Miscellaneous Movie Musings the Sequel

[Alex]

My review of Prince of Persia: Ugh.

[innerSpaceman]

Hahaha, great final line in that review, Alex. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed that quip more than I would the actual film that inspired it.

[JWBear]

We just got back from Prince of Persia. Thoroughly enjoyable romp! Although, I may need to go see it again. I think I missed significant portions of dialogue. Mr Gyllenhaal was rather... um... distracting...

[Ghoulish Delight]

The Drawn Together Movie is even better than I'd hoped it would be. The opening had me skeptical but they delivered.

[Alex]

Because of my weekend plans fell apart it ended up being a weekend of movies:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - The first half was actually a fair amount of fun but then it devolved into boring excess and I didn't care by the time it was over.

Hai kikku gâru! - Aka High Kick Girl!. It is a thing that confuses me that the Japanese so generally suck at martial arts movies. Who'd think it would be hard for them to compete with Thailand. And this one is bad, not only because it lacks in much in the way of good choreography (and no story) but because almost every single sequence is repeated in slow motion. The movie was listed at about 75 minutes. Take out the slowmo repeats and it was probably only 17.

À bout de souffle (aka Breathless) - 50th anniversary. I watch it because it is one of those films you're supposed to acknowledge is brilliant to show off how smart you are. I don't really see it, but I like to think I'm smart so I'll pretend it is brilliant.

Shrek Forever After - Surprisingly dark movie with horrible messages. It goes all It's a Wonderful Life and shows what would have happened if Shrek had never rescued Fiona. One big flaw in that plan: the alternative seems better for both of them.

Desk Set - Love computer movies from that brief window when computers existed but the word "computer" hadn't yet quite moved from being a reference to people to being a reference to machines (in common parlance). Katharine Hepburn is the hyper efficient librarian and Spencer Tracy is inventing AI that would still stress Google's plain language search algorithms. Fluffy fluff but actually unintentionally raised some real questions about the future of librarianship that are still settling out.

Trouble Along the Way - John Wayne in a role that involves neither horses nor military uniforms. He never shoots anybody and I'm pretty sure he didn't even punch anybody. Plus he has to engage in witty fast paced dialog with Donna Reed and handled it pretty well. It is good to know that the eternal debate about why it is wrong to pay college football players was already going in 1953. Also, little Sherry Jackson (11 and tomboyish in this movie grew up to be hot in a Star Wars extra sort of way.

The Stranger - Orson Welles really was a genius. A wasted genius for the most part, but genius nonetheless.

Paper Heart - I shouldn't have liked this fake documentary but I did. It didn't really have a good way to end but everything up to that was pleasant.

Which Way Is Up? - Twice in this movie Richard Pryor is about to rape somebody. That's just the first sign of how unfunny the movie is.

Serpico - Serpico comes off as a little too angelic, but maybe that's how the real Serpico really was.

Klute - Yawn! I love Donald Sutherland, but that was painfully boring.

[Alex]

To think that my 11-year-old self could only have dreamed of one day having the opportunity of watching The Karate Kid (starring a black Ralph Macchio and Chinese Pat Morita doing kung fu) and The A-Team as a double feature in the movie theater.

Suprisingly (to me anyway) The Kung Fu Kid (as it is titled in Japan and China) has a fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and The A-Team is above 50%. I think I know what my belated birthday present to my 11-year-old self will be.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

It really is insulting that they called it The Karate Kid in America. We are not that stupid. Karate is from Japan.

[JWBear]

We just watched City Beneath the Sea (Bill had never seen it). Gotta love cheesy nostalgia.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

It really is insulting that they called it The Karate Kid in America. We are not that stupid. Karate is from Japan.

Just got back. It is an entirely satisfactory remake. I didn't think it could work but it does.

In the movie it very clearly makes the point that kung fu is not karate. I can kind of see the choices they had to make in that while kung fu is the martial art involved, it is very much a remake and not a sequel or a spin off or inspired by the original and using the same title makes that point. But yeah, I'd have preferred a different title. But fortunately, the title is pretty much the only insulting thing about the movie.

[BarTopDancer]

Really enjoyed The A-Team and judging by the laughter throughout and applause at the end we weren't the only ones.

It was more

Spoiler:

how they become The A-Team and less solider of fortune client of the week

and a great tribute to the original series.