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Reviews
A Cosmic Christmas (1977)
I remember loving it!
...but I do need to see it again. It was definitely a message that touched my heart and I continue to look for it still today. The characters and plot was very different from all that was going on at the time. I was barely a teenager at the time, but it was a spiritual epiphany that .."yes, this message contained the true meaning of Christmas". The animation was different and intriguing. It really helped sell the message.
I don't understand why it hasn't been back on. I scour the TV every Christmas in hopes that someone has discovered how great it is and invest in it. I would gladly invest in bringing it into the 20th century. It would be beautiful on Blue-Ray.
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
Pretty Good Setup/Shoot'em up Movie
This was an excellent respectable movie, that kept you guessing for most of the movie. In terms of box office, I think the biggest problem to seeing this is the name. While kind of clever, it tries too hard and is annoying, while some think that also describes the movie, I don't. The story, plot, and acting are all excellent, except that the ending is a bit too happy. To make it a truly great movie, there needs to be less rose and more thorns. The cast is phenomenal and more could have been made of character development. It did feel somewhat manipulative in the time line jumping, which always makes me feel like the maker's do not feel like they have a good story to tell. On this note, all perspective film makers, please see Italian Job. Overall an excellent movie and I would suggest it to just about everyone.
Ghost Rider (2007)
Great Ideas that just didn't connect
Overall, I like the movie. It appears very tough to make a great comic book superhero action movie. It was 22 plus years between Superman 2 and Spiderman, so you know it isn't easy. Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns were really, really close to being great. X-Men was just below those. I would ranked this one just above Daredevil and Elektra, although it is hard to resist Jennifer Garner in red.
It was OK. Not the best, but I like Nick Cage and Eva Mendes, although maybe not together. Their chemistry lacked. I blame writers, directors, Cage or story lines, because Eva has a smile that melts steel. The other actors were very good. Peter Fonda as the Devil and Brett Cullen as Johnny Blaze's father were excellent. The other bads were effectively bad and creepy. Sam Elliot was excellent as always, but the part they wrote for him could have been better. Donal Logue and the crew should have been used to help us care a little more for Cage's character.
My kids got me the extended video. It was much creepier than I thought it would be, which is good, unless young kids are watching. I think they did the whole skull on fire thing as best as they could. You can't give a straight skull much expression without animating the eyes, brows and cheeks. And because of that, the body with the skull attached to it seemed a lot like a Scooby Doo villain, which became more acceptable as time went one or I imagine you hated the movie.
Overall, I liked it. The action was cheesy fun, acting was fine, the bad guys sufficiently creepy and it appeared to follow the Ghost Rider legend.
Get Over It (2001)
A Happy, Fun Pill.
Many regard American Pie and Porky's for the 90's (I considered it Porky's Lite) then Get Over It would have to be the Better Off Dead for the 90's or "BOD" Lite. On the other hand you could also compare it to She's Having My Baby. I like light hearted movies and this one may have come at a low point in my life, but I delighted in almost everything about this movie. I think when you have a standard plot, you have to develop more than just the main characters to make it worthwhile. Besides Ben Foster, Kirsten Dunst, Melissa Sagemiller, they have Colin Hanks, Marton Short, (many quotables, like "I need you...not really" or "ahh, those were the salad days...but these are nice.), Shane West, Mila Kunis and of course Sisqo (love the ending song/video September Love.)
Like I said the plot is simple, but it is filled with quirky scenes designed to have you feel the emotion or the Main Guy Ben Foster day dreaming about one thing or another. The acting works out OK, not just because it is a basic teen movie and you may expect less, but because of the script and tempo of the movie and probably great directing/editing, it all works very well, together. Colin is already showing his dad's ability to come across as a likable good guy, even when he isn't. Martin Short is off in his own world here and the comic internal tension coming from the well documented fact that his character's directing career is dead, while, he is also in denial. It is these 2 that added the most buoyancy to keep the film a float, besides the flat out quirkiness. Love the last half of the opening credits, where he is walking down the road after being dump, with Vitamin C and band trailing him lip sinking the original version of "Love will Keep Us Together" by Captain and Tennile. Yeah, I must have been at a low point.
Kirsten is herself in this movie. Not even a stretch like the Cat's Meow or Deeply. The thing about her movies that I have noticed is that even though it is clearly a vehicle for her and she is the main attraction, she is smart enough to know that to have a good movie, her character should not control the movie. Of course, it is doubly smart, because if it is horrible, she wouldn't take full blame, either.
I would not recommend Get Over It to everyone, just the ones that like a light hearted quirky teen romantic comedy.
The Princess Bride (1987)
A Fairytale of Awesomely Comedic and Charming Proportions!
This movie is legendary. Can't Be Beaten in it's Genre. It is its own genre. Like so many great, great movies, it is difficult to classify, because it is flying on all aspects. It is a wonderful movie overall. Anyone with a heart to enjoy a Fairy Tale, will certainly make this movie one of their top ten favorites. It is in my top 3, which are always rotating. There is not one thing that isn't great about this movie.
Once again it is not then main character that make a great movie greater, it is the assembling of great secondary actors and developing their characters and making them interesting. The choices of Shawn Wallace, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant and the impressive Clergy man (Peter Cook) could not have been better. The energy thrown in by Carol Kane and Billy Crystal was phenomenal.