Shmee.Me

February 19, 2013February 21, 2013

Meet President Lincoln

Lincoln is a movie about the 16th President by Steven Spielberg. This a rare movie from the award wining director: it is a small personal picture instead of a grand sweeping epic. I think the change of pace was good for this prolific director.

Lincoln is about the last few months of the President’s life as he was trying to push through the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, and win the war with the south, but this movie is about backroom politics, not the Blue vs. the Gray, so while there are a couple of war scenes, this movie is mainly a bunch of meetings.

Don’t let the thought of a bunch of old dudes arguing keep you from watching this movie. This movie is riveting in much the same way that 12 Angry Men is: as you watch the President use all his power and influence and his cunning to get his amendment to pass. It is amazing to watch the political process work, and the kind of shenanigans they were willing to pull off to make this bill pass. Sadly we all know this movie ends in tragedy.

It was great to see Spielberg take a break from making big movie, and do a stripped down human interest political drama. This movie has three main sets it would be very easy to convert to a play. It proves that he can direct anything, and should not just be thought of for his big budget epic blockbusters.

The casting of this movie was spot on. Daniel Day-Lewis gives another award worthy performance, as do Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field. They really bring this movie and time period to life.

Lincoln is a great movie, and one that everyone involved in will be remembered for. Spielberg adds another gem to his collection of films, and this is definitely a movie everyone should watch.

February 18, 2013

It is not a Good Day to Die Hard

Finally after five movies the Die Hard franchise appears to have lost its steam. Bruce Willis still looks the part of John McClane, but they have run out of interesting stories for him to dispatch bad guys in.

The movie is setup when John McClane finds out that his son, Jack, is in prison in Russia, and he decides to go check it out. He then gets in the way of his son rescuing a Russian national with dirt on a top Russian official, and then they shoot pretty much everything in Russia.

The main problem with this movie is that they seemed to forget what makes the Die Hard movies great. It is not the hard core action, which this movie did have, but the witty dialog. Bruce Willis is a good comedic actor, so his delivery on one-liners is probably the best in movies, but for some reason in this movie they decided to replace that with him and his son talking about how crappy of a father he was. Absentee fathers make some interesting movie stories, but they kind of drag down what is supposed to be fun shoot-em-up.

Another problem is that they decided to make John McClane pretty much invincible in this movie. I started to think that maybe we were watching another Terminator movie where the robots sent back a John McClane look alike to repair his relationship with his son. In the first Die Hard movie he was barely standing at the end of that movie. In this one he seemed to be doing alright, and the stuff he lived through was much worse, so I guess he is getting tougher with age or something.

Not to give anything away, but now that John and Jack have made up if they make another Die Hard I hope they get back to having it be fun again, and not a story about two moping dudes murdering Russians. There are worse action movies, and the action itself is still good, but everything in between the fighting was a let down.

February 15, 2013February 15, 2013

Are We Headed for an Idiocracy?

Idiocracy is another cult classic from the creator of Office Space and Bevis and Butthead, Mike Judge. It is very funny even if the thesis it based around is flawed and quite classist. Its premise is that unintelligent people are breeding faster then intelligent people, and because of this by the year 2505 the human race will be dumb as rocks and headed for collapse.

Luke Wilson is a soldier with completely average intelligence, so they decided to use him as a guinea pig to test out a freezing chamber for one year. They don’t have a female soldier that fits the criteria, so they use a local woman of the night played by Maya Rudolph. Sadly they get forgotten about, and end up in the year 2505 as the smartest people in the world.

The best part of this movie is the first twenty minutes where they show a smart couple discussing how it would irresponsible to have kids during the current economy, and that they should wait until they have enough money saved. Meanwhile a guy in a trailer park has like five different women and kids all over the place.

Like usual Mike Judge’s sarcastic take on the world really shines through here. While the premise is flawed it plays on our fears so it seems like it is true, and it gets us all thinking that the future may truly be full of moronic degenerates, but as we all know money and breading have nothing to do with inelegance, but the movie knows that we forget that sometimes.

It is a shame Mike Judge has never really had mainstream success because he does know how to write a funny movie.

February 14, 2013

I am Ravenous!

Ravenous is one of my favorite movies from when I was in high school. It was passed over by a lot of people, but it has David Arquette’s name on the box, so I forgive them. The reviewers for the most part were not kind to this movie, but I think it holds up well and it is worth a look.

The story is a about a soldier who during a battle fakes his death and as a result is thrown under a pile of bodies. He wakes up and is enraged and turns the tide of the battle, and it is promoted for his ‘victory’, but his commanding officer guesses at his cowardice and sends him to the middle of nowhere. At his new post he finds that his power and strength may have come from the blood dripping in his mouth, and he may not be the only person that knows how to harness this power.

So right now you are thinking “great a movie about cannibals and David Arquette, that means I am out!”, but it is still awesome, and David Arquette has a minor role and gets eaten, so that is a plus. This movie is so unique and fun, it is hard not to have a good time, and for the record Roger Ebert agrees with me.

My buddy TK and I must have watched this movie like 30 times. TK even had the soundtrack which is one of the best parts of the movie. The music is so offbeat it just adds to the character of this movie.

If you are looking for something different to watch, and aren’t afraid of a little blood, you should give this movie a try, and if you don’t like it you can blame TK and me.

February 13, 2013

Is there something wrong with Prometheus?

Prometheus was the long awaited prequel to Alien from Ridley Scott, and while it got good reviews, people tended to be disappointed with the film. I am not sure this disappointment was fair.

The movie is about a group of scientists that find messages all over the earth that seem to point to one planet way out in space, as where our forbearers came from. So like all good scientists, they commission a space ship, the Prometheus, and head out. Now I am not going to spoil the rest of the film for you, but since it is a prequel to Alien, I guess you at least know that things do not go well for the group.

Most people’s complaints about the movie tend to center around the fact that all these people are scientists, and yet they are always doing very dumb things. I would counter that just because they are book smart that does not mean that they are going to know what to when their lives are on line and they are being chased by unknown beings. True they choose the guy with the map to get lost, but I think they do a good job of showing him as an idiot before then.

The main thing I like about this movie is that they truly tired to make a good Sci-Fi movie. They tried to make a movie that would scare us and make us think, and while the movie was not excellent it was very good. And I think because Alien was excellent anything less then that was considered a let down. I would watch this movie a hundred times before I had to watch Total Recall again, because the effort showed, and I am looking forward to the sequel .

Despite the negatives you may hear about this movie, you should give it a try. I believe that it will still entertain you. It may not be as good as Alien, but it is better then ninety percent of the garbage out there, and since so few good Sci-Fi movies make it, we should show our support.