Flightplan

My girlfriend, Denise and I had the opportunity to see a sneak preview of "A History of Violence" with Viggo Mortenson, but when we got to the theatre the actual film was not delivered to the theatre on time, so obviously we could not see that movie. Since it was a long drive and we were set to see a movie on the big screen we saw "Flightplan" instead. The following is my review of the movie.

"Flightplan" starring Jodie Foster is not the most consequential movie you will ever see, however it is a good effective suspence/thriller. Basic plot outline: Jody Foster is flying backto New York from Berlin where she works as a propulsion engineer. They are flying on a brand new jumbo jet, similar to the new Airbus. Foster's character has knowledge of the design of the airplane because she helped design the engines on it, a fact which comes in handy later. While in flight she and her daughter fall asleep, when she wakes up her daughter is no where to be found, none of the crew or passangers can recall ever seeing her, and there is no record of her ever have been on the plane at all. Here is where the mystery and suspense begins.

The movie is driven by Foster's performance, she gives another fine performance, portraying the anger, confusion, sadness, and gritty determination of her character note perfect. Also giving fine performance is a very good actor who not a lot of people are familiar with by name at least, Peter Saarsgaard. He has had a nice string of solid performances in "Shattered Glass," "Garden State," "Kinsey," and now "Flightplan", and will be an actor to keep your eye on for a long time to come.

With different actors the movie could have fallen apart because the plot walks an extremely thin tight rope of beleivability. I don't want to go into to great of detail about the plot because there are a number of twists which catch you by suprise. The screenwriters have done a fine job of making it across the tight rope to the other side without falling , although a few times along the way they nearly fell, but always were able to catch themselves. However, miraculously, if you are able to suspend your disbelief just a bit they make it work. The plot contrivences are beleivable, because as you watch the movie you don't question that they could happen the way they do. However, they probably would not. There is a silly side-plot involving middle-eastern passangers who of course get accused of wrong doing which feels a bit forced, but that is a minor quible.

If you want a fun, exciting ride then Flightplan is the movie for you. However, you can expect minor turbulance along the way.

My rating:

3 stars out of 5

Note: I read in today's paper that flight attendants are furious about how their portrayed in the movie and are calling for a boycot. While I'll admit that they aren't portrayed in the most positive light, I have to say... lighten up! It's just a movie. How many times have cops, or politicians, and even teachers been portrayed poorly in the movies you don't hear anything about them calling for a boycot every time a movie comes along where they are made to look bad.

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

This is my new favorite movie. I faintly remember seeing the preview when it was going into the theater and thought it looked similar to "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" (2002). Boy was I wrong. Although it is a Kung Fu type movie, it tells a much better story.

The basic plot revolves around an unsuccessful street thug that gets caught between the powerful Ax Gang and a poor villiage that stands up to them. I really get a kick out of the wacky humor mixed in with some awesome fighting scenes.

Unfortunately, the dialog is in Chinese but has both an over dub and subtitles. Even with the over dub the sound effects and music are some of the best I've ever heard. Make sure you have your 5.1 surround cranked up. Check out Kung Fu Hustle and let me know what you think.

4 stars out of 5

why the title 'Armageddon Blows'

As Brian mentioned in his original blog. He and I will be using this little site of ours to discuss movies both good and bad, giving our two cents into the already bloated world of movie reviews... but what the hell.

Brian gave me the task of coming up with a title and the best I could come up with was Armageddon blows. Why? No other movie illustrated clearly to me the vast difference in opinion I had with the majority of my peers. (Although Armageddon does in FACT blow, it is not just an opinion.) I heard discussions about how it was so good, and some girls even said they cried 'especially when Ben played with the animal crackers on Liv's stomach' etc. etc. So I watched it, with an expectation of it being a good movie ( I was much more naive back in those days.) And I found it revoltingly bad. It had every movie cliche' you could think of, and not only had them, but presented them poorly. The story was absolutely preposterous, NASA recruited some random oil-rig crew to be trained and sent into outer space, land on an asteroid moving at a rediculous speed, then navigate NASA designed machinery over the unknown surface to the prime location and drill a hole in an asteroid to detinate a nuclear bomb in the heart of the rock! Wouldn't it instead have made much more sence to just train the highly skilled and intellegent astronauts how to drill a hole?! And the one thing you might think could save a movie like this, the special effects, were suprisingly bad. The asteroid looked nothing like a rock. It had huge jagged, I don't know, icecles? jutting out everywhere. And the visuals were almost indistinguishable, cloudy and blurry. Beyond that, the camera kept quickly cutting from one close up to another so that even if it had good special effects (which it didn't) we hardly had any time to contemplate the effects we were seeing. Take the special effects of 2001 Space Oddyssy by comparrison, made some 30 years earlier in the late '60s. These were extremely effective, you could see what was happening, contemplate what you were seeing, and agree that for the most part they made physical sense and were somewhat realistic. I won't even get into the dialogue, or acting (by some good to respectable actors : Bruce Willis, Owen Wilson, Liv Tyler ; and even a couple of great actors : Steve Buschemi, and Billy Bob Thorton), because I don't want to bore you with my ranting any longer.

And I know some people can counter that I'm taking a movie like that too seriously and it is made just for the fun of the action... but my response is that a fun action packed movie that is not made to be a serious film can still be made with respectability... some good movies along these lines are: Die Hard, the original Star Wars movies (and I'd also include the Revenge of the Sith as well), Batman and Batman begins, Superman, X-Men 2, both Spider Mans, Aliens, and many others as well. Whereas Armageddon was a complete failure on all levels, (except at the box office, but popularity has almost no correlation to quality: look at the most recent top 10 music charts for evidence) and is one of the worst movies of all time, especially when considering the glowing recommendations I recieved to see it.

So now that I got the explanation of the title out of the way. I will just quickly explain this blog of ours. My accomplice Brian and I will be periodically posting different topics about movies. Maybe lists of our favorites, straight reviews of individual movies, comments on actors, which movies we think will win awards, lists of favorites or woste of all time of different catagories. Most anything having to do with movies.

Why movies? We both enjoy them and have strong opinions on them. And while we could have included other topics, we didn't want this blog to become some open discussion board where people could just place random thoughts about anything... we wanted focus to make it more valuable. And other topics especially politics are just too serious, we wanted to keep this a bit lighter...and fun. So movies made the most sense to accomplish these ends. Feel free to comment on any of our posts, in fact we want to get feedback... to hear people tell us were idiots or geniuses, or whatever you might want to say.

So talk to you next time.

Armageddon (1998)

Armageddon Blows, really it does. Watching it was the first time I realized that I had a different taste in movies then the main stream. I couldn't believe how many people told me I had to see it. From then on I've been looking for good movies and they are few and far between. I plan on posting some good flicks on here in weeks to come. Keep your eyes open for some picks from my partner in crime, Nick.