Brave: Pixar Princess

Merida glows (a faint red) as the vivacious heroine in Pixar's Brave.

It's hard to say just by watching the previews what to expect when you see Brave. You know she likes archery, horseback riding, and has a glorious mane of bright red hair. The hair, I'm jealous of, but I'm not jealous of the expectations placed on Princess Merida. Three neighboring clans show up with goof-head sons in tow to compete for Merida's hand in marriage. Ugh. Poor sixteen year old girl, unable to choose her own fate. And fate is something Merida talks a lot about, as if it were a tangible force. To change her fate and escape the possibility of an arranged marriage, Merida runs into the forest looking for a magical solution to her problem.

This is a beautiful movie, in more ways than one. The visuals were stunning, I recommend seeing it in 3D so her crazy detailed hair actually seems like its going to whip around and smack you in the face. And the story itself is very passionate and touching. I was surprised to find that this movie is about a girl and her mother, and their struggle to understand each other. It has been a long time, if indeed ever, since I've seen a movie so profoundly feminist, without shoving it down your throat. Steel Magnolias shoves it down your throat, because they deal with dumb and mean men who can't keep up with them. But the men in Brave aren't wife beaters. They have their own skill sets, and help the women out, even if the clan leaders are dopey at times.

That's why I thought this movie was so brilliant. It shows that a woman can be the main character, not fall in love with a prince, still love her daddy, and kick butt the whole time. Merida, as well as her mother, shows a very healthy range of weakness and strength. Which is what makes them "Brave", because you wouldn't have to be brave if you had no weaknesses to overcome.

ted: A Fuzzy Peter Griffin

The title of this movie reminds me of an 80's song. "...my name is Ted... and one day, I'll be Dead. Yo-yo..." Silly 80's music. 

There's only one kind of humor for Seth MacFarlane, and if you've seen American Dad, Family Guy, or Cleveland Show you already can guess at what humor I am referring to. It's a low brow bundle of jokes with several interchangeable pop culture references, where anyone's name could be inserted into the punchline and it would still make you laugh. The movie version of all Family Guy is ted, if you replace Bryan and Stewie with a talking stuffed animal. And since it's a movie, there's no FCC to keep Seth restricted.

If you like Family Guy, you'll laugh at ted. I laughed, probably pretty obnoxiously, throughout the whole film. It was a good story of childhood friends learning to grow up and let go, even if one of them is a magical talking teddy bear. The whole theater of cheapos (like me) who dropped in to catch a free movie, were cracking up so much I know I missed lots of jokes. But the plot and characters do not ask anything of you as a member of the audience. 

Honestly, I enjoyed the movie in a way that others did not. Seth MacFarlane made a movie using dumb screwball humor, that goes all over the place and has no point to it. It felt fresh to me because of that, almost like watching Airplane or BASEketball. 

So don't expect a masterpiece, and keep an open mind. I think you'll laugh and enjoy your evening. But this isn't a movie you need to see in theaters, wait for Netflix.  

Madagascar 3: Cirque du Afro

Comedic timing out the wazoo!

You thought the first two were advertised badly but turned out much funnier, well this one takes the cake. I loved the first movie, it had so many jokes whizzing past your ears that you have to watch it more than once to get them all. I loved the dance scene, the lemurs, and the penguins. Then came film number two, and I was NOT interested. Based on the previews I thought it looked silly and wouldn't be able to live up to the first (like many cartoon sequels. Lion King Two: Simba's Pride, for example). But I ended up watching it with my niece and found it to be delightful, if a tad too sentimental.

And once again, these previews stunk. The only reason I wanted to see the movie was to enjoy one more time the song and dance of Chris Rock working his circus Afro. But I assure you, this movie was much more than a circus Afro, it was a wonderful film!

You remember where the second one left off? Everyone's in Africa, meeting their own kind, and there's some strange interspecies relations forming. This movie starts off with the four zoo runaways following the penguins to Monte Carlo, en route to get back to their old home in New York. But Europe doesn't want a bunch of ferocious creatures running around, so a crazed red head French woman gets called in from animal control. She's obsessed with finding a lion to mount on her wall, and so she goes on a determined hunt worthy of the terminator to kill Alex the Lion. To avoid detection, Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melmann hop a circus train and do their best to blend in.

If you enjoy the dazzling lights and musical numbers of the first movie, then I recommend you take the time and money to watch Madagascar 3. Don't forget to see it in 3D, that makes the circus perfomances all the more appealing. :D I want a rainbow Afro for Halloween this year!

Prometheus: How the Mighty Are Still Mighty

Delight in getting the wits scared out of you for price of admission? Me too. That's why I love this movie!

(Don't worry, you don't have to watch every Alien movie, with Sigourney Weaver saving cats and kicking butt, to enjoy this movie. It stands on its own.)

I've heard some smack talk about how the trailer was boring and dumb. I have no idea who in their right mind would not love this trailer, I saw it without knowing anything about the movie, and almost peed my pants... in excitement. But from those same people I've heard that the trailer was crap, but that the movie was awesome and not to pay attention to the trailer. So... eh? If you didn't like the trailer, then don't shut off all hope for the movie, I guess?

Maybe what people didn't like about the trailer is that it shows NOTHING. Unless you're in the clique (and I am not in said clique), you can't tell that Prometheus may or may not be some sort of spin-off/prequel to Alien. I've heard that Ridley Scott goes head-over-tea-kettle keeping his movies secret, especially this one, going so far as to print everyone's name on the script that gets sent to them to prevent leaked copies. I've also heard, after I saw the movie and spoiled all the fun, that there were several fake ads and videos released to tease the world about Prometheus, without telling anyone what the movie was about. Here's a fake ad starring my favorite character:

In the not too distant future, a team of scientists and space explorers board a spaceship called Prometheus to a distant solar system, similar to our own. At the head of the expedition are two anthropologist types who believe cave paintings and hieroglyphs all over the world show a map. This map possibly leads humanity to the planet from which our creators, or Engineers as they are referred to in the movie, came from, and would like us to visit when we develop the technology. The characters wake up from their space sleep as they approach the planet, and begin to explore it for any signs of life- hopefully friendly, but judging from the scary previews, probably not.

We are introduced to David the robot in the beginning of the film, and we get to watch him wander around the ship, tending to things while all the humans get to sleep through the two year long journey. He's a bit creepy with his overly straight posture, and the way he watches the humans sleep. But once I see that he likes the movie Lawrence of Arabia, I know that I can't possibly find any fault in him. :D If I had two years to myself in a cold spaceship, I'd watch Lawrence of Arabia on repeat too. You imagine that as a robot, he cannot choose how he looks, sounds, or acts, because it is probably down to programming. Yet, as he's watching Lawrence of Arabia, he repeats some of the lines, trying to perfect his Peter O'Toole impersonation. I think that adds a lot to his character and to the movie. It's had me pondering the themes of Lawrence of Arabia and how those themes might apply to the movie Prometheus.

Now personally, I'm scared to death of aliens. Not just Alien, or Aliens, or Alien vs Predator. I mean any creatures from outer space that grace the silver screen- up to, and including, E.T., that love-able brown lump. So it's no surprise that this move scared the heebie-jeebies out of me. But I don't think it was because of E.T.'s running around, it was because the nail biting conflicts had me on the edge of my seat for two and a half hours, wondering what in the hell was going to happen next. There weren't cheesy 'boo' scares, there wasn't a lot of unnecessary gore, the fear came from a good musical score, good acting, and almost zero CG effects. And that's what makes me say this movie is good old fashioned movie making.

Snow White and the Huntsman, or Bella: Warrior Princess

What a surprising movie! A genuine fantasy the likes of which I haven't seen in years.

There's been a few dark retellings of the old Snow White. One featured a hag version of Sigourney Weaver that freaks me out even though I don't remember ever seeing the movie. But this version blew me away, because it didn't try to turn the Disney cartoon into Nightmare on Elm Street. Instead, I feel like they took a more mature approach to the characters, by examining real human emotion, portrayed by (a few) amazing actors.

The story begins with a quaint royal family and their happy kingdom. We are shown a bright eyed and cheerful little girl called Snow White, and told that she is the embodiment of innocence. I believe it of that little girl, she was adorable. Then enter Charlize Theron to beguile the king out of his kingdom with beauty and dark magic. Very early in our introduction to Charlize Theron's character, the evil queen, we see that she is off her rocker. To secure her position, the new queen throws Snow White in a tower, where that adorable young girl turns into Kristen Stewart.

At that point, I stopped caring about Snow White. Lucky for me, there were plenty of other neat characters to keep me engaged.

As her power wanes, the evil queen gets it in her head that by eating Snow White's heart, she will forever be young and beautiful. But her plan is foiled when Miss White escapes her tower prison and flees into the dark forest, where monsters and evil hallucinogenic spores await. Only one man is desperate and drunk enough to brave the dark forest in order to recapture Snow White for the evil queen, but he has plans of his own...

The depth that Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron brought to their characters, and to the movie, took my breath away. I had a hard time thinking to myself that the 'evil' queen was really all that evil, and I wonder now if perhaps they shouldn't have called her the Misguided Queen. Or the Scared and Lonely Queen. Or lets have out with it and call her the Crazoid Witch Queen Who We Still Feel Sorry for Because She's Had a Rough Life and You Can't Blame Her for That. I'm assuming that title doesn't fit in the credits.

I've heard a few people were disenfranchised by a few of Charlize Theron's facial expressions, calling them goofy and over the top. I heard that before I saw the movie, and I went in prepared for some goofy scowls, but honestly I didn't see it. Her facial expressions were intense, I admit, but I feel like she did a good job portraying a desperate woman who used anger to cover up for her fear. I admit, Miss Theron's performance brought me to tears. She balanced out her character with good and evil, as well as strengths and weaknesses. Good Job, I say! (Because she can hear me...)

And Chris Hemsworth, too, got me choked up a bit. He has a way of playing subtle emotion that is unequaled in other actors. As Thor and the Huntsman, he played these tough men who were hiding weakness. The weakness didn't shine through too much, just enough to realize the depth of the character.

Both of these great actors (as well as the wonderful dwarves) fed life and emotion into the movie. They also fed life and emotion into another character, that we will call Kristen Stewart. Honestly, I think that's the only character she can play, and it's not a very good one. 

Men in Black 3: Will Smith in a Bow Tie

Men in Black III

AKA Better than Men in Black II

That's reason enough to go out and purchase your tickets.

The story begins with our old friend Agent J, doing what he's done for 14 years, which is to catch alien baddies with his partner Agent K. The two are frustrated with each other, and Agent J is ready for Agent K to open up to him about anything personal, just to break up the monotony. That's when a guy named Boris the Animal enters the picture, bringing up a fiercer Agent K than Agent J is prepared for. When he wakes one morning to find Agent K mysteriously disappeared, Agent J goes back in time by jumping off a building to find his partner.

I liked this movie quite a lot, and I didn't expect to. Sequels and trilogies tend to make the mistake of assuming we know everything there is to know about the main character that we fell for in the first movie, and so they must be done bigger and better right? With a fast moving plot and no character development, or at least no character development that coincides with the stuff that happened in the first movie. Men in Black II was very much guilty of that, but Men in Black III added little touches here and there to keep character development fresh. We see a glimpse into the living spaces of J and K, as well as into their hobbies. I liked how Agent J was playing Mass Effect 3, for instance. As if he doesn't fight enough aliens, he goes home to it as well.

Those were the characters we already knew. As for the newbie bad guy, I am less than impressed. He's introduced as Boris the Animal, and is played by the brilliantly awesome Jemaine Clement. Boris' character design was great, I liked how they incorporated his human disguise, and I liked how he was over the top. However, I wished he could have had more going on in the film. He had a lot of dumb one liners, like "You complete me," talking about his hand spider/crab (sounds pretty cool, no?), that I could have done without. It was unfortunate how his character was thrown in for scene advancement. But... I still thought he was cool.

But what tickled me in places that I forgot were inside of me, was the time period that most of the movie takes place in: 1969. Moon landing. Any other Dr. Who fans out there? I was waiting for the broadcast of the moon landing to tell me to kill every Silence I see on sight. I was also waiting for Will Smith to bust out a stetson and a bow tie. Because bow ties are cool, and I bet Will Smith thinks he could make one "look good."