"Zane knew himself to be a headstrong young idiot with delusions of artistry and literacy." - Piers Anthony (On A Pale Horse)

Sunday, June 12, 2005

SharkBoy&LavaGirl

The trend in kids movies is that there are elements that the parents can enjoy. Not here. This movie offers nothing to anyone over the age of 8, and even then - we are talking about a pretty simple eight year-old.

The 3D isn't real (parallax based) 3D. The 3D effect was done completely in post. This means that things don't leap off of the screen - they simply have more depth. This movie is about as 3D as a ViewMaster.

Also, instead of using the modern 'polarize' technique that uses the level of shadow to create 3D (the glasses with a dark lens and a light lens), this film uses the old red/blue separation technique.

The problem - in a darkened movie theater, the red eye sees a pitch black room while the blue eye sees a much lighter room. This 'effect' causes migraines. Literally. Watching this movie, with the glasses on, will give you a headache and, when you take the glasses off, your eyes will see a tint inverse to their lenses (red-lens eye will see a blue tint and vice versa) - this will only aggravate the headache.

Don't worry, the tint fades in 10-15 minutes, but the headache will linger.

Last on the list are the puns. At first they are cute and almost clever but, by the end of the movie, having heard the same pun 5-10 times, they will have you trying to claw out your over-strained eyes.

I can't say enough horrible things about this movie.

HauteTension

French horror!

The dub is unnecessary but fairly well done. The twist is useless but doesn't detract from anything.

That said... a girl is spending the summer with her friend's family on their farm in 'middle-of-nowhere-France'. The first night there, a strange man visits and starts to kill everyone. The girl runs. The man chases.

Its all very straight forward.

This film could be called "Chainsaw Massacre de Lyon." This is 'super violent things happening to good people' horror done really well.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Mr&MrsSmith

Boy meets Girl.
Boy and Girl pretend to fall in love.
Boy and Girl are high-priced assassins.
Both, Boy and Girl, think that a family is good cover.
Five or Six years later, Boy and Girl are hired to kill each other.
Between bullets, they fall in love.
Then a bunch of people die in a heavily choreographed shootout.

However you reacted to the trailer is exactly how you will react to the film.

I thought this movie was a lot of fun.