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Showing posts from June, 2012

Remember when Pixar films were... fun?

I don't mean to take anything away from Brave . It's a beautiful film, and a wonderful story. The ending is suitably dramatic and exciting, with a strong emotional impact. It's almost everything one would want from a Pixar film, meeting a standard they've maintained for an astonishing 13 films in a row. Almost. The only thing I can't say for Brave is that it was fun . It's far too serious and straightforward a movie for that. Oh, it tries, with its trio of foolish suitors and a father/king that's prone to reacting first and thinking... well, not often. But these moments amount to little more than the cast of fools and bumpkins that populate Shakespeare's plays... the comic relief included to entertain the groundlings. I know that Pixar's films have always had serious themes running through their main stories. I don't expect their films to be non-stop laugh riots (or I'd have been seriously disappointed long before now.) They're not a

Rock of Ages: Worst Movie of the Year?

Maybe overselling that one but, despite the only relatively average (though still decidedly rotten) score on Rotten Tomatoes (I've seen many better movies get less than the current 41%), Rock of Ages gets my vote. But why, you may ask? Allow me to elucidate... First and foremost, the choreography. Which was, simply, staggeringly bad. Shockingly bad. So bad that when Catherine Zeta-Jones and the church ladies kicked off "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", I literally jerked back in my seat. (And yes, I literally mean literally .) So bad, I swore to myself I'd look up the choreographer so I'd know to avoid anything they do in the future, though it looks like I won't have to worry too much there, since the director (Adam Shankman) is listed as one of the choreographers (and now I know better then to ever see anything he's directed again) while the other choreographer is busy with seasons of So You Think You Can Dance, so I don't think I'll have much tro