zrath

Hey kids! Guess what?
It's time for Netflixing!
And boy howdy, have we got some doozies for all y'all!!
Start the projector, Mr. Reel!

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind - Okay, look, Jim Carrey can act, awright? Look closely at this film.
Okay, this is wacky french dude Michel Gondry's first film, from back in 2004, and it's pretty deep.
Jim is a guy who seems to be falling for this wacky hair-dyeing chick played by Kate Winslet, but then he finds out that
said chick underwent an electronic brain operation to excise all memories of him from his mind. So he decides to have the
same thing done to him, but during the procedure, he realizes he really loves her and tries to hide memories of her.
Half the film is spent in Jim's mind as the brain "formatting" is under way and it gives Gondry a chance to do all sorts of
wacky mindbending stuff with time, space and reality. Someone online mentioned that if Kurt Vonnegut had ever written a
love story, it would have kinda looked like this, and I tend to agree. Slow-starting at first but quickly picks up speed.
Makes for an interesting date movie. :)
(Yes, I know I used the word "wacky" three times in this review. No, I don't care.)

Seraphim Falls - Dueling Irishmen playing Americans! Union and Confederate enemies post-Civil War!
Liam Neeson (Irish!) and Pierce Brosnan (Irish!) play bitter Americans, both veterans of the Civil War, on opposite sides.
Pierce is being chased by Liam and 4 unsavory characters he hired (including the kid who played Stacey Peralta in
"Lords Of Dogtown", and Ed Lauter who's been in tons of TV shows and B-movies, mostly as police or military types).
But I'm kinda cheating by telling you this because you have no idea what's going on when the movie starts. All you know
is that Pierce is all alone, up in the mountains, in the snow, trying to make it, and some asshole shoots him in the arm.
Then you see Liam and his four ruffians chasing Pierce, but you don't know why. Eventually, as the movie unreels, you're
given some information as to what's going on. You're not sure who to root for, maybe Pierce, maybe Liam, maybe no one.
Pierce is pushed to do some gruesome things in order to survive. So this film is rated R for a reason.
It's not gratuitous, it's just survival, honest and brutal. Worth checking out.

Arthur And The ~~Minimoys~~ Invisibles - Luc Besson tries his hand at big-budget kids flicks, wait, what?
So yeah, Mr. Fifth Professional Nikita apparently wrote or co-wrote some kids books in his copious spare time, and this film
is an adaptation of the first book. And hey, check it out! Bonus gratuitous title change! Eventhough the little bitty
troll-doll-like creatures are called "Minimoys", the title was changed to "Arthur And The Invisibles". Urrrr, aaaanyway...
Plot? You want plot? How's this? House is gonna be foreclosed unless Grandpa returns, and with major bling-bling!
Unfortunately, Grandpa's been missing for a while, and there's not enough bling to stave off Snidely Whiplash over here.
Grandpa is an eccentric globetrotting inventor and who knows where he could be? Arthur, our 10 year-old hero, likes Grandpa
very much and is desperately trying to figure out where he stashed The Treasure so he can save the house!
Live-action actors include Freddie Highmore (Charlie from the Johnny Depp Wonka film), Mia Farrow and that's pretty much it.
I mean, there are more, but none I've ever heard of. Most of the big-names are voicing the Minimoys.
The film is set in the US in the '60s, and Freddie Highmore's outrageous English accent is explained away by his attending
a private school in England and being home on vacation. From what I can tell, the live-action was shot in English and the
animation synched to the French dialogue. The animation was then dubbed in English for the American release.
English voices for the Minimoys include: Madonna (cute princess, sounding really young), Jimmy Fallon (comic relief,
sounding like Young Robin Williams), Robert De Niro (King Daddy), Harvey Keitel (some scientist troll), Chazz Palminteri
(bit part), Emilio Estevez (ditto), Snoop Dogg (some cool cat, I mean, troll, even moves like him), Jason Bateman
(as Darkos, the mentally-challenged son of the Big Bad Guy), and David Bowie (as Malthazard, the Big Bad Guy).
Okay, my biggest problem with this film is the music. Eric Serra is at the controls, as usual, but the music is too loud,
rather generic, and really just gets on my nerves. Eric's got no clue on how to score a movie of this type, and it's obvious.
Second biggest problem: the pacing. Sometimes, it's wacky-fun-fast like a cartoon. Sometimes, it's
While looking up something for this review, I came across this interesting "Original French Version Versus US Version"
comparaison posted in the IMDB message board. Link is here.
The American version seems to have been heavily sanitized by the Weinsteins, in addition to being generally mishandled,
and Luc Besson's anger seems justified now. Also, Harvey Weinstein recently called Luc Besson a has-been. YA RLY.
So, in view of this, I guess my third biggest problem with the film is the American "Sanitized For You Convenience" aspect.
But hey, you know, I'm not a kid. I'm sure kids will like this. It's pretty, it's fun, and it's magical.
So, great for kids, not so hot for adults. Bring earplugs.

~~The Faun's~~ Pan's Labyrinth - the feel-good hit of last winter, NOT!!
Continuing the fine tradition of renaming stuff for the US, we have here Guillermo Del Toro's newest film:
El Laberinto Del Fauno, aka "The Faun's Labyrinth". Some executive(s) somewhere must have reasoned that the American
public didn't know what a faun was, so the film was retitled "Pan's Labyrinth", eventhough Pan's not in it, nor credited.
Anyway, this is a dark, mean, brutal film. It's pretty much the complete opposite of "Arthur And The Troll Dolls".
Set during the magical mystical time of 1944 fascist Spain, right after the wonderful little civil war that ended with
Generalissimo Francisco Franco in power, the film centers around Ophelia, a little girl very much into fairy tales.
Her mother has remarried and her stepfather is a brutal sadistic mean evil Spanish Army captain who makes Darth Vader look
like Pippy Longstockings (bonus points if you know what the hell I'm talking about :D ). Did I mention he was evil?
The family relocates to an old mill because Stepdaddy is busy crushing the rebel scum (I'm not even kidding).
The mother is pregnant and she really shouldn't have travelled all this way, so she's not feeling well. Ophelia goes out
to explore the area and discovers the old spooky hedge maze behind the mill. A fairy leads her to the center, where a
stone staircase sits, spiralling down into the ground. Down there she meets ~~Pan~~ The Faun, who's flippin' scary!
He tells her she's the reincarnated daughter of the King Of The Underground and blablabla (and no, it's not David Bowie),
and she needs to perform 3 tasks to return to the Underground Kingdom and take her place by Daddy's side (still not Bowie).
Is this real? Is she imagining it? Who knows? Clues point to both possibilities.
This is just the starting point, a lot of stuff happens in there with Evil Stepdad and the rebels and their sympathizers.
It's a good film, but it is brutal and depressing. And the blood, my god, the blood...
You have been warned.

And that's all for now.
I have a few more that I will post later.