GSMW watched The Emerors New Groove this past weekend and it was a good laugh. The animation was traditional for an animated film and plenty of slapstick humor for kids.
You are never too old for cartoons and this very one I just saw for the first time. I recommend this for families, children, or adults at the Beach winding down for the night. Its witty and light humor are a plus that compliment your typical snowballing cartoon catastrophes. It reminds me of Shrek both in the humor and the people turning into animals/ogres and everything. Even though Shrek came in 2001 and this came out in '99. Talk about prophetic.
Like all good cartoons you can't get away without a message for us all to learn from ... unless your Madagascar!!! In these modern times many people think the world is about them, myself included at times. This has a great depiction of a young man rife with selfishness. And it is through the oddest of trials that he is brought to the light of a life lived with the consideration of others. This movie is a watch.
This past Sunday we brought the theme of Science Fiction to a close. Minority Report, Contact and Terminator 2 were out choices. Within these three movies, there are multiple common sub-genres and themes of scifi that were covered. This included but was not limited to:
In Minority Report we saw a great deal of futuristic technology. Eye scanners, self driving cars, and that cool interactive hologram screen. Which is real by the way.
More important to the plot we took a close look at the Ethical implications of arresting and judging people for crimes that they are supposed to commit in the future.
Contact was our alien movie. The bigger theme of the film is the exploration of the social issues that would arise from actual contact with extraterrestrials. *Spoiler Alert. On a side note, the first machine deserved to get blown up. NASA must have the crappiest security if bleach blond preacher guy can get onto the base, into a suit, out on the launchpad, up the structure, wander about for a couple minutes, get coffee, talk about the weather, go the bathroom, pretend to work to avoid getting actual work, smile like a creeper, and then stand around looking evil for five minutes before someone notices he's not supposed to be there.
Moving on, Terminator 2 had a our biggest collection of sub-themes. Time Travel, Dystopian Future, Robots and as a bonus, the very same ethical dilemma of judging someone for "crimes" they haven't yet committed. That particular theme is an undertone of the turning point in the story. Where they go from defense to offense.
I feel pretty good about the movies choices for this theme. The movies were old enough that they weren't fresh in our minds. Except Val with Contact, apparently she watches it all the time. If you are looking for other good Science Fiction movies here are a couple recommendations:
Primer (2004)
A great indie film about time travel. The story telling is wonderful and the tech isn't over top, it's actually pretty 'realistic.' For as realistic as time travel can be.
Alien (1979)
A dark, gritty space movie about average people, but they live in space. I think space was the biggest, most common scifi theme we didn't cover. In Canada the scifi channel is named Space. Space is the final frontier. It's also big, i mean really big. I mean massively, mind-bogglingly big. And so on, you get the idea. Anyways, the suspense is fantastic, and if you like scifi you need to see this movie. It's relatively violent though, so screen it for the kiddies.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
If you are looking for something a little lighter then you should consult the Guide. Based on a series novels, the first of which starts with the same name, this movie provides a light-hearted romp through the galaxy in a search for the ultimate question to life, universe, and everything. It is important to note that the Guide series is British. Which will explain a lot. Also, it's awesome.
I'm a big fan of Science Fiction, and I know Stevox enjoys it as well. So if you have any suggestions for scifi movies we should watch, not necessarily at movie club, that aren't your normal 2001 a Space Odyssey or Blade Runner, let us know.
Next Sunday we actually won't be having movie club. And I know, I'm disappointed too. But get over it, because you don't own us. Also, we are going to the beach. So there's that.
Wait! What about Terminator, the first one? This one has better ratings according to other people. IMDB, AFI, and so on. And the first one terrified me as kid so you can forget about it. I Was 9ish and over a neighbor-kids' house and they had HBO. I didn't sleep well for about a week. Also, I was banned from going over there again. However, this movie has a completely different tone to it and I'm no longer 9. By the way this is easily the most violent movie we've watched at movie to date. That includes The Godfather.
Assuming you watched the trailer, if not SPOILER ALERT, there are two Terminators in this movie; one good, one bad. There is this wonderful element of suspense featured through out the first twenty minutes of the film where you are unsure which is good and which is bad. Both are looking for John Connor, son of Sarah Connor who is the protagonist from the first Terminator. Tension mounts and you don't find out who is what until it all goes down a hallway, replete with shotgun blasts.
Ah-nolds' wooden acting lends itself very well to playing a machine with a penchant for popping a cap in people's knees. A stiff, expressionless muscle head is just what the doctor ordered. *Insert joke about Jingle All The Way. **It should also be noted I have seen Jingle All The Way ... more than once. ***Hangs head in shame. ****Googles correct grammatical usage of the * symbol.
The visual effects, for which it won an Oscar, have sadly not held up over the last 19 years. It's hard to CG reflective surfaces to start with, but try doing it two decades ago. Rest assured that those effects were ground breaking back in the day. Of course now they look like something that came out of Dave's School of Computer Animation.
I didn't realize I'd picked up an extended edition until I made it home from the store. This particular version, dubbed the Extreme DVD edition, had an extra 16 minutes of film not seen in the theatrical release. Which makes it a very long, literally, two and half hours!
Overall, it's a great "dog movie", where john finds his own Terminator, befriends it and then tragedy strikes as old age sets in and you have to put it down. It's pretty much just like Marley and Me. But with guns ... and stabbing people in the face. I've never seen Marley and Me, but i've been told that's what happens. There are several wonderful examples of cinematography to be found and enjoyed in this movie. Which gets nod to Cameron and his crew. As a side challenge, see if you can spot the scene where they used mercury instead of CG. It's a great action movie, with a good plot, decent acting and above all, killer robots from a dystopian future. This movie is a Watch. It is however also a screener, where you screen it before you let kids watch it. This movie earns 3.2 blow off knee caps, out of 5.
I have always been fascinated by Contact. And I have no idea why.
By all accounts, I should not enjoy this movie as much as I do. Science Fiction? Satellites listening to outer space? Science fiction? Yet every time it's on television, I can't help but watch it. And I don't know why, but I sometimes stare at my DVD shelves looking for something to watch and decide, "I think I'd like to watch Contact!"
Contact is a 1997 science fiction film starring Jodi Foster as a scientist who has dedicated her career to the search for extra-terrestrial life. Her preferred method of search is listening to the sounds of distant galaxies on her headphones; this movie tells the story of what happens when she finally hears something.
Far more "science" than "fiction" (see how I slid that past the boys?), Contact is based on the only novel astronomer/astrophysicist/cosmologist Carl Sagan ever wrote. That book is his account of what it might actually look like if we ever did make contact with, as Jodi Foster's Ellie Arroway puts it, "little green men."
Influenced by Close Encounters of the Third Kind and, another GSMW classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Contact pushes the intellectual level a step further by showing us the details and equipment up close that making this kind of breakthrough would actually require. Things are never dumbed down for the audience, and the moment of discovery sees the scientists and astronomers speaking in terms that we couldn't hope to understand and utilizing programs and satellites that would intimidate even the most technical layman. Even further than that, the movie begins to slowly center itself in an intellectual debate on faith vs. science, pitting some of the main characters and allowing them to eloquently and logically converse on the topic without getting ugly.
Jodi Foster is predictably amazing in the lead role, bringing depth and passion to a character that never becomes tiresome, despite the fact that she is in nearly every scene of the film. Tom Skerritt is perfectly icky as the oily scientist rival, and James Woods (one of my favorite actors) steals every scene he's in as the skeptical bureaucrat who functions as the audience's mouth piece in early scenes of the movie, asking the "what does that mean?" questions that allow Dr. Arroway to explain to us what exactly is going on and why it's significant.
Even more than a decade later, the special effects still hold up wonderfully, and it's easy to forget that these graphics were created in an era before CG was a foregone conclusion of nearly every theatrically released movie. The musical score is also brilliant, and both highlights the action and underscores the emotional tones perfectly. The film received a nomination for an Academy Award for Sound, but lost out to Titanic.
My personal feeling is that a movie like Contact truly rises above many of the tired old tropes that most sci-fi films often suffer from, and I find it refreshing to see a movie in a genre typically filled with far-fletched plot lines and unbelievable heroes to be so well-anchored in reality. What would happen if we made contact? What would Congress do? What would the president say? How would the general public feel?
Indeed, in this vein of thought, Roger Ebert said in his 1997 review of the film, "It's surprising to find a science fiction film exploring issues like love, death and the existence of God; science fiction as a literary form has of course explored those subjects for years, but sci-fi movies generally tend toward titles such as ``Independence Day,'' and are about actors being attacked by gooey special effects."
Not everyone will like this movie- it's definitely not perfect. But it's worth a watch if you've never seen it, or if (like Micah) you haven't seen it in years and a second viewing might help your opinion of it!
Contact is a fascinating movie that will hold your interest, make you think, and maybe have you laughing over Matthew McConaughey's hair (did I not mention he was in this?). Do yourself a favor and go check this one out!
and this very one I just saw for the first time. I recommend this for families, children, or adults at the Beach winding down for the night. Its witty and light humor are a plus that compliment your typical snowballing cartoon catastrophes. It reminds me of Shrek both in the humor and the people turning into animals/ogres and everything. Even though Shrek came in 2001 and this came out in '99. Talk about prophetic.
