Always Right Movie Review'dustries

Aeon Flux doesn't exactly sux. I realize that 9 out of 10 critics would disagree with that, but here at Always Right is the only opinion that matters, and that opinion says that Aeon Flux was far from the unmitigated catastrophe some make it out to be, and may be preventing people from giving it a shot.

The plot revolves around this: Aeon Flux is an undercover revolutionary sent on a mission to assassinate Chairman Goodchild, the leader of the city-state that is the last remaining human habitation on the planet after a devastating virus. From here I was able to figure about half of what the story was going to entail.

Now for the pros and cons.

Sure, Aeon Flux has its problems. A lot of problems, in fact. By all accounts the cartoon that appeared on MTV was infinity times better. For most people, the relatively complex (but flawed) plotline probably moves too slowly and intellectually between action scenes but doesn't offer enough of an intelligent payoff. There are a lot of wasted opportunities I saw concerning minor characters that could have made the story more engaging. There are some...okay, a goodly amount...of illogical plot points. There is really not very much engaging about the characters (even though a lack of emotional engagement and voice inflection does kind of work for the movie's atmosphere), and the ever-annoying memory-mysteriously-jumping-into-clone gimmick raises its ever-annoying head and makes me want to beat it with a pipe. It also serves up what has to be the most expensive but ineffective security system I have ever seen in the form of dart-spewing beehives. And the editing is too quick to really show off in full glory the grace of the female form doing acrobatics and killing people. A waste, considering all the months Theron must have trained for this role.

Okay, now the good news: Aeon Flux presents a very accomplished visual style through its cold, futuristic ambience. The action scenes, while over-edited, are not bad. And Charlize Theron shows that she is, in fact, an Oscar-caliber actress even in this role. If it wasn't for her there might not have been any investment induced in me by the characters at all and I would probably have given an unqualified pan of this movie like pretty much everyone else. And Aeon Flux is not a mindless action film. The mind might be pretty damn confused, with a lot of missing neural pathways and crossed wires, but there is a mind present, with something to say about the nature of power and where at least some aspects of biotechnology might lead us one day.

So, all in all, Aeon Flux is not a catastrophe compared to a lot of movies I've seen lately. It kept me just titillated enough to be willing to sit through it, and I was not embarrassed I had seen it in the end. And because I am not easily titillated, especially by sci-fi that doesn't know what it's doing, this is saying something. It's saying it's not bad enough for me to hate it, (mostly because of Theron's performance). It gets a modest Killing Spree. If you're interested in "idea" sci-fi you can do worse. However, if you want "good idea" sci-fi, especially concerning the matter of cloning, then it is essential that you check out Gattaca. This movie demolishes all the competition I know of when it comes to this topic, and is a must if you like more cerebral science fiction fare.

I just saw the film Silent Hill yesterday. I have never played the games it is based upon. I didn't even know that the movie was based on a game until I started reading other reviews of it.
I have read that it is the worst movie of the year. That is hogwash!

It wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't a bad movie either. To be honest this review describes my feelings about it perfectly. The town in the movie even had a little reality behind it: Centralia, PA.

This movie did not depend on CG for its creatures/monsters, but used actors in costume and did so splendidly. Nice reminder that their are still effects "wizards" like the Henson Creature Shop in existence.

My biggest complaints were in respect to the ending and background story. I think I understood the ending of the movie... but I am not entirely certain. I will have to discuss it with other brave movie goers who disregard the critics ;) I felt the background story fell short of explaining the goings on in Silent Hill. But both of these shortcomings added to the artsy nightmare effect that the film had going for it.

If you don't mind movies on the artsy side and can look beyond the flaws, then this movie can be enjoyable. I will stand against the Bigtime movie critics and rate it a bloody KILLING SPREE. Don't beleive me? The average Yahoo user grade is an impressive B.

Several weeks ago I gave into the pressure of friends (both from college and local to my current locality) and bought a DVD ROM drive (actually a DVD Burner) and to celebrate my new purchase, a coworker loaned me Tron, a classic of computer SciFi from the 80s.

Tron (1982) is the first CG movie and thus holds a place in the hearts of all computer geeks (and movie geeks). The movie is corny in some places, but what do you expect a 24 year old movie about computers? Given the time frame the the plot and CG are actually quite impressive.




Maybe my appreciation of computers and science fiction has biased me, but I enjoyed Tron. The movie starts out with an introduction to the world of programs, a dystopian world where everything is controlled by the MCP (Master Control Program). In the real world a computer programmer named Kevin Flynn is trying to find evidence that Ed Dillinger (Senior Executive Officer at ENCOM) stole several of his video games. Flynn's ex girlfriend (an ENCOM scientist working on a device that can “digitize” matter and store it on a computer), and her current boyfriend (an ENCOM programmer) decide to help Flynn find the evidence that he needs. While they are trying to get the evidence out of the computer system, the MCP digitizes Flynn. Soon he finds himself in the world of computers, where he has to play computer games to survive.



While playing “lightcycle,” Flynn escapes with allies Tron and Ram. The three then go on a quest to defeat the MCP and free the world of programs from its control.



It's hard to rate this movie because compared to current CG (2006) the CG doesn't look that great and the plot is kind of old (A human in the computer world? Been there done that!), however the movie was made 24 years ago. For 1982 the CG is really amazing and the plot fresh; I think it deserves 9 out of 10 bits.

I don't want to ruin the movie for you, so I wont tell you what happens to Flynn, the MCP, and Tron, watch the movie to find out!

From treasure hunts to choruses of Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, children and adults alike have been capitvated by pirates for years, nay decades. Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is one of the most recognizable pieces of literature of all time. Many movies have been based upon this Robert Lewis Stevenson classic novel, but TNTs version from 1990 is by far the best. It stars Charlton Heston as the "old salt" Long John Silver (right) and Christian Bale as the quick witted narrator, Jim Hawkins.

The story, as everyone knows, is about a lad, Jim Hawkins, who ends up with a pirate treasure map. But this map didn't belong to just any pirate, it was a map for John Flint's treasure! Jim Hawkins with Dr. Livesey, Squire Trelawney, Captain Smollet, and others off to sail to "Treasure Island." But to gain the great treasure, they must overcome mutiny and former members of Flint's crew.

TNTs Treasure Island is a tale of adventure and treasure. I was mesmerized by this movie in 1990 and I am still mesmerized by it today. For anyone who does not know the story of Treasure Island, I certainly hope that you take this opputurnity to pursue R.LS.'s book or at the very least obtain a copy of the TNT version to view. It is well worth your time and effort.

As one user on imdb.com commented, this movie is the "current benchmark" for all Treasure Island movies. The commentor goes on to describe many characters and the actors who played them:

All of the book's heroes are portrayed with heartfelt competence; the blustering Squire Trelawney (Richard Johnson), the tack-sharp, impeccably-mannered Doctor Livesey (Julian Glover), the unflinching Captain Smollet (Clive Wood), and Jim Hawkins' arch-boy (Christian Bale in his mid-teens, filled out a bit post `Empire of the Sun', bearing no resemblance to his homicidal yuppie in `American Psycho'). Arrayed against them are the scurviest sea dogs who ever weighed anchor, complete with terrifying teeth and fierce, implied body odor: Oliver Reed's tragic Billy Bones, Christopher Lee's festering Blind Pew, Israel Hands (what a great name), Silver's murderous, cobra-like shipmate, (Michael Halsey), who provides a taste of what Silver himself may have been like in his younger days, and a most convincing Ben Gunn (Nicholas Amer). Peter Postlethwaite, the super-cool big-game hunter in the first sequel to `Jurassic Park', plays the bewildered George Merry, a man who should always flee from even the slightest ambition; someone who makes you happy to still be you, even if your 401K was riding entirely on Enron.

Well, I will let bygones be bygones and rate TNTs Treasure Island a "15 Men On A Dead Man's Chest" GODLIKE!

What do Shania Twain, a devout Christian Electrical Engineer, a fireman, a business executive, an environmentalist pro bono worker, "The Ball Thing", a female French Nihilist, the global politics of petroleum, and a crack squad of "Existentialist Detectives" including Dustin Hoffman have in common?

Nothing, right?

Or Everything...

I [heart] huckabees is not for everyone. Or is it, and they just don't know it yet? At any rate, it definitely was for me. Few films have made me laugh as hard as this movie while tickling my dendrites with philosophical musing, taking me back to the days when I first saw the Monty Python movies, only with more of an expressive point.

Maybe.

This is a truly chaotic and hilarious depiction of people and their neuroses, questions, fears, and resolutions about life and its apparent meaningfullessness--a film that examines the identity crises of a string of people and the ways in which our worldviews collide, mingle, divide us, and, ultimately, can unite us.

Or, is it a tortuous, trite mockery of metaphysics too quirky for its own good, alienates any audience not familiar with existentialism and Buddhism, and is ultimately meaningless itself?

Who knows. All I know is I had a great time watching it.

It begins with a string of cuss words from Jason Schwartzman (who also starred in the lead role of Rushmore with Bill Murray, another must-see comedy that begins, as most must-see comedies do, with a really complicated, unsolvable math problem). Schwartzman plays a young man who has started his own environmental organization (he is a tree-hugger, if you will), and is wrestling with the compromise of his environmental values in order to promote environmentalism with a big suburban-sprawling company.

He also keeps running into this really tall guy from Africa. What is up with this coincidence?

To find out he goes to the Existentialist Detectives, whose business card he happens to find in a suit jacket.

The Existentialist Detectives do not mess around. They know what's up, and they know how to get other people to know what's up. Dustin Hoffman is particularly great.

Anyway, so they decide to take up Schwartzman's case. Only they say the coincidences of running into the tall guy from Africa might be nothing (although it may or may not actually turn out to be something). The real issue they are trying to get at is how well he understands his own life. This involves them spying on him with a vast array of high-tech gadgetry--even when he gets up in the morning to brush his teeth. Like private detectives gathering info. Only their subject of investigation actually knows they are being spied on.

The Existentialist Detectives have another case they're working on--Mark Wahlberg, a firefighter with existential issues. A hilarious combination, it turns out, especially when Wahlberg is really great in this role. He shows the detectives a book he has been reading on Nihilism and how it is really starting to make sense. They take a look at the book. It's author is some philosophizing French woman. Hoffman: "Don't listen to Caterine Vauban. She's full of shit."

Then there's Jude Law playing the business executive Schwartzman is joining forces with, but who may compromise the environmental ideals, who finds out about the Existentialist Detectives Shwartzman hires because they go everywhere with him--even to work (the Existentialist Detectives go where they want, when they want--they are existential bloodhounds), so the business exec. also goes to the detectives thinking he can rattle Schwartzman and get him fired, because he eventually comes to see him as a possible threat to the deal of joining his company to Schwartzman's environmental group (which is good for the company for PR reasons), and in the process tries to fool the detectives into thinking he really thinks he has an existential crisis, and Schwartzman is hooked up with Wahlberg as his "Other"--someone else going through the "dismantling" process that the Existential Detectives impose, but then out of nowhere the French Nihilatrix that Wahlberg was reading shows up and starts trying to take these people's identity crisis into her own hands, showing them the "true way" of life, and the Existential Detectives are like: "What the hell is she doing in America?" "This is worse than we thought." "Much worse". And then more things happen with Jude Law and his model girlfriend (Naomi Watts) who is the public image of his company (oh, which is Huckabees, by the way). And then more stuff happens, Existentialist Detectives vie with Nihilists, lives intermingle, people get hurt, stuff is set on fire, insights are reached, The Ball Thing happens, bonnets are worn...

Sound complicated?

It is.

In the last half, Wahlberg spouts one of my favorite quotes from the movie (of which there are many):

[upon rebelling against Caterine the Nihilist, his new Life Sensei]:

...I'm gonna go to an even darker place of nothingness. From an even farther, more extreme nothingness on my own!

Caterine: Ahh, sublime.

Anyway, I Heart Huckabees might possibly make it onto my list of all-time greatest comedies. It features an amusing look, if maybe too trite and out-of-leftfield to lead many people to enlightenment, at things like a conceptualized (and therefore incomplete) Buddhist outlook (or inlook). Or maybe a "What the--" kick in the pants movie like this will spur people to seek out life's deeper issues (even though the finger (or existential comedy) pointing to the moon (enlightenment) is not the moon, as a Buddhist might say).

Did this movie make me want to seek out life's deeper issues? Not really. I just ended up laughing a lot. And that's what counts.

Or is it?...

Oh, and for Shania Twain fans, yes--she does actually figure into this movie.

Until we figure out a better rating scale, I give this movie of carefully controlled, exquisitely choreographed existential chaos a Godlike rating, with the caveat that I can see how some people would give up on it as utter nonsense.

But, in the end, isn't everything nonsense?

I'm going to answer like Schwartzman when he was asked "Have you ever Transcended all of Space and Time?"

Yes [pause] No.

Dark Water is a cross between a horror film and a psychological thriller, leaning more towards the psychological thriller end of the spectrum. It is about a mother, Dahlia, and her daughter, Cecilia. They have moved into a rundown apartment complex on the edge of New York City. Dahlia is in the middle of a custody battle with the father, Kyle.

When they first look at the apartment, Cecilia is immediately turned off and wants nothing to do with it. But as the "tour" progresses she wanders off and ends up on the roof of the building. I immediately expected, thanks to Rune, a leap of faith to occur during the movie... I will spoil the plot for you now: it does not happen ;) After being found on the roof and a mild scolding for wandering off, Cecilia declares that she wants to live in this building. Spooky huh? Not long after moving in water stains begin appearing on the ceiling of the bedroom of their aparment, and occasionally dirty water pours out of the faucets (hence the title).

These events eventually reveal secrets from the past of both the mother and previous occupants. This is truly a psychological thriller as it concentrates on the relationship between a mother and her daughter. The movie does a great job of building suspense and even provides a surprise ending (for me anyway). I have to confess though that I disliked the ending, but I cannot reveal my reason without a huge spoiler.

Before I give this movie a rating, I am going to submit a list of uniform ratings for the reviewers of this blog to use. Comment about any modifications you think are needed.

First, the ratings from best to good:

• Godlike
• Unstoppable
• Dominating
• Rampage
• Killing Spree

Second, the ratings from bad to worst:

• Dying Spree
• Slaughtered
• Dominated
• Stoppable
• Swanlike (take that Zeus! Kindof an inside joke for a friend)

Now for a rating of Dark Water, I would rate it as Slaughtered based upon the ending, but the movie did such a great job building suspense that I am going to give it a little boost up. I will rate it as Dying Spree. A change to the ending may have justified it as being a good movie, as it is I do not regret renting.