believable as a Norse God!), and in part because of Branagh's film history (especially Hamlet). The dialog, which used a fair amount of "old English," seemed very natural rather than painfully overacted. And there were a few scenes that actually felt like they were being performed on stage (in a good way).

I do have a couple complaints though. The first of which is the love story. The connection between Thor and Jane Foster (played by Natalie Portman) feels like it developed a little too quickly. It seemed much more like Jane fell in lust with Thor than in love with him. But, this is only a minor complaint. The love story between Thor and Jane played a role in his path to redemption, and I feel like the redemption story (overall) was developed very well. And considering the fact that Jane did not talk well of her ex but still had some of his clothes at her place, how quickly she fell for Thor might actually be in character for her. Also, if much more time had been devoted to the love story, it would have felt pretty sappy fairly quickly.

The other complaint that I have is that I saw the movie in 3D. For the most part, the 3D did not seem to detract much from the movie. And in scenes that focused more on the depth of the scenery, rather than poking and throwing things towards the audience, it did look pretty impressive. But in many of the action sequences, the action (moving at normal speed) was too fast for my eyes to focus and register that a hammer was being thrown at me. But, again, this is primarily a complaint about 3D in general (for a pretty great explanation as to why 3D kinda sucks, check out the link) and not just about Thor.

Recommendation: Go see it! Even if you aren't much of a fan of comic books, this is a great movie. And if you are a fan of comic books, I think that Branagh did justice to Thor. If you aren't a fan of 3D, and don't feel like shelling out the extra dough just to wear some uncomfortable glasses (seriously...who designs those things?!!?), then just see the 2D version. Having seen it in 3D, I don't think that there was necessarily anything spectacular enough to warrant a required 3D viewing experience. But, it certainly wasn't a bad experience (except for a few times during some of the action sequences) in 3D. So, if you're a fan of 3D, then go right ahead...I don't think you'll be disappointed.

rating

I saw Thor a few days ago and thought that it was pretty awesome. I've not had a chance to do my review yet, but hopefully will be able to get that done either tonight or tomorrow at some point. But until then, just wanted to post a little reminder about my rating system. For the time being, my rating is very much based off of Netflix in that I am rating how much I liked the movie, and not necessarily how good the movie was. The two are definitely related, but certainly not interchangeable. If it was an incredibly well-done movie, chances are pretty high that I'm going to love it. But, just because I really like a movie does not mean that it is going to be a quality film...I do occasionally like the intentionally bad movies. So, as I do my ratings, here is a rough translation of what each of them means. 1/5 means that I pretty much hated the movie. 2/5 means that I really didn't like the movie...I don't want to see it again, but it wasn't total torture seeing it the one time. 3/5 means the movie was ok. 4/5 means that I really liked the movie. And 5/5, of course, means that I loved it! On occasion, I might add a .5 to my rating, which of course would mean that it's somewhere between the two (ex. 4.5/5...I really, really liked the movie).

That is all for now. Thor review coming soon...

contextual recommendations

So, I've only done one review so far, and already I'm starting to see some flaws/changes that need made. This is why I normally spend more time thinking about something before I do it...so I can minimize the changes needed. But, if I spent all summer trying to work out my system, then I'd never get around to actually watching movies (or, at least not doing reviews of the movies I watch). So, I'll just be making changes as I go. It might be kind of slow-going til I get these reviews to the quality that I want them, but stick with me. They'll get better, I promise (I hope). In the meantime, comments and suggestions (whether they be about the movie, or what you would like to hear more/less about in my review) are definitely welcome.

But back to the problem from my first review. I was making a judgment about whether or not to buy a movie based off of what I received from Netflix. I realized this problem as I was doing the review and tried to address it by saying that if what you receive from Netflix is all that you get when you buy it, then just hold off until you see it on sale somewhere (as much as I think that Inception is a must see film, if there aren't any extras then it's kind of hard to drop the cash for Blu-ray, seeing as how they can be kinda pricey). And I thought that solution was good enough for the time being.

But I realized after the fact, while that reasoning might be good enough for DVDs and Blu-rays from Netflix, that wouldn't work for Netflix streaming or movies I see in the theater. This hit me as I'm making plans to go see Thor today with one of my friends. I'm pretty stoked about seeing it, and was already looking forward to doing a review. But I realized "how can I make a recommendation to buy it if it isn't even out on DVD/Blu-ray yet??"

To solve this problem, my recommendations are going to be contextual. My initial intention of doing recommendations for buy, rent, pass, will primarily be for movies that are either in my collection or that I have borrowed from a friend. Recommendations for DVDs/Blu-rays from Netflix will be whether or not to add it to your queue. If there are enough bonus features on those discs, recommendations to buy might be added. But, since what you receive from Netflix does not always contain everything that you get when you buy it, I'm not going to punish the movie for Netflix's limitations. Recommendations for Netflix streaming will be whether it is worth the time, or a waste of time (or, if it's a good time-waster). And finally, recommendations for movies that I see in the theater will be whether to see it in the theater, wait for it to be available on Netflix, or pass.

One final note. I've been collecting movies for quite a few years now, and actually started my collection before I had a DVD player (in fact, I might have even started before DVDs were made). For some of those movies, I've upgraded and bought it on DVD. But for many of them, I still only have the VHS. But I haven't decided yet how I want to handle the recommendations for them. If they are available on Netflix streaming, then I might as well just watch that version, as it would probably have better video and audio quality than VHS. But since the VHS doesn't have bonus features, I won't be able to make the call on whether or not to buy. Hmm...I'll have to think about this. Or I might just avoid watching anything on VHS.