Mr. Fantastic

Alright so I think this will not be the only review I do this week as I have a few movies I might want to talk about this week. Also I have to get to a list of requests from Rick, who wants me to review Horror movies, consisting of all Slasher Flicks. I'll see how many rentals I have left over after grabbing the new stuff later this week, Rick.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox follows the story of Mr. Fox, a fox who was once a professional Farm Thief, giving up his trade when he learns he is to become a father. Twelve Fox Years later he moves his family to a new home with the secret goal of returning to stealing. When three farmers decide to kill Mr. Fox, a standoff between them and all the woodland creatures begins.

And here we have the third movie with George Clooney in a row. I'm beginning to think the man cannot make a bad movie... I am then of course reminded of Batman and Robin. Fantastic Mr. Fox is quite honestly amazing. It's a strange experience watching the film since it's just so off beat, in such a good way. It's so subtle in it's humor, downplaying the audacity of talking animals. Everything seems almost muted, it doesn't jump out at you like a lot of family films. This movie isn't loud, wildly colorful, or fast moving and that's what gives it it's charm.

You obviously cannot talk about this movie without talking about the animation. It's all done in stop motion, which is all just beautiful. The aesthetic of earthy browns and fiery oranges give the film scenery that is just amazing to watch. All the characters seem intensely detailed, this being one of the first stop motion films I've seen with realistically moving eyes that didn't seem just painted on. The fact that a majority of the characters are covered in fur make the fact that this movie is as smooth as it is just makes me applaud the film makers.

I think the reason Fantastic Mr. Fox works so well, and maybe why it seems so odd, is that it doesn't just jump into a plot, and when it does it doesn't just pursue it till the end. The film first allows the audience to settle into a world, gently nudging the plot forward in the background before it comes crashing into the foreground. It's a layered film, with many themes and aspects to explore. Midlife crisis, family rivalry, sense of community, and risk vs. security are all core aspects to a larger whole.

This is a film that you need to see, at least once. It's beautiful, well written, and extremely funny. It comes out on the 23rd so if you see it on the shelf, pick it up. You won't be dissapointed.

Staring Contest

The Men who Stare at Goats

After his wife leaves him, journalist Bob Wilton hightails it to Iraq for a story and to prove to his ex wife that he is a man. There he meets Lyn Cassady, a man who claims to be a recently reactivated psychic spy. Together they head into Iraq where Lynn explains to Bob the military's secret psychic spy program from the Cold War.

This is an interesting movie... It's hilarious, well executed, great characters and acting, and becoming poignant when needed. It's just a shame with all those qualities it still feels lacking. Now I enjoyed this film immensely, and suggest anyone a fan of dark quirky comedies to see it, but there's just something missing from this film. Something that just doesn't draw you in as deeply as other films.

This film seems to swap from dark comedy to drama without any real flow, the themes of the film don't match very well in that regard. In one seen you have this oddness of a soldier hopped up on LSD in attempts to prove his psychic powers running through the camp naked firing wildly, the next shot he shoots himself in the head. Dark comedies can be dramatic, but in this film the shift from one theme to the next seems stiff, and comes without warning.

This all compounds with the psychic abilities themselves. Half the time the whole idea of psychic powers seems silly and easily explained, all nonsense in the context of the film and only real in the flashbacks. Then another time they appear as real, with no logical explanation to have. The movie doesn't seem to want to decide if the Lynn character is a real psychic or if he's just a con man that believes his own con...

But with all that said, the film is still worth watching. It's a funny and odd dark comedy, if you can handle the mood shifts you will enjoy it immensely. The way Clooney and McGregor play off eachother, a timid young reporter and an old psychic supersoldier... Clooney completely taken by his own story and McGregor going along for the sake of his story, it's great.

This film is definitely for those who enjoy the ludicrous and dark comedies, it may be worth buying, but you wouldn't be wasting money to rent it first to see if it's for you.

Fly Me Away

Up in the Air

Ryan Bingham has a job that keeps him in the air throughout the year, a fact he is most pleased with. Spending most of his time flying around the country, he has taken to a lifestyle of no commitments, always on the move. When a young woman comes to his company with an idea that will keep him grounded, he takes her on the road with him to show her how it needs to be done, and hopefully preserve his way of life.

Jason Reitman seems to have a way of going about movies, taking something reviled and reveling in it. With Thank you for Smoking we saw a spokesperson for the Tabacco Industry as our protagonist, talking about spin and marketing as a way of life. Juno showed us Teen Pregnancy as not something tragic and forever heartbreaking, but as something snarky and something to laugh at. Here we have a man who not only has to deal with airlines, but prefers to be there than home.

It's interesting to me that his protagonists are never truley good people Thank you for Smoking was a Tabacco Spokesperson, Juno a pregnant teen who was cynical and almost callous to those around her, and now a man who fires people for a living, sure he helps them along the way to finding a new path, but he doesn't really seem to care about them. The man is empty, with no real connections...

This movie follows this broken man as his lifestyle is challenged. He sees an end to his anchorless ways, and fights to regain it. All the while toppling over a romance story that shows that maybe being grounded wouldn't be so horrible. The movie plays with these ideas of keeping yourself free and tying yourself down to something throughout, an amazingly small main cast showing so many aspects of life on the move. All concluding in an ending that's almost bittersweet, despite everyone getting what they want.

This is a movie that should be seen, it should be seen multiple times, alone and with friends. It's an amazingly simple story that really opens into some complex themes if you let it. When you see it on the shelf March 9th, pick it up.

The World of Tomorrow

Alright, since it seems that I have an audience now... Which is just plain weird, I'm gonna try to get to a review a week again. So here's the deal, movies don't come into my store on Tuesday anymore, we now get the prestreets on Thursday or Friday. What this means I have only 3-4 days to watch all my prestreet rentals over the weekend, even less time if I actually work. I'm going to try and get new movies up, but I'm gonna be taking requests and suggestions as well. So shoot me a request or suggestion at TheScarletRogue@GMail.com Subject Line: MovieGeek Request.

2012

In 2012 the Mayans predicted the end of the world, and they were right. In the year 2012 the planetary alignment causes a blast of Neutrino waves from the sun that melts the earths core, causing the planet to slowly crumble. Jackson Curtis (Cusack) is on a camping trip with his kids when the world starts to end, now he and his family search desperately for a way to escape the madness while the world literally falls apart around them.

Disaster Movies, let me say just one thing about Disaster Movies. They should be awe inspiring. This isn't something subtle here, theres no subtext, or silent menace in the shadow... You are destroying something. A city, a ship, the entire world, something is going to be utterly annihilated and the audience needs to feel it. Say what you will about movies like Volcano, Independence Day, or Armageddon(And honestly, I could say a lot.) But they knew how to make the destruction, the disasters of their movies feel disastrous.

2012 is almost comical in that regard. The destruction is so outrageous and the action is so ridiculous that you'll be hurdled out of the experience. It simply feels as though the makers of the movie are trying to make you laugh at the utter destruction of California as a whole. Donuts roll in the path of the protagonists, slow driving old ladies block their path as the road crumbles behind them, and a subway train shoots out of the ground as the heroes take off in a plane. There is nothing to the action except for barely missed it scenes, where inevitably the protagonists will just barely skirt by as something attempts to crush, drop, or explode around them. Many of these moments happen within SECONDS of each other, it's simply too much.

And this is John Cusack, do you know how much you have to work for me to dislike a John Cusack film? He and the cast are really the only saving grace in this film. Sure they're all just stock, nothing more than placeholders between the over the top action and destruction scenes, vessels for us to sit with and take us from explosion to explosion... But with actors like John Cusack, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson, and Oliver Platt, at least some emotion is drawn from these rather bland characters.

Though even with the horrible things I've just said, it's not as horrible as I expected. I was expecting from word of mouth something truly bad, and got something merely poor. It's not a good movie, that's for sure. And while it fails, even in regards to it's own genre, you won't be gnawing your own foot off to escape it if you pick it up. It's certainly not a purchase, though, only a rental.

And I just got through the entire review without ranting why the theories behind 2012 are wrong. I'm quite proud of myself.

Movie Rant: The Future of the 90s

When I first started this blog, I stated that it would contain reviews as well as my general outlook on the movie industry. I have had a few ideas for these Rants in the past, but none that I could really formulate into a solid article. So here's the first of hopefully many Movie Rants...


I am a firm believer in the Retro Rule of 20, of which I have mentioned in my G.I. Joe review. It's a simple rule that the media of today will reflect back fondly upon the days of twenty years ago. The idea is that the now late twenty early 30 somethings who grew up in those days who now have more expendable income than when they were 10 will flock to these properties like they did when they were kids, and generally they do.

The evidence isn't hard to see from the 2000's, with G.I. Joes, Transformers, animated shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and He-Man being remade, and even a (somewhat bad) remake of Knight Rider. And going back further we can see such evidence in The Wonder Years, a 90s look back on the 70s, and Happy Days, a 70s look back on the 50s.

So the new decade is upon us, and a new trend of Retro comes with it. Now, I am a 90s kid... As much as I wish to deny it. I try, truly, to relate to the 80s, but I wasn't even 5 when they ended. No I was raised in the 90s, and man... What an undefined decade. Truly meandering about with nothing to claim for itself.

What can be said about the 90s? Well it birthed the Modern Internet, and lead to the Dot Com boom... Which ended badly. It saw the advent of the modern cell phone... which didn't come to popularity till the 2000's... And it brought us the Dark Age of Comics... And that's all I'll say on that.

So what does this say for our Media? Well it's hard to say... Most Television and Movies coming from the 90s aren't heralded very fondly, with most of it's defining features of entertainment being Video Game related. That's not to be said that the entertainment of the 90s was complete garbage, many great movies and television shows came from this decade... But then most of it simply would not work as a remake or revitalization. It's an interesting time, to be honest... I for one can't wait for the Live Action adaptation of Samurai Pizza Cats...

...And now I feel really old.

Only Two things are Certain...

The Final Destination

The Final Destination follows the story of Death's latest List Skippers. A group of four sit within the audience of a NASCAR style Stock Car race, one of which loudly admits to only being there in hopes of a crash. The main character Nick has a vision of such a crash, so horrible it kills dozens of people including him and his friends. Distraught, he quickly rushes his friends and a few bystanders out of the Speedway, in which moments later the vision comes true. Shortly after they find that Death is stalking them, picking them off in the order they should have died in during the accident.


Lets get right down to this and not beat around the bush... The Final Destination, as opposed to Final Destination 4, is a gore porn. It serves no real merit as a Horror or Thriller movie. People who follow the series KNOW the characters are going to die, and expect it en mass. Now there's nothing wrong with that, Splatter Spectacles like Hostel or The Hills Have Eyes do a wonderful job of showing you grotesquery and making you squirm in your seat at it. But this?

The movie is littered with bad CGI, scenes that scream "this is supposed to be in 3D", and pretty bland death scenes. I'm not joking, the deaths in this are pretty boring and tame compared to the others save for maybe two. And when you're making such a blatant Spectacle Horror like this, your audience is expecting the absurd.

One thing that personally bugged me was the huge Red Herring in the middle of the movie (there are several red herrings throughout...) Where an entire death scene set up is thrown away with no payoff, only to lead to the actual death scene which is utterly forgettable. This wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't shown a can of hairspray sliding across the counter, moved by death, and then have it accumulate to nothing.

Towards the end of the movie, the story goes so far as to break it's own rules, completely negating the 'order of death' staple the series had had since the beginning in favor of a large climactic end, in which it's best death is used, and then completely negated.

The creators have stated that this is the last Final Destination movie, which implies some sort of culmination, a climax of the entire series as opposed to just another group of people trying to outwit a personified concept. This does come, sort of. It's a quickly uttered and easy to miss line at the climax of the film, a character postulating that maybe everything is Death's design, completely negating the entire point of the entire Final Destination series.

Though do to the success of this film (most likely due to the fact that it was a Gore Porn in 3D) there have been talks of continuing... Though I quite honestly feel the series should have ended shortly before Final Destination 3 went into production.

The Final Destination comes to DVD on the Fifth, it's competent for it's genre and has a few good spectacles, but is completely forgettable with no lasting impression...

Concentration

Alright so this is an odd one, as it is my first request review! So lets move on to...

District 9

District 9 Starts in the 1980s, giving exposition on a Space Ship that comes to a halt over Johannesburg, South Africa. Apparently stalled, or broken, the local powers take the alien race (Called the Prawn in a derogatory sense due to their appearance) down to the city and place them in a camp, called District 9. 20 years pass and District 9 is very much a slum, crime and corruption have plagued the Prawn, who are treated as lower class. Humans demand that they be removed from their city... The city hires MNU to relocated the Prawn to Dictrict 10, who place Wikus van de Merwe in charge of the relocation.

While handing out Eviction Notices Wilkus is infected, and begins transforming into a Prawn, this leads him in a three way battle while he tries to stay away from MNU who wish to use him to discover the secrets of Prawn Weaponry, change himself back to normal so he can return to his life, and possibly help the Prawn escape from their current fate.


A very long Synopsis for a very complex movie. Now this may be touted as a Sci-Fi action, but more than that, it's a MESSAGE movie. Several messages in fact from Xenophobia, to Corporate Corruption, to of course the most obvious the morality of Concentration Camps. This is the movie that's interested in making you think... While the action is great, it certainly is not a Popcorn Flick.

The movie itself is a sort of convergence of the Handycam and Traditional Cinema styles. Parts of the movie, mostly the beginning and end are shot in Documentary Style, giving the back story and setting up the plot. It explores the world the movie creates and sets the mood before beginning the actual story.

This I feel makes the messages the movie pushes seem less forced and in your face, making it more natural to the movie. This film takes the time to build a setting before throwing the audience to the protagonist to progress the actual film.

One of the other intriguing things I find with this film is that the protagonist, Wilkus, is not a good man. He's not a bad man, but he does not make one heroic act until an hour and a half into the film, and until about halfway into the second act he treats the Prawn with no more respect than anyone else, treating them like dim witted beasts. Until the explosive finale, Wilkus simply stumbles through the film, interested in filling his own needs, and keeping himself alive. Following a man like this is almost refreshing compared to the righteous freedom fighter proxies for Jesus that litter the Action Sci-Fi genre's main characters.

The movie really takes it's time to show you how a people can be brought down not by their own fault, as it is clear that the Prawn were once incredibly intelligent, but in District 9 seem to portray every slumish ghetto stereotype. They're dim, ill mannered, and seem quick to violent acts when confused. Truly a failing from the generation before them as they have no access to education, or economic opportunity. Those that govern them either want nothing to do with them, hoping to keep them away from the general population...

The movie hammers these many points in without getting on a soap box about it. You should know this before thinking of picking it up, because if you're simply looking for an action movie with aliens, you'll be quite disappointed. While the action is very well done, there are only a handful of them, and most come late in the second act, before coming to an explosive finale in the third.

District 9, though, may have been misclassified, as this is a prime example of modern Science Fiction. A story that takes fantastical and often alien plot elements to make a statement about some moral aspect of the world today. And this movie does a great job with it.

I do highly recommend this to anyone looking for an 'Action' movie with some actual depth to the plot.