Shmee.Me

July 14, 2014July 14, 2014

Netflix Gets Into Anime With Knights Of Sidonia!

I used to watch a lot of anime, but since I have consumed most of the decent material, my viewing has slowed down. However since Netflix imported Knights of Sidonia only months after it finished airing in Japan, I thought I would give it a try. It has been fun to watch some anime again, and the 3D animation can be cool sometimes, but this series is fairly generic.

Just by looking at the promo shots most anime fans could tell you the plot without even having to read the description. A teenage boy, who is kind of a looser, is the last hope to vanquish an alien foe. Only he has the skills to defeat the Gauna, giant alien monsters who destroyed Earth, and protect the last of humanity. Yes the way he defeats the monsters is to shoot and poke them with his robot suit of armor, and of course the remnants of humanity are floating around in a giant gun shaped spaceship. Do all the girls like him even though he is a weirdo? Why yes they do!

Thankfully this show cuts down on all the fan service, and the wondering about the meaning of life and what it is to be human, to focus on why we are all watching this show in the first place: Watching robots and monsters beat crap out of each other. Thanks to the 3D animation it looks really cool too. Sadly what the 3D animation doesn’t do well is allow the human characters to interact with each other. They are stiff, and they don’t emote well. I think this is why the show doesn’t focus on that a lot. They just didn’t have the money to do that part right.

What also struck me while watching this show is how close it is to Battlestar Galactica. Then I realized that since this show is a generic anime, that all Battlestar Galactica was is a long live action anime. I mean it had sexy robots, space battles, the last of humanity on a spaceship, and a lot of questions about what it means to be human. Crazy I know. It blew my mind! Anyway back to Knights of Sidonia.

I have enjoyed watching Knights if Sidonia, but it is not really a great show. Just a watchable one. It is generic, and due to the poor 3D animation the character interaction lacks a little punch, but watching giant robots versus giant monsters is always fun. If you are not an anime fan this show will not win you over, but if you are, it is a fun diversion. I hope Netflix keeps directly importing its own anime because that is one way to insure that I keep renewing my subscription.

July 7, 2014July 7, 2014

Shmee Watched Fast & Furious 6!

I was going to review Fast & Furious 6, but you know what? I have decided against it. It is the sixth movie in a series, so either you know that you will like it, or you know to stay away. It contains pretty people driving cool cars really fast while blowing stuff up real good. If that appeals to you then you have probably already watched this movie, if not then you should. If that sounds kind of lame to you, you shouldn’t.

It is a fun movie, but at this point the series has stopped finding ways to wow me. I know what I am getting, and the film delivers. It is like getting a cheeseburger at McDonald’s. It is fine for what it is, but it is hard to be super excited about movies seven and eight plus The Rock spinoff since they will be pretty much the same thing. Still, sometimes I get cravings for a McDonald’s cheeseburger, and I will be back.

This series has a legion of fans, and the movies do really well, so I am sure you will be able to find them at your local Mega-plex for years to come.

July 3, 2014July 3, 2014

Shmee Tries To Walk Hard!

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a spoof on the biopic genre, but mostly the film Walk The Line the Johnny Cash biopic. Since all biographical movies follow the same basic flow it is an easy genre to make fun of, and for the most part the Judd Apatow written and Jake Kasdan directed film lands it jokes, but the film can be slow at times.

The story follows the titular Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly) from his troubled childhood through his hard living but successful career. Along the way he is always trying to write his masterpiece. This movie mostly makes fun of the Johnny Cash film, but the movie also makes fun of all sorts of rock legends including Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Elvis, and The Beatles to name a few.

While the movie copies and lampoons the basic biopic style, the real stars of this movie are all the great songs they wrote. My favorite is a Bob Dylan style song about dwarf solidarity. It is perfectly cringe worthy. However when they are not singing the movie can slow down, since not all of the standard spoken jokes and site gags land as well as the musical ones.

John C. Reilly really throws himself in to this role, playing a believable over the top musician. Since there have been so many of these musical biographies made he must of had a lot of material to use to get ready for this film. Cox’s two wives played by Kristen Wiig and Jenna Fischer are both very funny, and this movie manages to cram just about every notable comedian in to this film plus few real rock stars.

It is a shame this movie didn’t tighten up the script a bit because with its level of talent and the great songs they wrote this movie could have been a classic, but instead it is just a funny if uneven film. To be sure their are much worse spoof movies out there (all the Scary Movies), but it is no Spaceballs that is for sure.

June 20, 2014June 20, 2014

X-Men Six Pack Mega (Mega Mega) Review!

I am getting ready to watch X-Men: Days of Future Past this weekend, so to prepare I have re-watched all six of the previous X-Men/Wolverine movies, and I thought I would give some quick thoughts!

X-Men:

X-Men is really the first superhero movie of the modern era. Without its breakout success we wouldn’t be where we are today with at least three superhero movies a year. It is easy to see why it was so successful, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen were all perfectly cast, and director Bryan Singer knew how to use them. The movie can be slow at times as it introduces the cast, and the special effects don’t hold up, but it is an entertaining film that brought the X-Men universe to life.

X2: X-Men United:

This movie builds on the first one in just about every way. The relationships between the characters are believable, the action is top notch, and the story of the mutants living in fear of society while society is afraid of them is gripping. Bryan Singer really understands what it takes to make a great movie first, and then apply that understanding to superhero films. If the first movie is responsible for the modern era superhero flick, X2 made it a full fledged genre, and a genre worth watching at that! X2 is one of the better superhero movies ever made.

X-Men: The Last Stand:

If X2 is everything that is good about superhero movies then X-Men: The Last Stand is everything that is wrong with superhero movies. First they replaced Bryan Singer with Brett Ratner who is nowhere near as good as a director, and the script they wrote is awful. All the characters that were so carefully written in the second movie are all now dumb as dirt, and their motivations are almost unexplained. It is like Ratner was in way over his head, so to try to make up for it he started killing characters off, and not in good ways. I mean Cyclops dies in the first fifteen minutes, OFF SCREEN! It is just terrible, and the ending fight seen may be one of the worst big budget action sequences ever put to film. It is almost unwatchable. It consists of Mutants hanging upside down and getting shot, and then the Phoenix gets stabbed by Wolverine. Ugg! I don’t think I will ever watch this movie again.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine:

Since Ratner killed off the X-Men, Fox decided to make some prequels instead, and the first of what was going to be series of Origins films was X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This film is sooo close to being good. It has some great action scenes, and the Weapon-X story line is interesting, but what kills this movie for me is what they do to Deadpool. I have been hard on Ryan Reynolds in the past, but this movie is not his fault. He would have made a great jerky dude in a red suit, but no, the writers decide to sew his lips shut and turn him in to robot! It makes me shake in anger. This film also features my favorite X-Man, Gambit, but he is only Gambit-y for like five minutes, and then he flies a plane for the rest if it. If this movie would have had one more script rewrite it could have been pretty good.

X-Men: First Class:

After two bad movies in a row Fox thankfully learned its lesson, and deiced to get Bryan Singer back to make this prequel. He was only the writer and producer, but when watching it you can tell that his steady hand is leading this film. The director Mathew Vaughn is no slouch himself. It is amazing that when you pay talented people to make movies that they seem to turn out better. The story of how the X-Men become the X-Men is wonderfully told, and they got a great cast to play all the younger heroes. You can’t go wrong with James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence. Watching this movie makes me dislike the previous two movies even more because it shows how good they could have been.

The Wolverine:

Now that the X-Men series was back on track Fox decided to give another stand alone Wolverine movie a try. I reviewed this movie earlier, but that was the unrated version. This time around I watched the PG-13 film. It is not as good. They took out one of the better action sequences to get the PG-13 rating, but it is still enjoyable. Wolverine in Japan killing ninjas is always fun! This is a decent movie, and it cements the fact that Hugh Jackman is Wolverine.

Those are my thoughts on the first six movies, I will report back on how I feel about Days of Future past on Monday, so stay tuned!

June 18, 2014

The Paladin takes his life in his own hands with Safety Not Guaranteed

Time travel is hard; first there is the technological bits and bobs to work out and then consider the ramifications of your actions in the past and their ripple effect throughout time and space… tearing a hole in the fabric of human existence. Thankfully this movie really has nothing to do with that.

Safety Not Guaranteed is a character study. Darius Britt (Aubrey Plaza) is a woman adrift in her life in Seattle, working as an intern at Seattle Magazine. When Jeff Schwensen (Jake Johnson) a writer at Seattle Magazine wants to investigate a classified ad requesting a partner to travel back in time, Darius’ interest is piqued and she volunteers to go. We soon meet the man behind the ad, Kenneth Calloway (Mark Duplass) a jean jacket wearing, mulleted, youth trapped in an adult body. Darius is drawn to him and convinces Kenneth to take her on as his partner. As the two train together, preparing themselves for the “heat” through weapons training and martial arts, the attraction is obvious. However the question lingers throughout – did Kenneth really build a time machine?

The characters in the story are pretty great, although Jeff’s character is kind of a tragic waste who you want to like but can’t because he’s a tool. Mark Duplass plays Kenneth with a strange seriousness, one part adolescent and one part adult – balancing the absurd premise with a very human motivation. Aubrey Plaza is fantastic as the husk of a woman who finds life again as she gets rapped up in Kenneth’s world.

There is swearing, drinking, and carousing in this movie (pretty much all Jake Johnson’s character Jeff), so be aware and the ending for some reason fell a little flat for me. I think it showed too much, unlike the rest of the movie where things were vague and mysterious. Some ambiguity at the end would have worked great.

Should you watch Safety Not Guaranteed? I’d say, if you like Napoleon Dynamite or Cohen Brother’s films then you’ll probably enjoy this character driven comedy. Its quirky, its not necessary laugh out loud funny, but you will giggle a little.