mike_moody

Member since 6/25/2008, last signed in awhile ago.

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Interested in:Avant-garde / Experimental, Comedy, Comedy Drama, Crime, Drama, Film, TV & Radio, Music, Science Fiction

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Re:Take the red pill: Recast TH ...
By mike_moody in Filmgaming
"The Matrix - Great supporting players -- and a few rockers -- get their due version Joseph Gordon-Levitt ... Neo Chiwetel Ejiofor ... Morpheus Franka Potente ... Trinity David Bowie ... Agent Smith Alfre Woodard ... Oracle David Krumholtz ... Cypher Marc Blucas ... Tank Jack White ... Apoc Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad) ... Mouse Meg White ... Switch Brian Dennehy ... Dozer Lyle Lovett ... Agent Brown Ric Ocasek ... Agent Jones " [More]

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm DV ...
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"Sometimes darker means better. Especially in Gotham City. The moody BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM stands in sharp contrast to the gaudy and goofy live-action Batman films that followed its 1993 theatrical release. Where Joel Schumaker's BATMAN FOREVER (1995) and BATMAN & ROBIN (1997) favored garish color schemes and cartoonish action scenes, PHANTASM delivered an engrossing story told with wit, style and restraint. Some have called this feature-length spinoff to the excellent BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES the best Batfilm ever produced. I wouldn't go that far, but it certainly deserves high praise and stature. It's one of the most original and engrossing depictions of Batman and Gotham City on film. PHANTASM's gorgeous art deco visual style and film noir vibe rival the gothic landscape Tim Burton created for his great Batfilms. The film's shadowy style compliments the densely-plotted story which balances drama, mystery and romance with exciting action and adventure. The ... " [More]

Be Kind Rewind

Be Kind Rewind review
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"Some critics are slamming director Michel Gondry’s sweet new slipstream comedy Be Kind Rewind for being excessively heartfelt and overly sentimental. I caught the film this weekend and was quickly wooed by its oddball humor, charming story about a neighborhood full of cuddly wackos, and warm message about the power of community spirit. Those hoping for a thematic sister film to Gondry’s 2004 drama Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (written by Charlie Kaufman) might be disappointed. Rewind wears its heart on its quirky sleeve, and it leaves little room for existential angst or scenes of heartbreak. Still, fans of Gondry’s narrow sense of humor and visionary music video work should find a lot to like in Be Kind Rewind. Most people reading this have no doubt seen the trailers with Mos Def, doing a great job playing a spacier version of his Ford Prefect from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, and Jack Black remaking, or “sweding,” movies like RoboCop, Ru ... " [More]

Day Watch

Quick Day Watch DVD review
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"Day Watch, the sequel to the thrilling 2004 Russian supernatural action flick Night Watch, will probably confuse fans of the original movie and alienate everyone else. That being said — er typed — director Timur Bekmambetov’s follow-up to his critically acclaimed hit is a fun, fast-paced and often inspired piece of pop moviemaking. The flick is far from perfect though, and it somehow feels a lot more hollow that its groundbreaking predecessor. Day Watch had a limited theatrical run in the U.S., but fans can now catch it on a single-disc unrated DVD with an awkward commentary by Bekmambetov and a “making of” featurette. Let’s talk visuals … It’s an understatement to call Day Watch a marvelous creative technical achievement. Bekmambetov and crew almost outdo themselves with some stunning visuals, CG and camera work here. “Day Watch” impresses not only with its incredibly implausible but mind-blowing action scenes but also w ... " [More]

Beowulf

Beowulf quick review
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"I was kicking myself for not catching Beowulf in 3-D as soon as the movie’s titles started flowing across the screen. The Cinemark in my hometown of Brownsville wasn’t offering the 3-D experience director Robert Zemeckis had in mind when creating this animated take on the ancient long-form poem. It’s too bad, since the 3-D gimmick probably would have made this awkward and unlikeable movie worth watching. Unlike the Lord of the Rings trilogy or even the Harry Potter flicks, little in Beowulf is thrilling, visually arresting or awe inspiring. The filmmakers’ take on the mostly shapeless classic story is dull, one-note and sometimes laughable. The animation and art design is unremarkable and often ugly, especially when the human characters look and move like dead, manipulated meat puppets. There are two scenes — only two — that I found potentially engrossing and fun to look at, but that’s a sad tally for a movie marketed as a rousing holiday s ... " [More]

Grindhouse

Death Proof DVD review
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"It’s no surprise that Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, his addition to the B-movie throwback experiment Grindhouse, feels like a faster and funnier ride when separated from its double-feature partner, Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. It’s easier to sit through this chatty thriller when it doesn’t come after a humdrum 80-minute zombie flick. Death Proof, just released on DVD, almost unfolds like a double feature on its own. Tarantino splits the movie into two distinct halves, both featuring Kurt Russel’s sleazy Stuntman Mike stalking and tormenting a group of comely young chatterboxes with his scary stunt car. The two halves are not equal though, and the disparities aren’t limited to plot points. The first half is Tarantino’s personal take on the stock ’70s exploitation thriller. (Creating quirky homages to low-budget ’70s genre flicks was pretty much the point of Grindhouse.) The director delivers all the hallmarks of his ... " [More]

Transformers

Transformers 2007 vs Transforme ...
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"Michael Bay’s fun but bloated epic Transformers hits stores today in a single-disc DVD, a two-disc DVD set and a high-definition HD-DVD version. Did they include bonus features? You betcha. There’s tons of ‘em on the two-discer, including featurettes about the Autobots and Decepticons backstory and the movie’s special effects. Great, but I think the good people at Paramount missed an opportunity to include the ultimate special feature on the two-discer, 1986’s animated Transformers: The Movie. Was Paramount afraid to include the two films in the same package? Did they figure that Bay’s flick would pale in comparison to the 1986 Sony Wonder Video classic? Well, of course not. They just didn’t care to do it. But what do you think, die-hard Transformers fan? Is the 1986 version better, or at least more fun, than Bay’s CG crunch fest? In the interest of serious scientific debate, cultural progress and killing time, let’s compare &ls ... " [More]

3:10 to Yuma

3:10 to Yuma quick review
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"The initial TV ads for 3:10 to Yuma didn’t appeal to me at all. Sure, I saw Christian Bale’s sharp mug and the reliable Russell Crowe staring back at me, yet I still wasn’t interested in the thing. Bale is one of my favorite actors and Crowe rarely turns in a drab performance, but I surely wasn’t going to be first in line to catch a lightly-hyped remake of a ’50s Western. The movie looked like something my granddad would enjoy but would leave me shifting in my seat. Then a few critics I respect starting tossing out words like “glorious,” “riveting” and “Oscar” when describing it. Then it hit number one at the box office on its first week out. Then I finally caught it on Saturday. 3:10 to Yuma is much, much more than the slow-burn exercise in genre those TV ads made it out to be. It’s an extremely compelling and well crafted tale loaded with powerful (not showy) performances, great action and soul to spare. Bal ... " [More]

Volver

Volver review
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"Volver, a charming minor work by Pedro Almódovar, is probably my least favorite film by the great Spanish director.Since the 1980s, Almódovar has delivered a successful string of florid and risky melodramas about Spanish women and their families. For his last two films, Almódvar focused his lens on men, with glorious results. He won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay for 2002’sHabla Con Ella (Talk to Her), a tender drama about two very flawed men in love with comatose women. 2004 saw the release of La Mala Educación (Bad Education), the director’s acclaimed and gripping Hitchcockian suspense tale about two male lovers connected by sexual abuse. Volver, which means “to return” in Spanish, is an apt title for Almódovar’s latest, his comeback to the land of the lady. It marks another film about strong women, another great role tailored for Penélope Cruz (the two worked together on 1999’s Todo Sobre Mi Madr ... " [More]

Children of Men

Children of Men review
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"It’s hard to single out one moment in director Alfonso Cuarón’s Children's of Men that doesn’t feel urgent, tense or, more frighteningly, very plausible.Set in a dystopian, war ravaged future Britain where no child has been born for 18 years, the film effectively draws a straight line between the bleak, bombed-out future on the screen and current events, including the war in Iraq and the crackdown on illegal immigration.“This is where we’re heading,” Cuarón is trying to say, but Children of Men, based on the book by P.D. James, is remarkable not because of its social commentary, but for the way it doles the commentary out.Cuarón — clearly a follower of the “show don’t tell” philosophy — has crafted a thrilling technical achievement here, creating a gray, violent British police state full of visual exposition that shows us everything we need to know. We’re not told the world is in chaos, we ... " [More]

The Fountain

Three beautiful film failures
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"Have you ever watched a movie and thought, "Wow, that was a mess, but I loved it"? I have, and I have a name for movies that make me feel that way. I call 'em "beautiful failures."Beautiful failures are usually too long, too weird, too sloppy or just plain stupid, but they're always strangely compelling and, well, beautiful. They're the movies you think you hate but you can't stop thinking about. You come back to them over and over and you can't figure out why. They can be very complex, pretentious or even too simple or mass appealing. Other film buffs might tell you different, but there's really no formula to creating a beautiful failure.Some of my favorite beautiful failures are Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and David Cronenberg's awkward 1996 thriller Crash. I love these films for different reasons, but I recognize that they're all a little ... dreadful.Here are a few titles I've recently added to my list of beautiful failures. The Science of Sl ... " [More]

Night Watch

Night Watch DVD review
By mike_moody in Moody's Movie Blog
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"In the DVD commentary track for Night Watch, Russian director Timur Bekmambetov likens film editing to painting and composing music. Where the painter or musician has colors or notes, the filmmaker’s tools are scenes. “Editing is the movie,” Bekmambetov, a former commercial director, says. Night Watch is a fascinating and visually extraordinary film of ideas. It artfully mines history, gothic literature, pop culture and the horror and fantasy genres to create a strikingly original mythology. It even tells a hell of a story in which the fate of the world hangs in the outcome. But, like Bekmambetov said, it’s all in the editing. A film packing such strong visual information and complex concepts would be a chore to sit through if not for good editing. Bekmambetov and his crew pull it off, and teach Hollywood some new tricks. The filmmakers even artfully weave animated subtitles into the visual thread to help move the story along. They secure an energetic pace ... " [More]