Star Trek: The Motion Picture–
If you’ve watched this movie, then you don’t need me to elaborate much. This movie–and trust me, I am a HUGE Trekkie–just lacked, well, everything. The plot was weak and boring, the movie was the first ST movie, so I guess tried to capitalize on putting classic ST elements into a motion picture. But they lost so much of the aforementioned elements. Like, what was up with the costumes/uniforms of the entire crew, and basically everyone in the movie?! They were not only hideous, but very un-ST-crew-like. They were gone next movie, so the producers/writers/director obviously realized their mistake with that aspect. The music is great. But there is SO much drama to it! And God-forbid you watch the golden-oldie VHS version of this movie; the music becomes ridiculously loud for many points in the film.
But the worst aspect of this movie? The elongated scenes of boring terrible graphics–whether it be a fade-away scene of a bright planet, or the loooonnnng side of a starship, or the same exact scene of an electrical force/field over, and over, and over again–they are enough to make a person go crazy! It’ll show the crew, then cut away to this loooonnnng shot of whatever-it-is, then the crew, then the shot (perhaps slightly closer this time, to give the effect that they crew is getting nearer the phenomenon), then back and forth. All the while silence from the human/alien creatures around–just the loud, dramatic music!
This ST movie is most def on the “ok to miss” list.
Night Listener–
Robin Williams is a favorite actor of mine, really. But this movie is on my list of “no thank you”s, due mainly to it having a great desire to be thrilling, but failing miserably…As well as the story having homosexual undertones that seemed to not have been important to the overall story (not knocking the gay theme, just saying it had nothing to do with the rest of the movie, really).
Armistead Maupin, Terry Anderson, and Patrick Stettner wrote a story that seemed interesting enough, I’m sure, when it was read: night radio-talk show host gets a copy of a manuscript that appears to be written by a foster mother of a young boy, all about his story of being sexually abused for child pornography by his own parents, as he told her his traumatic tales…the boy is also terminally ill…the boy gets the phone number of the host, who is intensely touched by the story, and they strike up phone conversations–the man coming to deeply care for the boy’s wellbeing, and ending up talking even with the foster mother. When he tries to see the boy one day, for holiday–something comes up, and the woman and boy are no-where to be found…Robin Williams’ character, who is a gay man whose younger boyfriend has just moved out of his life–is suffering from a need to care for someone, to fill the void, it seems. Whatever…Anyway–the plot thickens as Gabriel (Williams) starts to suspect there may not actually BE a boy…
Turns out, after chasing this woman to a creepy over-protective little town, and finding out she’s supposedly blind–he is right. The woman–played by Toni Collette—is an over-compulsive liar, and suffering from some other psychosis where she needs to fill a void in her own life, and have people be sympathetic towards her. So she makes up a sick/troubled/traumatized boy–who is ALWAYS in the hospital.
The whole story had an ok premise, but Director Patrick Stettner didn’t do a very good job with the rest of the characters (other than Williams), really, and the movie borders on boring. As well as eerie, and ridiculous sometimes. Like the random pedophile scene towards the beginning of the movie that turns out, due to the whole thing being made up–didn’t need to be there.
Maybe it was to make the story believable, but just goes to show, once again, that Hollywood sometimes are weird morons.
This movie, though I talked a lot about it, was a terrible watch, and lacked any motivation. My only consolation is that I borrowed it, and didn’t actually have to spend money on it.
Wanted–
Now, I love Angelina Jolie, and I love Morgan Freeman, and I loved the previews for this movie. Then I saw it. and I was glad again that this was a movie I hadn’t actually rented/paid money to see. Basically, this movie was set up to be a great action adventure. But wow. It bombs. There is so much hype, that you see it expecting it to not be completely pointless, and are then disappointed.
There is such a degree of graphics and fakeness, that the movie gets lost. The whole ‘bending/curving’ the bullet thing is cool when you see it in the preview. And it’s cool when you see it the first 2 or 3 times in the movie. But it’s the signature move, and every main character does it. Probably 3 times or more.
The worst, most ridiculous bullet move is actually my favorite scene (go figure), where Angelina shoots a bullet, curves her shot, and makes the bullet go in a CIRCLE around the entire room, through several guys’ heads, killing them, then herself.
Oh! And another “twist” that’s ridiculous? The secret society apparently gets their “killing orders” from a loom. That’s right. A LOOM. As in, y’know–a machine spinning thread?! It does. And the assassins get a piece of cloth, and using a code from who knows where, they make numbers which corospond with letters, and spell out names of who the “Loom” assigns them to kill. God forbid it someday spells out “XPLLIVZ NNMMDELLSA”!!
This movie is ok, and had great potential. But I think it was hyped up to be much better than it turned out.
