Thursday July 28, 2011

Atlantis: The Lost Empire- This is the first time I've seen it full way through. It is not amazing, but the characters (awesome explosions expert character voiced by Father Sarducci) are interesting enough to assist in the holes in the story. The designs and drawings are very creative and neat. The overall problem I had was with the predictability of the story and the poor third act. Honestly, I didn't even really have any stake in Atlantis by the time soldiers were taking it apart, and the fact that the guy who funded this "Exploration" was a good guy and not the one who hired the mercenaries kind of pissed me off. First, I was like oh, the boss man only brought on the protagonist for personal gain, but at the end, when it shows him again, he is told of the adventure and he's just plain old proud. Lame. It's a disney film, so I give it some credit for keeping a childish charm and adventure to it that anyone can watch, but to truly enjoy it, the film might be pushing it below its depths (clever?).



A Clockwork Orange- I think this might be the 2nd time I have watched it full from start to finish and might I say, there is a lot to love. Kubrick has a knack for not only framing portrait-esque shots that I could only aspire to create one day, but also follow long fluid tracking shots and takes that are kind of awe-spiring. I will definitely come back to this when I review shots before making my first real feature. Or at least I should. If I remember to. You know how it is, future me. Anyways, the plot is also interesting, with it's themes of government exploitation, violence, sexuality, the media, etc. and cyclical structured window bits (enters a window and ends up killing a woman, ends up going to physical jail, jumps out a window at end to provide himself with death, releasing himself from a metaphorical prison), although a large amount of the plot is derived from the Burgess novel. But here's the problems: It's overt weirdness, i.e. weird hair color for most woman, phallic symbols abound, big strong Hipster looking dude carrying a wheelchair down steps instead of having a handicapped walkway in the disabled man's house, etc. throw this movie partially in the so- called "cult" bag, where I feel unfairly judged for liking it, and shunned for disliking it. Just because something is abnormal doesn't mean it is artful. Maybe this would be a question for the sadly deceased director to have been asked about. Also, the ending seems to negate the principles developed in the movie, which is kind of dumbfounding for first time viewers, and only a little bit less dumbfounding for second time viewers. The guy is evil, rapes a man's wife (leading to her death in the future) and cripples the man, goes to jail, is rehabilitated (skipping 12 years of his 14 year sentence), gets prayed upon by his past errors and misdeeds, then is reversed, becomes evil again, and is rewarded for the whole thing by getting a good job, sending the crippled man to jail for trying to get revenge, and comes out of it a happy and unchanged man. What's the thesis? The novel ends quite differently. With a point to make. I'm just not sure what one should get out of the movie outside of the fact that the man goes from step A to… well… step A again… so it really only adds up to 2 wasted years of a horrible man's life. Happy trails, and avoid singing in the rain.