THE WORLD AT LARGE

It's A Wonderful Life is one of my favorite movies

because I often wish that I was never born, like today.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON

Ok, let me start out by saying this: I HATE TWILIGHT. I HATE IT. SO MUCH.

But I got invited to go see NEW MOON with a couple of friends tonight, and I’m going to go ahead and admit, that I’m not too upset that I went. Or at least, not as upset as I thought that I would be. It’s still a horrible horrible movie, but it’s at least 1,000,000,000 times better than its predecessor, TWILIGHT. Almost everything, and I mean EVERYTHING has been improved upon.

First off, Chris Weitz has replaced the shockingly incompetent Catharine Hardwicke, and the change is definitely for the better. The story didn’t rely entirely upon terrible camera gimmicks or slow motion “hair tossing in the wind” sequences QUITE as often as it did before. Notice that I did not mention that those terrible cliches aren’t removed entirely, but they have definitely been toned down to make room for some relatively intelligent storytelling techniques.

There is also a significant level of improvement from the actors, and this is likely due to the change in directors as well since better acting cannot exist without better direction. Even Kristen Stewart seemed like she was legitimately trying to perform rather than bite her lower lip the entire time. Yet, her rabbit dentures still show themselves off every now and then, as well as a couple of low trimmed unbuttoned blouses to emphasize her “I’m so innocent but not really” persona that brings her down to such a low caliber, it’s quite sad really. Once again, this is not entirely her fault either, the director is better but still not great. Then there is Taylor Lautner, the nerdy indian who looked like he belongs in a UK metal outfit… until he cuts his hair and looks like a Ken doll. How bad is it that we are willing to glorify someone based upon how often they appear shirtless on screen and be ok with it? Seriously, this is not ok. I found myself making numerous “hey that guy needs a shirt” jokes with my group, and everyone seemed to be of one mind. It doesn’t make sense, does he never get cold? Does he just not have enough indie bands to support? Surely he ought to have a WOLF PARADE t-shirt at least! But alas, we won’t have to worry about him much for the rest of the saga anyway (hopefully I won’t have to worry about being convinced to see those either), since the story is really about Mr. Rob Pattinson. Thankfully, we don’t see much of him either. His glitterful self appears in roughly 18 full minutes of screentime and it’s relatively tolerable. Did I say tolerable? I meant horrible, relatively horrible. I will never understand what all of the women across our great nation see in him. Go die again Cedric Dickory.

Now on to the stuff that I will admit was GOOD about NEW MOON. Yes, I am man enough to admit that there were some things I liked about it. The cinematography is a little more appealing. Not QUITE as gimicky and occasionally clever. The effects have made an ASTOUNDING leap from being cartoonish in the first movie to some pretty edgy slow-motion in this film. It’s nothing better than what you would see in 300, but a tremendous improvement nonetheless. Also, there were some, and I mean SOME, clever moments. I laughed out loud maybe… twice. And that’s two times more than I laughed during TWILIGHT.

Now the above comments were very minor compared to the complete failings in all the other categories of the filmmaking process. Yet, It’s not a complete waste of time like the first one was. There are a couple of legitimately good things in this installment, but that definitely doesn’t mean its established as being a good movie, far from it. NEW MOON has conquered an anthill, but in order to become a good movie, the next installment will have to conquer a mountain by comparison.

1 STAR

What did you think of THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON?

2012

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I became pretty darn excited. I love disaster movies. There’s nothing more epic than a great “end of the world” kind of story. Naturally, I really wanted to see this in spite of some really silly acting choices and the cheesy lines in the trailer, it can’t be all bad can it?

Thankfully, its not ALL bad. But its pretty bad nonetheless. The getaway scenes are all visually satisfying and make for some great “edge of your seat” thrills, but they become less interesting over time and eventually you just start waiting for the movie to end. Technically 2012 has all of the elements for an amazing disaster film, but fails aesthetically in almost every other category.

Almost every line in the movie is just begging for an MST3K redux, and the horrible acting doesn’t help. John Cusak? No thank you, I’ve never been too impressed by you. Amanda Peet? Nope. In fact I’m pretty sure that the only good acting in the movie came from Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson as The President and the crazy loon who owns the radio station in the Yellowstone National Park. Everything about nearly all of the talent just feels so unnatural and ridiculous. Everyone was cracking WAY too many jokes to be taking the end of the world seriously.

I want to keep this review short for two reasons: a) I’d like to cut to the chase for once and b) there really isn’t all that much to talk about in spite of the movie being freakin 2 1/2 hours long. I’m going to go ahead and say that 2012 is a HORRIBLE movie, but it’s still super entertaining. I’m not a fan of movies that will make you turn your brain off rather than on, but it’s still a lot of fun watching LA get torn apart by an insane earthquake. In fact, I wouldn’t complain over the next two viewings of this movie I’m likely to have. But its still bad.

All in all, if you would have been intrigued by a DAY AFTER TOMORROW 2, I’d say give it a shot. That’s basically what this movie is.

2 STARS