Shmee.Me

August 15, 2014August 15, 2014

The LEGO Movie Blu-Ray Update!

I thought pretty highly of Warner Brother’s The LEGO Movie when it came out in theaters earlier this year, so I went ahead and bought the Blu-Ray. My thoughts on the movie itself have not changed, but I decided I would give you my impressions of the home video experience.

It is an animated film, so it looks great in high def. The colors pop, and everything is crisp and clear. In the theater I wasn’t able to fully appreciate all the bumps and seams on the characters that make them look like real LEGO mini-figs. The fact they made the movie completely re-creatable with LEGO toys is impressive, and when you watch it at home the detail really comes through.

They have put a good amount of special features on the disk, like an Everything Is Awesome sing-along, why Batman is a true artist, and some deleted scenes. You know the usual stuff for a kids movie, but it is all done well. As always they include DVD and Ultra-Violet copies so you can watch this movie anywhere, or just keep the kids quiet on those long car rides.

If you love silly films, or just need to see most of the Justice League on screen, this film is well worth the purchase. It looks great on your big screen, and children and adults will love it (if they don’t, they hate joy). I hope that its 18 Million sequels (there are at least three in the works) will be able to keep the quality as high.

August 13, 2014

Shmee Can’t Stop Watching Green Lantern! He Has A Problem…

The Green Lantern is my favorite comic book character. I love that he is a space cop, that his powers are limited only by his imagination, and that it is all just a little odd. So when they made the 2011 movie I was more than excited. Then the movie came out, and it was terrible. You would think that would be it. I would watch the terrible movie once, mourn, and then move one, but no, I can’t. My love of the Green Lantern will not let me. So I watch his movie about once a year, and I wince my way through it.

It is bad on just about every level. The story is rushed, the special effects are less than special, and the acting is poor. My wife pointed out that Ryan Reynolds is not the problem with this movie, and that it would be bad without him, and she is right, but he doesn’t make it any better. It feels like no one really had any passion for this movie, so they kind of threw it together, and as a fan of the character, I think that hurts most of all.

I previously wrote about some ideas for the new Green Lantern movie, whenever that comes out, and it will because of DC’s need to get the Justice League off the ground. What they really need is someone who loves the Green Lantern Universe as much as the fans do, and will tell good Green Lantern Corps stories. I could have lived with sub-par special effects and Ryan Reynolds if they would have told a story worth telling, but they couldn’t figure out what they wanted to do. Did they want a space epic? A simple origin story? The story of how Sinestro goes bad? Any of those could have been one movie, but instead they slam them all together, and give us a muddled mess.

Comic book movies are the biggest box office draw right now, and Hollywood loves a sure thing, so I will get another movie with a Green Lantern in it. I just hope it comes out soon, so I can stop watching this horrible movie. For now it is the only big screen adaptation I have, so I will keep watching it with a tear in my eye.

August 5, 2014August 5, 2014

All Female Ghostbusters? I Am In!

So according to TheWrap the new Ghostbusters director Paul Feig wants it to be all female. This is a good idea. If they did a Ghostbusters 3 or a normal Ghostbusters reboot they would either have to try and get the old (and I do mean old) gang back together, or try and recapture the same “spirit” with a new cast, and both of those things seem to be impossible.

By using an all female cast it will create some excitement, and they will not have to deal with any preconceived notions of what the movie should be. They can do whatever they want because they would have changed things up enough. It may sound a little gimmicky, but sometimes a good gimmick is all you need.

Now the other argument is that we already have two good Ghostbusters movies (well a great one, and an okay one), so why do we need another one? Well those movies came out in the 80’s, so there is whole generation that still needs to be introduced to these movies, and by making a new one it keeps the franchise fresh and relevant. I hope this idea gets this movie rolling, because I would love to go to the theaters to watch the Ghostbusters!

July 31, 2014July 31, 2014

Please Don’t Apply For The Internship!

You have got to give Google credit, The Internship is a heck of an add. That doesn’t mean it is good. Because it is really not (It is so Bad!). It is just good for a two hour long employment video. The fact that they got Shawn Levy to direct it, and Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson to star in it is just icing on the cake for them. I hope Google paid 20th Century Fox a lot for this 2013 film because it is incredibly bland, and a little creepy.

The film is about two out of work salesmen, Billy McMahon (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Campbell (Owen Wilson), who decided to lie their way in to an internship program at Google. They of course get paired with a group of misfits in quest to get a full time job at the tech company. They have to use their old school charm and wit to overcome their complete lack of tech savvy. Who knew lying on your resume, and being a smarmy salesmen could land you a job at a Fortune 500 company!

Honestly that description doesn’t sound like that bad of a movie. Fish our of water comedies can be very good. This movie is not. It was a lazy cash grab. Google must have agreed to this because it makes them look good, and everyone else involved gets paid. Everything about this movie is derivative, and then to make things worse they pad the running time everywhere: a quidditch match, a bonding strip club scene that refuses to end, and a long support call montage to name a few.

Lets talk about the strip club scene for a second. It feels like it is half the movie, and it is awkward to watch as these kids “live it up”. It is even worse when you consider that Wilson and Vaughn are like twenty years older than the rest of the cast, so it makes them feel like those creepy uncles you won’t let your kids hang out with.

Vaughn and Wilson can be funny, and when you see them on screen you want to root for them, but they just play less funny versions of their Wedding Crashers characters. They are just going through the motions with this film, and looks like the rest of the cast is on cruise control too. It is a waste of talent all around.

You shouldn’t see this movie. It is disappointing on just about every level, and if you paid money to see it you are just encouraging bad film making. Luckily if you do see it, it is completely forgettable. If I hadn’t had to write this review, I would have blissfully forgotten all about it. I hope Google got what they wanted out of this film because the people that had to watch it sure didn’t.

July 29, 2014July 29, 2014

Shmee Takes A Ride On The Snowpiercer!

For people that don’t know, Snowpiercer is the Korean made film based on the French graphic novel of the same name. It was directed by Bong Joon-ho, one of the best Korean film makers around. He also directed the excellent movie The Host (the Korean monster movie, not the American YA book adaptation). If you don’t like foreign films, never fear this movie is 80% in English, and it is very easy to follow. Which you should, because it is a great ride.

The movie starts out by explaining that the world powers tried to control Global Warming by using artificial means, and instead they caused another Ice Age. The only people that are alive are on a train that never stops called the Snowpiercer. The people in the back of the train are growing angry about their treatment at the hands of the people in the front, so they start a revolt lead by Curtis Everett (Chris Evans).

Now I will grant you that is one far fetched plot, but they do such a good job telling the story that you will not mind. This movie does what the best Sci-Fi films always do, and that is to use crazy ideas and situations to really talk about the here and now. I didn’t always appreciate what this movie was trying to tell me, especially about religion (I think Bong Joon-ho believes in God, but that he is not a big fan), but at least they got their point across well, and in an entertaining way.

They got a great cast for this movie. For the first half of this movie Chris Evans is in full Captain America mode, but at the end of this movie he really gets to show his acting chops. He says he wants to retire from acting, but this movie makes me wish that he stick with it. Tilda Swinton once again proves her worth as a character actor as Mason the smarmy front car middle-manager who is in charge of the rear car passengers. John Hurt and Ed Harris bring their great presence to this film, and add depth to their roles even with limited screen time as Curtis’ would be father figures.

This movie manages to play the edge between action film and drama very well. Enough action to keep you entertained, and then it does what very few films these days try and do, engages your mind. It also believes you are smart enough to understand it, and that again is a very rare thing.

This movie is not perfect. It is a little odd, but considering we don’t get movies like this very often, I will take it. It is a shame this movie didn’t get a bigger push from the The Weinstein Company (they didn’t think you were smart enough to understand it) because I think it could have been a bigger hit. If you get a chance, I think you should book passage on the Snowpiercer.