All posts in Movies

Ghost Rider has always been a relatively lame character. I am fairly certain that it must have been inspired by a biker jacket while the marvel guys were in a bad neighborhood.

As you will notice by the graphic on the side there, I decided to go with a picture of the Slade Ghost Rider, since he is infinitely cooler than the regular one.

Anyhow, the movie was exactly what I expected. I knew that it would not be good, but at least they did not try to be more than they were. For example, one of the reasons that Incredible Hulk was so awful, was because it was a cheesy story but they tried to make it serious.

Ghost Rider was a rather formulaic conglomeration, they did a brief setup of his origin. And then, they setup a few enemies for him to defeat. He defeated the enemies, and decided to stay Ghost Rider. Nothing fancy, no over reaching, you just get what they give.

The primary reason that I went to go see this movie was more for the spectacle of the special effects. So, if the special effects got me there, it was the Mendes cleavage shots that kept me there. I am not exactly sure why she agreed to wear those things, but I am glad that she did.

However, the single best part of the the entire movie was when Mendes’ character was sitting in a restaurant, drunk, waiting for Ghost Rider when she asked the waiter, “You think that I am pretty, right?” And then, the waiter looked at her for a second, then made a face and walked away, essentially treating her like 2-cent whore. At that point there was a massive guffaw from the females in the audience.

For a movie called, “Happy Feet” the movie is not really all that happy.

The story itself is unfortunately overly convoluted and not particularly relevant to the lives of children.

The beginning of the movie follows the typical children’s movie fair. It follows the early like of the protagonist, Mumble. Apparently, these penguins for some reason have “heartsongs” that are basically just ripped off excerpts of a variety of pop music from throughout the decades.

Anyhow, since Mumble’s father dropped him when he was still in the egg he becomes abnormal, in that he cannot sing (only screech). However, as a compensation for this inability, he can apparently tap dance. This ability is not particularly unique though, as the other penguins seemed to pick it up rather quickly.

Eventually, because of his differences, Mumble is exiled from the group. This is the point where the film stops following the typical children’s movie formula and starts to get weird.

There were many political undertones that pervasively permeated the film throughout. In a way, they were making so many not so subtle suggestions that it was difficult to figure out what exactly they were trying to indoctrinate you to believe.

Ultimately, I think their over arching goal was kind of an anti-theocracy, socialist society promoting tolerance. Basically, if you just made Mumble gay, it would be basically contemporary accurate.

Then, of course, they beat you over the head trying to establish some kind of lame-assed ecological conservation lesson.

The bottom line is that children will either be scared by the violence, or bored by the politics. Either way the children lose out. I’m just said they are so blatantly throwing this shameful propaganda at the children of our nation.

They say that sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, well hollywood doesn’t think so.

This big screen redention of the Black Dahlia tale is apparently an adaptation of the James Ellroy’s novel by the same name. 

Before this film came about, I had never heard about the Black Dahlia case and the shroud of mystery surrounding it. I also did not read anything about it until after I saw the movie, because I did not want to go in tainted.

Well, based on what I have read now I find the actually story of the movie to be of greater interest, since the two do not really fit together in anyway. From what I have quickly gather based on a little research, the only thing that links this film and the actual event was that there was a person that was labelled the Black Dahlia by the press when she was murdered in the way indicated by the film. From there they begin to take creative liberties.

An interesting note about the film is that it is called the Black Dahlia, but really does not have a whole lot to do with it. It basically follows the life of one of the detectives that was investing the case among other things. In many ways it is an overly complex mess, but I am not sure that is because the story is bad itself, or it was just bad acting.

Now, I know that Harnett is a bad actor, and he gave a stilted performance as was to be expected. Actually, I suppose Eckhart did a pretty decent job, despite the bizzare behavior of his character. The disappointment was with Johansson and Swank. Those two actresses have at least proved themselves to be relatively competent. But, in this film they seemed like they had no idea what they were doing, granted the dialog written for them was nothing special. I don’t know, maybe it was just the direction.

On some what of a bizzare note, Mia did a pretty good job portraying Elizabeth Short in some casting films collected by the LAPD in the film. It is kind of funny that Mia is in fact quite a bit better looking than the original Black Dahlia, but that’s not really a problem.

But, still, the movie is basically a total fabrication. Well, at least from what I have pieced together in the last hour. There are numerous sources of information about it on the internet that you can check out if you are interested in the matter including the FBI documents released thanks to the freedom of information act.

LA Times Original Articles
FBI’s Black Dahlia Files
A Black Dahlia Informational Site
And, of course, the wikipedia entry

Now, I bet at this point you think that I did not like the film, right? Well, that is not the case as it was actually pretty good. I have always found the fall to be a slow season for films, so this one is a pleasant gem in the sea of blah.

Thus, I suppose that I would classify this film as a recommendation, because there is not a lot better playing in theaters right now.