WHEN HARRY MET SILLY

This past weekend, I finally caught up on my DVD watching and rented three films which it seems everyone in the world had seen but me. All of them are in the fantasy genre which probably has some emotional resonance or may just mean I have the attention span of an eight year old. Either way, I hunkered down with a few hits of my Kettle Popcorn addiction and had my own little HughFest.

Star Wars :Attack of the Clones - Does George Lucas write the worst dialogue ever or what? This movie is packed full of Eye Rolling lines that seem to just ooze out of people’s mouths to thud on the Blue Screened floor. Visually, yeah... ok, you know... cool but I can’t be the only person already so Digitally Jaded that overall the effects just read as Too Busy. Part of the first trilogy’s humor was based on parodying old-style war movies complete with gruff, wise-cracking renegades. Now that Lucas has been Deified by Hollywood (read : made a shitload of money), they’re just parodies of themselves (read: self-obsessed geek wet dreams). Not so funny.

Natalie Portman has more costumes changes than Cher while her Boy-Band love interest moons and whines like some love-struck teenage girl. The deleted scenes on the DVD are telling as you hear the producers and Our Lady of the Lucas explain time and again why all the scenes with little things like, you know, dialogue and character development were sacrificed for the Next Big Battle Scene. The result is less a movie than Send Out The Clones: The Video Game. The concept and worlds created are appealing but choke under the banal personality of a man who’s lived in a digital editing room for the past thirty years. Imagine what a director like Ridley Scott or Tim Robbins could do to add some real flavor to this microwaved glass of milk.

Harry Potter and The Secret Chamber - Everyone in the world (including myself) has read the books and I don’t envy having to preach to the choir. The first flick did all the background work - instructing us how Quiddich and Hogwarts works - so this time we get right to the good stuff like Giant Spiders. Overall though, it looked like they actually built some sets and this alone has the characters more grounded literally and emotionally There’s something to be said for not always having everything computer generated. Unlike Attack of the Clones, the effects support The Story without becoming The Story - no small feat for a fantasy film.

Spirited Away - Often I have people say to me about a certain movie, “You’ll love this film!” Often said movie concerns fashion or drag queens and the implication is unsettling. Fortunately, I’ve been disappointed enough by the result as to seriously question people’s concept of me. I had heard and read so much about Spirited Away that my expectations were a little high.

Frankly, very good movie but not mind-blowing. In the Japanimation-slash-Anime genre, Metropolis remains my favorite - any film who’s apocalyptic final scene is scored to an old Ray Charles song gets my vote for Out of This Worldness. Spirited Away is more childlike and certainly carries a good moral message although I wonder how easy it is for kids to absorb watching parents turn into ravenous pigs and lessons on the evils of greed. Overall, however, it made alot more sense than the Star Wars chain rattler and I don’t know which film that says more about.

9:25:10 PM    sro home /