DailyView: Day 107, Movie 179

Titan A.E. is the DailyView for today and it was a spectacular animated science fiction adventure. For some reason, it is rotten at 50% on the Rotten Tomatoes web site. That makes no sense to me because this was a beautifully animated adventure with a strong voice cast and plenty of classic twists.

Earth has been destroyed. It is the 31st century and a young boy Cale (Matt Damon), whose father left him on a question when he was but a boy, suddenly becomes a sought after resource because he has a ring, given to him by his father, that gives a map to Titan, a ship that holds the key to saving the human race.

Cale is approached by Captain Korso (Bill Pullman), who is trying to help Cale get to Titan before the evil Drej, a species of pure energy that is hoping to destroy Titan before it is activated. On Korso’s ship there is Akima (Drew Barrymore), Stith (Janeane Garofalo), Preed (Nathan Lane), and Gune (John Leguizamo).

Titan A.E. is a fun, energetic science fiction romp f an animated movie that has amazingly beautiful images. Combined 2D animation with CGI, Titan A.E. is an amazing looking film. The animation, especially of the time, was cutting edge and really should have been more of a draw than it appeared to be.

Cale and Akima had a great relationship, albeit a little typical for this type of story. They started out not liking each other and developed feelings for one another as the adventure progressed. It had a Han/Leia vibe to it.

This is the reason I think it received several of the rotten reviews. Titan A.E. has a bunch of the science fiction beats that we see in other areas and string them together into this film. While there may not be a lot of material that we hadn’t seen before, there should be some consideration about how effectively the material is presented. Have we seen a lot of this before? Sure, but has the material ever been presented with such flair or energy? I’m not so sure.

The film is paced well, as events move through the short runtime, but it does not feel rushed.

Titan A.E. is an exceptional animated movie that provides some epic sci-fi action. If you are a fan of the genre, you should check out this movie.

DailyView: Day 106, Movie 178

I saw a film on Netflix that indicated that it was from the director of Babysitter: The Killer Queen, which I liked, so I figured I would give Rim of the World a chance for the DailyView today.

This one was stupid.

Yet, I was entertained. There was just something about this movie that hit a few chords with me. Don’t get me wrong, it is terrible. Absolutely nonsensical drivel.

Four kids, three of which had attended a summer camp called Rim of the World, end up with a McGuffin that is the key to stopping a worldwide alien invasion. They had to get the key to a building in Pasadena in order to save the world as they were being pursued by an indestructible alien that was mad at them for killing its dog. Not even kidding.

Think Stranger Things meets Super 8 and The Monster Squad, but with more stupidity.

Our main kid protagonist is Alex (Jack Gore) whose mom sent him to the camp to get him out from behind his multiple computer screen. A typical nerd who has little personal skills, but is intelligent and kind-hearted. He was a good choice as the lead. ZhenZhen (Miya Cech) came to the camp from China, sneaking into the country, following a flier that she had. Why she came was really not dealt with, but she was a likeable young actress. The character was whatever the film needed her to be, and she formed a cute relationship with Alex.

Kid #3 was Darius, played by Benjamin Flores Jr- who does much better work in the Fear Street trilogy that just came out. Darius is the kid that I wanted the aliens to get right up until the very end of the movie. Darius is a giant cliché that kept going. Finally, there was Gabriel (Alessio Scalzotto), who they met in the forest at camp, but not a member of the camp. He had a weird backstory of stealing money (sort of) from his mom’s work and winding up in juvey. He is another huge cliché, but at least he felt likeable. He reminded me of Rudy from the Monster Squad.

Whoever wrote this movie or the director, McG, really have little idea about what kids are like. I have rarely seen any kids that are less like kids in a movie in a long time. There is no way kids actually talk or act like this. Still, by the end of the film, I was liking the group more than I did in the first act.

The film is inconsistent with its characters, atrocious with its dialogue, has a plot barely strung together and is filled with coincidences and obvious character flaws that have to be overcome to succeed.

What keeps the film from completely falling apart is the performance of Jack Gore as Alex. That character is just likeable and you want to see him make it. He also has the most depth of any of the characters here (albeit not a massive amount), but his backstory with his father had some emotion in it.

This is a terrible movie, but it has enough moments scattered here and there to make it a guilty pleasure.

DailyView: Day 105, Movie 177

Okay, the day got busy. We had the debut of what If..?, new comics day, a haircut, reaction videos on YouTube… and then I found out the Dodgers were going to be on ESPN. All the while, I needed to do a DailyView for the day. Because of all that, it was time for another Charlie Chaplin film! And this one, A Night in the Show, is actually very short in length (25 minutes) as well as being the oldest film I’ve watched in the DailyView so far (1915). Thank goodness for Charlie Chaplin and HBO Max.

This is actually a film where Chaplin did not play his iconic “Little Tramp” character. He had two characters that he played attempting to see a stage show at a theater. One, was Mr. Pest, a wealthy drunkard who had little concern for anyone else in the theater. The second was Mr. Rowdy, a poor man in the balcony who nearly fell off several times and kept dumping things into the audience below.

With the shenanigans of the two audience members, the show is ruined.

There were the same type of slapstick that you normally see in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Most of it is funny. The score of the silent film is great, helping to sell the mood of each scene.

I really appreciate the availability of these classics that help me complete the DailyView despite having a day where time got away from me and that there are other things I would like to do.

DailyView: Day 104, Movie 176

Who could have guessed that a movie about ballet dancing and the creation of the play Swan Lake could be so dark and disturbing? The answer to that is Darren Aronofsky, the director of such crazy films as Mother!, Noah, and Requiem for a Dream.

In the Black Swan, a young ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) strived to be cast as the Swan Queen when artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) decided to replace his current prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder). Nina fit the part of the White Swan to perfection, but she struggled with the sexuality of the Black Swan. Rival dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) fit the Black Swan role better and the two women had interactions with each other

However, the pressure and the constant badgering by her overbearing mother (Barbara Hersey) began to take a toll on Nina and her grasp on reality started to shake.

Like many of Aronofsky’s films, there are scene where you are not sure what exactly is real and what is fantasy. There is a nightmarish tinge to Black Swan, as many of the scenes that seem to be really happening to Nina turn out to be dreams or delusions. This is a great example of the unreliable narrator, because it is impossible to see what was not just inside of Nina’s fracturing mind.

Natalie Portman won an Academy Award for her portrayal in this film and you can see why. She is totally engrossed in the role. You can see her go from the withdrawn and repressed girl kept by her mother to the woman who was dangerously outgoing, filled with a darkness. It was a truly special performance.

Mila Kunis provided easily her best performance of her career playing opposite Nina. It was never exactly obvious what Lily had actually done or wanted, outside of wanting the role of the Swan Queen.

There was a lot of darkness here and the story itself is pretty basic. It is the drama surrounding Natalie Portman’s insane performance that puts the film over the top.

DailyView: Day 103, Movie 175

Nothing wrong with a good submarine movie. Of course the top two on my submarine list would be Hunt for Red October and Crimson Tide, but today’s DailyView sub movie would certainly make the cut.

U-571 is set during World War II. The German subs had been causing all kind of trouble because of their code that had not been broken by the Allies. However, when a German sub is damaged in a battle, the Americans are able to take control of the sub and grab ahold of the code key. Unfortunately, the American ship was destroyed and a handful of Americans had to dive in the submarine to escape.

X-O Tyler (Matthew McConaughey) had been told by the ship’s captain (Bill Paxton) that he was not ready yet for his own ship. Tyler was disappointed, but he wound up on U-571 in charge after the circumstances of the American ship exploding.

Some of the crew was not exactly behind the new skipper, but Chief (Harvey Keitel) spoke up and backed Tyler. He may have second guessed his decision when he heard some of Tyler’s uncommon orders that would be life or death for them.

The cast here was solid. McConaughey is good, but he spends a lot of time staring at the top of the sub. Along with Keitel and Paxton, we had Jon Bon Jovi, David Keith, Jake Weber, Jack Noseworthy, Will Estes, Terrence Carson and Tom Guiry.

There is always a feeling of claustrophobia is submarine movies as the characters are trapped inside a metal object beneath the ocean. The environment itself provided a ton of atmosphere for a thriller. When the depth charges are exploding all around the sub, you can feel the terror the soldiers were experiencing and you can’t help but wonder how they could possibly escape the moment.

Directed by Jonathan Mostow, U-571 gives us a story of survival and determination to fight for country and against the horrendous Nazis.

DailyView: Day 102, Movie 174

My friend Chris recommended this sci-fi movie called Sunshine tonight. I found it on Hulu and so I decided to do one more DailyView for today.

The Sci-fi film had a strong cast, led by Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Benedict Wong, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michelle Yeoh, Troy Garity and Mark Strong. The performances were excellent as you would expect from the high level cast.

It is some time in the future and the sun is dying. Because the sun is dying, the earth is losing its prime energy source. A mission is organized to send a crew with a bomb hoping to reignite the star within the sun itself, but that mission disappeared without completing it. A second mission, with the last remaining of the earth’s resources in this payload was organized in a last ditch effort to save the planet.

Directed by Danny Boyle, Sunshine is a tense and exciting thrill ride into the world of science fiction. There are events that happen that lead one to think of it more as a horror movie than sci-fi, but there are plenty of concepts that work for themes here. The greater good is on display as well as themes of isolation and of sacrifice.

I love Chris Evans, even pre-Captain America, and his character was one of the best of the group. He was the realist who could be seen as uncaring, but he would do anything to make sure the mission was a success where other crew members may not have always done this. Cillian Murphy was the counter to Evans and the pair of them were shown to be at odds despite both being determined to get the bomb to the sun.

I will say that there is something that happens late in the film that, although was suspenseful, was not necessarily the way I would have ended the film. Without spoiling it, it had to do with Mark Strong’s character. This character seemed to inject a level of craziness that did not work as well in the film. As I said, it did build some tension, but I think tension could have been built in other ways and the images during his scenes were too supernatural in tone for me. It did not ruin the movie, but I think it did weaken it some.

However, I still ended up enjoying this a great deal. I got past the fact that the film had Captain America, Wong and Dogen from LOST in the cast and started to see them as the characters they played here. The special effects and the CGI was amazing and worked tremendously, and each character had their moment in the sun (some quite literally). Good sci-fi film that I had never heard of before.

DailyView: Day 102, Movie 173

What the hell am I watching?

I am a huge fan of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, but I have to say that Eraserhead feels like Twin Peaks on the strongest available hallucinogen possible.

What is happening?

I’m not sure how to go into a plot synopsis for this movie, because I am legitimately do not know what is going on. Jack Nance, who was the ever awesome Pete on Twin Peaks, is a guy named Henry Spencer. There was a woman who had Henry’s baby, which kind of looked like a lizard. His head gets decapitated after… I’m going to call it…sex with the neighbor. Then he wakes up. Was that a dream? Is all of this a dream?

According to Wikipedia, Eraserhead is an “experimental body horror film” written, directed produced, and edited by David Lynch. It was his first feature length film after a series of shorts that he had directed. The film is shot completely in black and white and has Lynch’s bizarre sense of imagery.

One of the film’s most standout elements is the sound. The use of sound in the movie is utterly disturbing, engaging and off-putting at the same time.

There are several moments of humor mixed in the bizarre darkness of this world, again making me think of Twin Peaks. The outlandish and unorthodox scenes are filled with symbolism, much of that dealing with sexual intercourse.

This has become a cult movie and I can see why. I do not know what to think about it. It is the weirdest thing I have seen with some really disturbing moments. How to rate this? I really am not sure. Maybe I need to create a new category for this one.

DailyView: Day 102, Movie 172

I found this psychological drama on Netflix this morning and it sounded intriguing. The premise did remind me of the film I watched a couple of days ago, Flightplan. I was not a fan of that movie because their story did not make much sense. Could Fractured avoid those same pitfalls and create a tense and satisfying movie?

Ray (Sam Worthington) and his family, wife Joanne (Lily Rabe) and daughter Peri (Lucy Capri) were on their way to family Thanksgiving when they stopped at an out-of-the-way gas station. At a nearby construction site, Peri is backed off by a wild dog. When Ray chased the dog off, Peri fell into the construction site, fracturing her arm. Ray and Joanne rushed her to a nearby hospital where they hoped for help. After waiting for ages and having to answer all kinds of questions, Peri is finally seen by Dr. Berthram (Stephen Tobolowsky). He was worried about Peri’s head from the fall and wanted to order a CT scan. Ray walked them to the elevator, but there was a limit to how many people could go into the area. Joanne accompanied Peri for the CT scan and Ray went back to the waiting room.

Ray dozed off, but when he awoke, he was confused that Joanne and Peri had not returned yet. When he approached the nurse, he was told that there was no record of Peri ever being admitted.

Ray began a desperate attempt to figure out what was going on and he began to suspect that something sinister was happening at this hospital.

I really enjoyed this movie. The movie continually kept you off balance with exactly what was happening and what had happened to Ray’s wife and child. We got scenes where there are mysterious glances between hospital employees, but we also get implications that there is more to Ray than we knew. It kept me guessing the whole time.

The key to a movie like this is the ending. Does the ending nail the landing? Does it provide enough plausible answers to fit the pieces together? An ending can ruin what a movie like this is trying to accomplish if it is not well done. For me, this film’s conclusion was extremely effective and still maintained the uncertainty up until the final few shots. There were several moments when you would be lulled into thinking that you knew what was happening, but then the film pulled the rug out and flipped the script around on you. This was very solid writing and a good job of directing to manipulate the audience’s expectations.

I can understand if people did not like the ending, but, for me, it really wrapped the story effectively.

DailyView: Day 101, Movie 171

Yesterday I watched the new documentary Val, about the life of Val Kilmer. During that film, one of my favorite parts was the part of the doc that detailed the filming of The Island of Dr. Moreau. In my review of the film, I stated that “I have a feeling that there is a whole movie that could be made about the making of The Island of Dr. Moreau.”

Little did I know, that was already done. In 2014, there was a documentary entitled Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau. There it was on Shudder.

Richard Stanley was the first director of The Island of Dr. Moreau, one who had a nightmarish time on the project and who wound up being fired and replaced by John Frankenheimer. There were so many things that happened on this movie set that, from all accounts, was an insane production.

The film tells the story of the film from start to end, but it is told more from the POV of people working on the film, giving their personal tales of the oddities that happened to them.

The film does have many interviews with Richard Stanley scattered throughout, giving him an opportunity to speak to what he was seeing at the time. Some of the cast/crew’s recollections of Stanley did not color the director in the best light. Their stories made him seem like an eccentric director that was in over his head.

One of my favorite bits was when Stanley confirmed that he had gotten his hands on one of the masks for the background mutants and, after he had been fired, he returned to the set as an extra without anyone knowing. Stanley showed us the dog mask that he had worn and we saw pictures of him in the background of scenes. Crazy.

Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer were painted as another pair of villains in the film. Most everyone told us how difficult it was to work with the two actors. The one thing that was really missing from the documentary was an interview with Val Kilmer. I would have liked to hear the counter to the “Val is making our lives miserable” comment that was basically what everyone said.

I still feel like there is a movie to be made out of this film production. You couldn’t find more fascinating or oddball characters than Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, Richard Stanley, John Frankenheimer, and others. Perhaps there is a comedy in the idea. Or maybe one of the Wes Anderson style films.

DailyView: Day 101, Movie 170

James Mangold has had a solid career as a director of some really awesome movies. Logan, Ford v. Ferrari among the best of his list. The film for today in the DailyView joins these classics as a fantastic film, Cop Land.

There was a top notch cast in Cop Land, with Sylvester Stallone leading the way in one of his career best performances. The cast also included Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, Harvey Keitel, Robert Patrick, Michael Rapaport, Janeane Garofalo, John Spencer, Edie Falco, Peter Berg, Noah Emmerich, and Cathy Moriarty.

Sheriff Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) was the sheriff of a small town in New Jersey called Garrison, a suburb that is being populated by police officers and their families. Freddy, who always wanted to be on the police force but could not because of a hearing disability, had been walking through his life, keeping his head down and unintentionally turning a blind eye to the corruption going on around him.

Things began to change one night when police officer Murray “Superboy” Babitch became involved in a racial motivated shooting, things started going wild. With the aid of cop Ray Donlan (Harvey Keitel), Babitch faked his own death by jumping off a bridge and goes into hiding in Garrison.

However, pressure from Internal Affairs officer Moe Tilden (Robert DeNiro) and other powerful forces tried to get Ray to take care of the Babitch problem permanently. Tilden approached Freddy for help, but Freddy turned him down. Still, Freddy’s guilt began to eat away at him and he decided that he needed to do something.

Cop Land is a strong ensemble cast with some hard-nosed performances. The corruption in the town went deep but the characters feel very real. Each character showed their involvement in the corruption, whether it was deeply entrenched to turning away. Cop Land showed how easily it is for good men and women to go down a path of darkness and corrupt their souls.

There are a few racial bits involved here, but they are not the main focus of the movie. However, their inclusion here is not accidental and show how much of a problem exists within some of the structures of our society.

Excellent crime drama with a group of characters who are morally grey and fascinating to watch.

DailyView: Day 100, Movie 169

It looks like so far Day 100 in the DailyView has been a bit of a flop. The first film I saw today was Flightplan with Jodie Foster and I found that one too silly. I moved on to an Oscar winner from 1950, with the well known character of Allan Quartermain, King Solomon’s Mines, a film that had been made from a classic novel and remade from a 1937 film.

Unfortunately, the film felt desperately out dated and, at times, dull.

Honestly, the film lost me in the first scene. Allan Quartermian (Stewart Granger) was with a group of hunters in Africa, leading them on a safari. One of them shot an elephant and it went down. The scene where the elephant is shot twice looks authentic. The other elephants surrounded the fallen beast and laid their heads against the corpse. It looked as if they were all mourning the loss. It was a terribly sad moment and treated as if it were the right of these hunters. I have never been a big proponent of hunting, but it never bothered me before. This scene left a terrible taste in my mouth and it tainted my thoughts of the rest of the movie so when Elizabeth Curtis (Deborah Kerr) arrived to hire Quartermain as a guide, I had checked out.

That scene when she was hiring him felt familiar. It felt as if it had been lifted directly from this movie and dropped into the latest Dwayne Johnson film, The Jungle Cruise.

Quartermain led Elizabeth and John Goode (Richard Carlson) into the heart of the Undiscovered territory of Africa. There are countless encounters with animals and natives as they only mention the idea of the diamond mines a few times.

I did not like either Quartermain or Elizabeth and found it a chore to follow them across this journey. The African landscapes and imagery was a standout feature for the movie, but that was about it for me.

We won’t even go into the racial undertones of the movie.

I’ve always liked the character of Allan Quartermain so this was a real disappointment. When I had picked this out for the list, I was excited to see a classic from 1950. Sadly, classic does not fit the bill for me.

DailyView: Day 100, Movie 168

We have reached the milestone of 100 days in the DailyView. I have been very pleased with how it has gone so far. Today’s film stars Jodie Foster and I heard about it for the first time yesterday as I watched the Schmoedown match with William Bibbiani in it. Flightplan was one of the questions that he was asked, and he knew the answer immediately. The synopsis of the film in the question sounded interesting, so I added it to my list.

Flightplan was the story of a woman named Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) whose husband had just recently died from falling off a roof. She was taking his body on an airplane for burial as she tried to comfort her 6-year old daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) over the loss of her father.

After falling asleep, Kyle awoke to find Julia was missing and that no one on the flight even remembered ever seeing the child. Kyle became panicked and demanded to see the pilot (Sean Bean). Along with the air marshal Carson (Peter Sarsgaard), Kyle desperately attempted to prove that she was not losing her mind as she continued the search for Julia.

Jodie Foster is always pretty good, but I have to say there were some moments in the film where I did not feel as if she was fully engaged in the performance. Maybe she was going for the underwhelming performance, but it felt as if there were parts of her face that was unemotional or unexpressive.

The plot was ridiculous. When you realize what actually had happened, there are so many holes inside it that it simply does not make any sense. How did nobody on the plane see this little girl being abducted? Are they all just sound sleepers?

There are so many details that would have to work out for this story to be even remotely possible. And Jodie Foster does so many things that the film excuses because she is so desperate to find her daughter. However, there are lines that she does cross that I thought was going too far.

Flightplan’s premise was intriguing obviously (as I heard it on the Schmoedown and wanted to see it) but there is just nothing effective done with it. There were some potentially interesting psychological bits that could have been investigated, but we as viewers never truly believed them because Jodie Foster was so adamant and she did not give us a character that had any more depth than scared mother who knows about airplane designs. The resolution of the mystery is so underwhelming and, truthfully, disappointing that it deflates any sort of momentum that the film may have had.