Cut Short Reviews

Sorry for the absence guys, I really will be back sometime soon, I promise. :) 

I regret not checking this film out sooner, the director has a fine pedigree, and I generally like Clooney in everything he’s in, so I have no real excuse for my lateness. Suffice it to say that if Up wasn’t so solidly ingrained as my top choice of 2009 then Up in the Air would probably take the crown. Clooney is charming as ever, and all the rest of the cast knocks it out of the park as well. The story is so well constructed and says so much by saying so little, the entire thing is simple beautiful and touching, while still being whimsical and funny. Very few dramas can deal with such heavy issues in such a light way and really make it work, but Up in the Air pulls it off, give it a watch, it’s incredible.

Director Kevin Smith has always been known for his gross-out, but mostly poignant, comedies. So the prospect of him directing a politically charged horror film was quite intriguing. Red State is essentially an action/horror hybrid with everyone’s least favorite religious nuts, the Westborough Baptist Church, being the inspiration behind the baddies. Though it is pretty well written (and extremely dark) and very well acted, Red State suffers from a lack of focus, jumping from topic to topic, or character to character so fast that at times it’s hard to know who or what you should be caring about. Overall though this is a worthy film, and definitely worth the time of any film nuts out there just to see a beloved director out of his comfort zone.   

I had some minor complaints against Evangelion 1.0, but I can say outright that I have none with Evangelion 2.0, so much so that it has been slowly creeping up my best movies of all time list. First off, the breathtaking animation from the first rebuild is somehow improved upon here so that every scene is pure art is motion. A lot of what happens in this movie is completely new to the franchise, including the introduction of a new and awesome character. The music is the best of the series to date, the characters are all subtly changed in new and interesting ways, and the ending is a cliff-hanger for the ages. I would say that Evangelion 2.0 is the best anime movie outside of the work of Studio Ghibli, and that is as good a recommendation as I can ever give. 

The general rule of thumb is when something is perfect, you leave it alone, so by that logic the rebuilds of Evangelion should be a disaster waiting to happen, except they aren’t. Essentially a quick run through of the first few episodes Evangelion 1.0 is beautiful beyond words, with some of the slickest animation I’ve ever seen. The redesigns and touch-ups to the Evas and the Angels are great and really give them a much deeper feel. My only really problem with 1.0 is the lack of the development present in the original series, a lot of important character details seemed to be glossed over and outright ignored, and I feel that if you haven’t watched the original series then you’re probably missing out on a lot with this movie. However, that doesn’t stop it from being a joy to watch, so check it out, just watch Neon Genesis Evangelion first.

After the end of Neon Genesis Evangelion Hideaki Anno apparently got a lot of complaints about the vagueness of the ending, so rearmed with a budget again he made the movie The End of Evangelion to clear up some of the events of the final two episodes of the show. The result is a great footnote to an already perfect series. Sure the movie dabbles in strangeness with its random live-action segments, but overall it truly feels like part of the series. The action scenes are definitely the highlights of the movie, and it even features what I would consider the best fight in the series. Overall there’s not much to say beyond what I said in my review of Neon Genesis Evangelion, because to me End of Evangelion belongs with it, so everything said about one applies to the other. Needless to say, if you watch Neon Genesis Evangelion watch this with it.

In my lifetime I have experienced thousands of stories through every possible medium, a lot of them have impressed me, some of them even move or inspire me. One stands above all of them. Neon Genesis Evangelion isn’t just my favorite anime, or even just the best anime (though it is), in my opinion it is the greatest work of fiction produced in the last 50 years at least. That may sound like an over exaggeration, but I don’t feel I’m over stating it. The story is truly mind-blowing, the characters are diverse and real, the art design is spectacular, the animation is gorgeous, and the music is amazing. Even at the end of the series when the budget turned to nothing director Hideaki Anno made it work in a way few other artists would have been able to achieve. If you consider yourself an anime fan and you haven’t seen Evangelion then you are lying to yourself, and for everyone else give it a chance, it will make you experience every emotion possible.  

I’ve mentioned before how it sucks being a horror fan, well it sucks even worse to be a werewolf fan, I’m not sure that a good werewolf movie has been made in the last 8-9 years, and beyond that there’s only a handful of worthy ones in the entire history of film. Well Red Riding Hood isn’t one of the good ones, it could pretty much be summed up as the movie for Twilight fans who wanted the dumb girl to pick the werewolf dude instead of Captain McGlitterpants. The first 30-40 minutes are truly painful to endure due to the high amount of whiny teenage angst, but to add insult to injury I actually found myself enjoying the middle when Gary Oldman showed up and the werewolf started to attack, I thought maybe it would be okay. Then the ending hit me in the face like a bag of bricks to remind me the true supernatural romance intentions of this crapfest. So yeah, needless to say there isn’t really a reason to see this post-Twilight mockery of a fairy tale, unless you like that sort of thing.

I would consider Guillermo del Toro to be one of my top five favorite directors, his films just have such a unique, fantastic feel that you can always tell when he’s involved and how much he loves his work, Mimic doesn’t have that. You can tell the entire way through the amount of bland Hollywood meddling that went into this one. It’s still not a bad movie per se, it’s probably the smartest killer bug movie ever made, even if the science in it would still make a biologist scream in terror. The monsters are cool, and the main characters are what you’d expect from this type of 90’s movie. The only reason I don’t love Mimic is because I expect better from del Toro (and he does too) and this movie just doesn’t feel like his…well that and the ending is garbage. So overall, Mimic is del Toro’s worst film, but with his career that’s not too much of an insult, it’s a fun product of the 90’s with wacky science and killer bugs, you could do worse.

Thanks to the mind-boggling success of Paranormal Activity the handheld horror film is making a comeback, and like before, it is really hit-or-miss. Impressively, The Last Exorcism itself is extremely hit or miss, it feels really cheaply made (because it was), the characters aren’t super interesting, and overall it just feels like the creators ripped off Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon a little too much. That said though it is nice to see an exorcism movie that doesn’t follow the playbook established in 1973. Ashley Bell is a major highlight, she conveys a possessed innocent brilliantly, I’d love to see her get a career out of this. I still don’t know if I can recommend it though, it has no atmosphere and the ending is wacky, but I didn’t hate it. I guess I would say the more stereotypical The Rite is more worth your time, but this isn’t the worst horror movie I’ve seen recently.   

Emerging from the abysmal ashes of 2008’s album “808s and Heartbreak”, Kanye is back with MBDTF and has turned the autotune machine off, or least puts in down for the most part. However, that still doesn’t do too much to save this CD, the problem with Kanye is that when he first started rapping he had a lot of heart and desire and that was reflected in his music, now that’s all buried by his massive ego and fortune. You can’t go a song on this album with hearing about money or about how awesome Mr. West thinks he is. That’s not to say the album is unlistenable (like 808s was), all the tracks connect amazingly to feel like one giant song, he gets decent guests, and some of the songs (like “All of the Lights” or “Runaway”) are really good. I just miss the old Kanye, someone needs to kick in West’s ego and get him back to recording with his heart, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon.

This marks the first new game I’ve played in a very long time, and it didn’t take a very long time to beat, two days to be precise. Aliens: Infestation is a Metroidvania style side-scroller set in the aftermath of the film Aliens from the studio that will be bringing us Aliens: Colonial Marines…someday. It’s a decent game, way too short and a little repetitive, but still engrossing enough to make it hard to put down. Except for a really miserable zero gravity platforming section near the end of the game the difficultly is pretty simple, especially once you get the flamethrower. The story is pretty threadbare, and most of the characters are nothing more this disposable grunts, but I did really like the goth chick marine, I made sure to play as her and keep her alive all through the game for amusement’s sake. So overall you could find better games in this style, but if you’re a big fan of the franchise or genre then Aliens: Infestation is well worth a look.

Morgan Spurlock is from the Michael Moore school of documentary making, i.e. making documentaries to entertain as much as to inform. The obvious benefit of this style is the added humor value to what can be a dry genre, the problem is sometimes the message gets lost in the process. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is Spurlock’s attempt to fund a movie about product placement entirely with product placement. The result is humorous, and at times informative, but also very scatter shot, making this an amusing, but somewhat unfocused documentary. It’s no where near the aggressive tone of Spurlock’s Super Size Me, but it’s still interesting to warrant a watch if you enjoy this style of film. 

Have you ever watched a stand up comedian perform and wondered what a day in his life looked life? Well here is you answer, compliments of Louis C.K., the TV show ‘Louie” in which Louis plays a fictional version of himself dealing with day-to-day life. The show is hilarious and the comedy is boosted by intercut segments of Louis’ stand-up. Of course if you aren’t a fan of Mr. C.K.’s style of comedy (aka slightly deadpan and very offensive) then you won’t find much to like in his show. The show also occasional repeats stand-up jokes, but it’s not too annoying. Overall, “Louie” is a great comedy show that is very addictive and a great supplement to Louis C.K. comedy career.

I tend to like more adult-oriented manga, not for the sex or violence per se, but because of the often darker, more in-depth storylines, so I had always been curious to check out Sundome. I couldn’t be more glad that I did, I sped through this 8 volume series in record time, being completely unable to put it down near the end. The characters really carry this series, each one is unique and interesting, which such great personalities that you can’t help but love them all. I know a lot of people probably dismiss (or embrace) this series as a sex-riddled hentai, but while there are plenty of erotic moments, they make perfect sense within the context of the story. Also, the main draw of the series is it’s heart. I’ll confess here, I am the young adult male target demographic of The Fast and the Furious, Call of Duty, etc, but I bawled my eyes out at the series’ end, literally, I felt like I would never stop. So yeah, Sundome is one of the best manga series I have ever read, and if you can handle the slight perversion I would highly recommend it, you’d be hard pressed to find a sweeter, more touching story.