Best and Worst of 2005 - DJ

Well, it’s the end of the year, so everyone is doing their best and worst movies of the year. We have of course also decided to do such a thing, but to better fit our site, we're going with most and least satisfying movies of the year. That's right; I'm changing the system just to get Sahara on the good list...because I like it that much. So here are my most and least satisfying movies of the year.

Least Satisfying Movies
Be Cool
I think the nicest way of saying this is that there was absolutely no reason for this movie to exist. In a feeble attempt to suck some more money out of Get Shorty, they made a movie that no one knew or cared about. Not only that, it seems like in the middle of the movie they added a dancing scene with Travolta and Uma Thurman for what I'm guessing was either an attempt to lure the nostalgia of Pulp Fiction's famous scene. Either that or Travolta and Thurman couldn't manage to come up with any other excuse to dance together in an attempt to look back to a movie where Travolta revived his career. Unfortunately this dance was done in a movie that seems to be the death throws of his career. If I hadn't blocked this snoozefest from my mind I might be able to give a little more insight into why you shouldn't see this movie, but fortunately for my sanity, I don't remember much of it.

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
I'm not sure there's much I can say that wasn't already said in my review. Looking back on this now a couple weeks later, this movie still wasn't good. I wanted to stab half the characters within the first couple of minutes. Come to think of it, I should have asked for weapons to do it from Santa this year as apparently he delivers weapons to kill people according to this movie. Funny, I always thought he delivered toys. Anyway, my amusement of the exceptional special effects and the unbelievable craptasticness of the other movies on this list managed to keep this movie at the bottom of the list.

Cursed
I'm not sure why I didn't just stop this movie and watch something better. It wasn't one of those morbid curiosity things waiting to see how bad this movie could be. It wasn't even waiting for the good part of the movie. After about a half hour, I had written it off and just didn't care that it was on the TV. I think I started playing a computer game and ignored the rest of the movie. At least that's my theory. I know I saw this movie and yet I can't tell you a single thing about it. For a movie that was completely reshot after being finished once, this movie is still completely forgettable. Although I guess that's better than some of the movies here that I wish I could burn from my mind.

Kingdom of Heaven
What is it with good directors making really boring epics recently? First Oliver Stone made Alexander (see below), then Ridley Scott made Kingdom of Heaven. God this movie was boring. My girlfriend fell asleep after the first half hour and stayed asleep through the remaining two hours. If only I had been so lucky. The battle scene at the end was about the only redeeming quality. I guess after he was criticized for making Black Hawk Down one long battle scene with barely anything else, Ridley Scott made a movie that was everything else with barely a battle scene. Maybe combining the two would turn two bad movies into one long decent one. I will give Ridley Scott credit for one thing though; he managed to make Orlando Bloom look badass. I know what you're saying, even as he was taking out half the Orc army in the Lord of the Rings he looked like a pansy. Despite looking like a woman in every other movie he's been in, he actually looks pretty badass with a beard and armor. My recommendation is that you should just take a three hour nap instead as it would basically be the same thing...and that Orlando Bloom should always wear armor now...even if its not a period piece.

The Ice Harvest
Oh Harold Ramis, what have you done? Bedazzled was one thing, but this is quite another. A good director, good writer, good actors, well acted and yet this movie was not good. Hell, it was even engaging. I wasn't checking my watch like on every other movie here and yet for some reason, this movie still sucked. I just don't understand how a movie with so much potential can end up so worthless. It was to the point where despite trying to develop the characters, I still didn't really care when one died. I was more of the mindset of "kill him so we can move onto something good." I guess that might be the heart of the problem. The entire time I was engaged waiting for them to develop the story enough to get rolling and it just never did. The climax came and went and I finally gave up hope that the good part of the movie was coming.

Waiting…
I was going to make some bad joke about waiting for the movie to be funny, but I decided not to sink to the lack of comedy of the movie itself. Plain and simple, this movie sucks. The funniest parts of the movie can all be attributed to Luis Guzman, who I don't find very funny. I'd expect this stupidity from Anna Faris as she still hasn't jumped ship on the Scary Movie franchise (even the Wayans jumped ship...doesn't that tell you something?), but I figured Ryan Reynolds would at least bring up the funniness a bit. He didn't. For someone who in my opinion saved Blade: Trinity from complete worthlessness (they should have centered the movie on Ryan Reynolds and not bothered having Blade in it), the writers gave him absolutely nothing to work with in this movie. My opinion? Don't ever see this movie.

XXX: State of the Union
The first XXX was by no means a good movie, but I still enjoyed the over the top stunts and big explosions. Its success actually led them to market it as the replacement for Bond...though MGM smacked that down pretty effectively with Die Another Day a couple months later (which upped the stunt ante even more and securely showed James Bond would not be outdone). If there ever was a chance for Bond to be upstaged, XXX: State of the Union proved that it would not be done by this franchise. The first half of the movie actually wasn't too bad. It was passably entertaining…then came the second half. Stunts that are done completely through CG are not impressive. If it can't be done by a stuntman, it shouldn't be done in a movie like this where the main character is a normal person. I understand using CG for stunts in something like Superman or The Matrix as the character is supposed to be superhuman, but XXX is not superhuman, thus if they can't actually do the stunt, it makes it completely unbelievable that XXX can do it. This was made even worse by the god awful special effects. I think this movie and The Transporter 2 tie for absolute worst CG of the year. While I gave the movie a chance through the first half, by the second half, I had completely written off the whole franchise.

Alexander
I just don't even know where to start with this one. It was actually released in late 2004, but it’s so bad (and I saw it this year on DVD), I'm including it on this year’s list. Oliver Stone what have you done? Now normally I'm a fan of Oliver Stone (yes, even Any Given Sunday), but this movie just had nothing for me to like. Is it a bad sign when the director's cut is actually shorter than the theatrical version? In this case, the director's cut is still too long...and not good. I understand how Stone was trying to show another side of Alexander with his mother controlling him and his homosexual tendencies, but he seems to have forgotten that its not enough to fill 3 hours. It ends up bogging the movie down to the point where I was bored stiff and quite frankly just wanted Alexander to die so the movie would be over. My recommendation? If for some reason you want to believe that Alexander should have been killed at birth, watch this movie, about a half hour through you can't wait for him to die.

Alone in the Dark
I expected absolutely nothing from this movie and somehow it managed to be even worse than I thought it could be. For those of you that don't know, Alone in the Dark is based off a video game that very much resembles Resident Evil, but came out years before Resident Evil popularized the survival horror genre. Unfortunately, everything went downhill as soon as the movie started. The story is ridiculous and completely forgettable (all I remember is a pit and some monsters or something) and Uwe Boll has managed to motivate his actors to completely forget any discernible skills they may have had. I like Christian Slater (yeah, I said it, I don't care what you think), but c'mon man, did you really think Uwe Boll was going to make a worthwhile movie? Not to mention Tara Reid as a scientist. Granted, it’s far more believable than Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough, but that's not saying much. Not to mention, she has a sex scene in the movie that she doesn't even take her bra off for. With the frequency of her boobs popping out in public, what's the point of hiding it on screen? I guess she just prefers to give it out for free. At least House of the Dead (Uwe's previous orgasm of craposity) had lots of guns and boobs to distract me from its crappiness and somewhat entertain me. Alone in the Dark on the other hand may be Uwe Boll's best attempt to snatch the title of worst director ever from Ed Wood.


Most Satisfying Movies

Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Now really, who doesn't want to see Angelina Jolie being badass in a movie that doesn't have Tomb Raider anywhere in the title? As much as Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life didn't work, Mr. and Mrs. Smith does work. Granted, the excessive tabloid coverage of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie threatened to overshadow the movie, but conveniently for me, I don't really care about the tabloids so the movie did quite well standing on its own to me. Full of plenty of jokes, guns, and explosions, I have to say that I just had a lot of fun watching this movie. This is the type of movie that this site was made for. No, it’s not going to win any Oscars, but quite frankly, I'm getting really tired of pretentious movies that are made simply to win an award. This movie was made to entertain and it did a darn good job of living up to that.

Land of the Dead
Following the recent surge of zombie and horror movies, including a remake of his own Dawn of the Dead, George Romero decided to finally make another part in the original zombie franchise. While recent zombie movies have switched to featuring fast moving and super strong zombies, Romero stuck to his classic slow moving zombies that we all remember and love. It's true, slow moving zombies aren't as scary and it’s a lot harder to make a good movie involving them, but c'mon, this is George Romero. Understanding this is what sets Romero's movies apart from all those that came after him. Instead of having the same general plot of zombies rushing in and attacking, he has slowly introduced new concepts such as the zombies having the ability to think and learn. While this was first shown in the unfortunately lackluster Day of the Dead, he pushes the concept more in Land of the Dead, even showing the zombies communicating with each other. Once again, Romero has managed to use the same old zombie concept, but tweaked it enough to make it fresh again. Hopefully he'll still be directing in 10 years when it's time to make the 5th movie.

Wedding Crashers
In a time where everything is getting censored and god forbid someone sees a boob, the R rated comedy is making a comeback through the backlash. Yes, I'm one of those guys that enjoys lots of cursing and nudity in my comedies. Sure, there's a place for the PG-13 or even the PG and G rated comedy (in fact there's one here on my list), but I'm glad to see R rated movies and R rated comedies in particular are making a comeback. In almost a blatant show of its nature, Wedding Crashers early on shows a montage of topless women hitting the bed. Right about there, I knew this was going to be a quality movie. While I haven't gotten a chance to watch it numerous more times yet, I'm predicting that this one is going to become one of my classics like Old School. No matter how many times I watch that movie, it's still hilarious, and I'm pretty sure Wedding Crashers is going to be the same way. Part of that I'm sure is the driving force of Vince Vaughn, who in my opinion rarely disappoints and has two movies on this very list (the other being Mr. and Mrs. Smith where he was equally brilliant). Until it comes out on DVD, I won't truly know the staying power of this one, but after seeing it once, I'm pretty sure this is going into my classics collection.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Many of you I'm sure just walked right past this one with its G rating, but let me just say you made a huge mistake. Obviously there's something funny about Wallace & Gromit if they had managed to become internationally famous after only being in a couple animated shorts. For those of you who still have never heard of them, its a cheese loving inventor and his dog…kind of like Inspector Gadget where the dog is the far smarter of the two. Fortunately however, Wallace & Gromit have not been marred by a god awful movie as Inspector Gadget has. As much as I love Wallace & Gromit, I have to say that the first half of the movie did drag a bit. You wonder how a movie that drags for the first half made it onto my list I'm sure. Well, no matter if you like the first half or not, the last 20-25 minutes of the movie are hilarious. I was laughing hysterically pretty much the entire way through the last part of the movie. This one, despite its G rating, is still funny for adults and at the same time you could watch it with your kids...although I have no idea who has kids that would be reading my review.

Sin City
Moving back to movies that you shouldn't watch with your kids, Sin City is chock full of violence and nudity. I know everyone else has made a point of it already, but the exceptional attention to detail in making it look like a comic book (or graphic novel if you prefer). Before seeing the movie the first time, I had never seen the graphic novels, but since I bought the extended edition of the DVD which came with one of the novels, I'm absolutely amazed by how close they look. Anyway, even if they had been filmed with my cell phone, the three stories of the movie are great…disturbing, but great. All the acting was good, though Mickey Rourke had a brilliant performance that I had completely forgotten he was capable of. The only thing that bothers me about this movie is Jessica Alba taking a part that involves nudity then whining for them to take it out. Yes, it's true that the nudity really wasn't necessary, but when trying to make a movie look exactly like a graphic novel, you generally make it look exactly like a graphic novel. If you know going in what the part requires, don't take the part if you're not willing to do it. Of course that's just a minor annoyance of actors and actresses changing parts after accepting them. Anyway, with the combination of amazing visuals and engaging stories, this is a brilliant movie.

The 40 Year Old Virgin
If it was indeed possible, they managed to make a movie that talked about sex more than American Pie. The key here is however, that this movie is a heck of a lot better than American Pie (what can I say; I was never a fan of any of them). Written by Judd Apatow and Steve Carell, this movie just screamed potential before they even started filming. For those of you that don't know, Judd Apatow was the creator of such short lived TV gems as Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Unfortunately despite being hilarious, both were cancelled long before their time (I suggest picking them up on DVD). Luckily for us, Apatow makes a triumphant return with this movie which, despite sometimes being overshadowed in the media by the Wedding Crashers success, was a blockbuster success in its own right. I actually enjoyed this movie much more than Wedding Crashers, though I've talked to many who decided the opposite. For those of you who aren't big fans of Steve Carell, throw yourself off a cliff...err...I mean, this movie may not be for you, but for those who have no idea who he is or think he's brilliant such as myself, definitely rent this one. My only caution is that if you don't enjoy listening to people talk about sex for two hours using many many descriptive terms, this will be a living hell for you. Fortunately for me, I never matured enough to stop finding such things funny.

Sahara
I have read pretty much every book Clive Cussler has ever published (except for the two I just got for Christmas) and I've loved them all. Sahara or perhaps Inca Gold stand out as my favorite of his books, which is quite an accomplishment since I think all 28 or so of his books are excellent. They just feel like they should be fast paced funny action films. Unfortunately, after one of them (Raise the Titanic) was turned into what I'm told is a god awful movie sometime in the 70's or 80's, Cussler has refused to allow any other books to be turned into movies unless he had complete control. Finally finding a studio that would meet his demands however, Sahara made it to the big screen (though there were some legal disagreements between the studio and Cussler so this may be the last movie for a while). It was pretty much everything I imagined it would be. Not only is this a great action film, but its really funny too. I dare say that this may have been the most fun movie I've watched since the 5th Element. Fortunately Sahara makes much more sense and doesn't have more plot holes than you can count as the 5th Element did (despite which, the 5th Element is still a highly entertaining movie). Much like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this movie's sole purpose is to entertain its audience, and it does it even better than I was hoping for.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Yes, I'm one of those people who is hooked on Harry Potter. I started reading the 6th book last summer the day it came out and finished it in a couple days (it would have been quicker, but I had to sleep, go to work, and not ignore my girlfriend for a book). Until the Half Blood Prince came out last summer, the Goblet of Fire was by far my favorite book. After what I considered a disappointing showing for the Prisoner of Azkaban two summers ago, I'm glad to see that the movies are back on track. Needless to say, I was at the midnight showing when it was released and showed up to work bleary eyed and half asleep the next day. It was worth it. I had already agreed to see the movie a second time with my girlfriend as she wasn't able to make the midnight showing (I guess some people care more about their jobs than movies), and after seeing it the first time, I was really looking forward to going again. There are few movies that I see more than once in theaters, but I think I would have gone to see this one again even if my girlfriend had seen it the first time with me. Anyway, the Goblet of Fire is far darker than the previous three movies and forgoes the mundane details of classes and lesser plot points to focus on the major plot points. While the Prisoner of Azkaban did the same thing, I think the problem with that movie was that the most important points are all near the end of the book so it felt as if the movie rushed to the last 45 minutes. The Goblet of Fire is more balanced, though that may be because the important points are more spread out in the book. This movie also added much more humor to the mix. Granted, it was all fairly subtle humor, but it helped distract me from the dark undertones of the movie in parts that were less serious. Whether or not you've read the books, this is just a great movie.

Batman Begins
It's been 8 years since the Batman franchise finally crashed and burned in a spectacularly terrible movie called Batman and Robin. The movie was so terrible that it completely killed off one of the early blockbuster comic book franchises. Following such egregious errors as putting nipples on the batsuit and having more heroes and villains than you could keep track of, this movie was stalled for years going through multiple writers and directors. At one point they were even going to let Joel Schumacher (the guy that made Batman Forever and Batman and Robin...and put nipples on the batsuit) make it. Finally, intelligence prevailed and Warner Brothers decided to just start over. Batman Begins obvious deals with the back story of Batman, but it is not a prequel to the earlier Batman movies. It just doesn't acknowledge they were made. With the exception of he first movie in 1989, this is probably for the best. The movie gives you a far better idea of who Bruce Wayne really is and spends time developing him long before he puts on the mask. True, this ruins some of the mystique he had in the 1989 movie, but it really ends up working out for the better. It’s good to see that in a time when pretty much any comic book is turned into a movie, one of the crown jewels of comics is back in good form. I can only hope that Superman returns in equally good form next year.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - Fargus

In the interests of full disclosure, I should begin by letting you know that I wasn't too excited about seeing this movie in the first place. I was, however, interested in seeing a movie with Darren so that we could both write reviews and put them up on our nifty new blog. Keeping that in mind, let's begin, shall we?

I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe about fifteen years ago, and going into the movie, I remembered almost none of it. Throughout the film I felt twinges of deja vu here and there, as though I was trying to recall something glimmering just beyond my mind's reach; but for the purposes of this review, we'll say that I went into the film with a clean slate. It amounts to pretty much the same thing, with as few details as I was able to recall from my reading of the book.

• The Characters, Part I
  

The film opens with an exciting sequence depicting the Nazi bombing of London during World War II, but the flames of that excitement are quickly doused by the first of way too many clunky, heavy-handed bits of exposition and character development. Okay, their father's at war. Peter's the noble jerk older brother we love to hate, and Edmund's the stubborn one with the cunning look permanently set on his face. Lucy's a wide-eyed, guileless little girl, and Susan's more of a mother figure than their mother actually gets a chance to be. All of that becomes clear in the first few minutes of the film, so they're free to play with character development from there, right?

Nope. Not at all.

These aren't real children. They're cartoon characters. Completely one-dimensional. Inasmuch as their characters change through the course of the film, it's never really believable. Edmund's "redemption" is the most convincing, but it holds its own problems. I'll discuss them later.

• The Plot (spoilers definitely follow)
  

I was left scratching my head at nearly every new development in the plot of this film. First, Lucy discovers a magical wardrobe which opens onto the magical land of Narnia. I guess we're supposed to just accept that Narnia is fantasy for fantasy's sake, and that we don't need a reason for why this particular wardrobe opens onto it. But Narnia's clearly not just fantasy for fantasy's sake. When the faun (half-goat, half-man) Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy that in Narnia it's "always winter, never Christmas," he betrays (to the audience) a fundamental link between Narnia and our own world: Christmas. If Narnia is just pure fantasy, unrelated to our own world, what basis would they have to know of and celebrate Christmas?

I'm getting sidetracked. Let's move on, because I could go off on the Christmas tangent for hours. Lucy comes back from Narnia after a few hours, and she discovers that mere seconds have passed by in our world. Naturally, none of her three siblings believe her about the magical portal in the wardrobe, which is now for some reason just a wardrobe again. But inevitably, Lucy travels to Narnia again (why the hell is the wardrobe sometimes a portal, sometimes not?), and this time Edmund travels with her. Edmund's selfishness and greed is hammered home, once again quite heavy-handedly, when he meets with the self-styled Queen of Narnia (the Witch, of the title) and won't stop asking for Turkish Delight. He even promises to bring her his own siblings for the promise of rooms full of the stuff (I've tried it, and I've got to tell you all, it's not that good). Of course, when Edmund and Lucy return to our world, Edmund denies having been there, cementing his position in our minds as the bastard of the Pevensie clan.

This is getting too long. I'll sum up the rest quickly. Soon all four children make it through the wardrobe to Narnia, and through the words of a kindly talking beaver couple, they discover that they're the Saviors of Narnia, according to an ancient prophecy. Edmund is imprisoned by the Witch for not bringing her his siblings, and the kids press on in fulfillment of the prophecy, even though they say they're just trying to find their brother.

There are whispers of Aslan, who is rumored to be mounting an army to defeat the Witch. The kids figure Aslan can help them get Edmund back, so they make their way to go see him. On their way, they meet Santa Claus, who gives them some weapons, with which to kill people, presumably. Funny, I thought that would be "naughty."

There's some "thrilling" chases, the kids meet Aslan, who turns out to be a Lion (yes, the same one as in the title), and Edmund escapes the Witch. The Witch then comes to Aslan's camp to demand Edmund's blood, as per the "Deep Magic" (don't ask), and Aslan strikes some deal that spares Edmund's life. We soon realize that the deal Aslan made was to sacrifice his own life to spare Edmund's. In a scene that could have come straight from Mel Gibson, we see Aslan mounting the hill to the cross--sorry, to the stone table, where he's shaved and killed. The Pevensie girls lay through the night with him, and then for some reason he comes back to life.

Peter leads Aslan's army against the Witch's army, and it's pretty clear that these young "Saviors of Narnia" can't handle the fight, but then Aslan comes in and saves the day. The only blood we see comes from a small cut above Peter's eyebrow, to indicate that he's been doing fierce battle. The sword that he presumably used to stab countless monsters is clean as the day it was forged.

At the end of the film, older versions of the children, now Kings and Queens of Narnia, come across the place where they entered the land long ago, though they've long since forgotten where they came from. They fall back out the wardrobe and are magically young again! Maybe time passes differently in Narnia, maybe it was all in their imaginations. Whatever.

This movie was boring and nearly incomprehensible. I don't know what the message was supposed to be. Are children supposed to be obedient? Peter keeps chastising Edmund for not doing what he's told, but Peter's kind of a jerk. Are we supposed to listen to him? Are we supposed to realize the value in confessing our transgressions to Aslan, as Edmund did?

The allegory is obvious (especially if you're looking for it), and the story and all its elements are weak. The visuals are pretty impressive, but not nearly as much as I'd expected, for $180 million. I think kids would probably like this film, but in my view, there's nothing about it to appeal to an older, more discriminating viewer.

Kids: ***
Fantasy: *
Enjoyment: *

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe - DJ

For those of you who aren’t into the fantasy genre, The Chronicles of Narnia series will essentially be a children’s version of The Lord of the Rings. Where The Lord of the Rings dabbled in fantasy with dwarves, elves, and talking trees, The Chronicles of Narnia are firmly rooted in fantasy with all your favorites such as fawns, cyclopes, and talking beavers. In fact there are only four humans in the majority of the movie. If you hate talking beavers, this is not the movie for you.

Let me just start out saying I really wanted to like this movie. I remember reading the book as a child and really liking the animated movie. Because of this, I kept trying to give it a chance.

The first half hour, I was, quite literally, bored out of my mind. I actually spent my time more interested in finding the most comfortable position in my seat. This despite my knowledge that there is no comfortable position in theater seats for someone my size. Despite this, I figured they had to set up the story and it would really get going sometime soon so there’s nothing to worry about. Around the one hour mark, I was still fidgeting around to the annoyance of my girlfriend next to me. Somewhere around an hour and twenty minutes I was about to stand up and scream “just get to the battle!” thinking that the battle would at least pull the movie from its excessive boredom. Take heart though, it did make the movie more interesting, but quite frankly, anything would have.

I think it all starting going wrong when we first saw the family. I’d say I just outright didn’t like two out of the four kids. The youngest girl was just annoying. I mean flat out, I hoped she would just get off the screen. That however, is an improvement over the younger boy who I wanted to stay on the screen so someone could stab him. Yes, he’s actually that annoying. Now I understand that's how he is in the book, but something about me just not liking half the cast right in the beginning took me out of the movie. I was more comfortable with the talking beavers. At least they were funny….and fuzzy.

Obviously, going into this movie I was not expecting anything to the extent of The Lord of the Rings. This is meant to be a children’s movie and don’t go in expecting anything different. Because of this, even in battle, swords are always perfectly shiny as blood would push the rating above PG. Unfortunately, I don’t see how children could sit through this movie if I couldn’t even sit still. There’s plenty of talking fuzzy animals for them, but even that I don’t think will keep children amused for the entire time. The battle at the end I thought was good, if not a bit generic after all the other major medieval battles we’ve seen; though the addition of the heavy fantasy elements freshens it up a bit.

The effects were also extremely good as you’d expect from a big budget movie these days. Almost all the animals in the movie were computer animated, and were very well done. In particular, Aslan’s (the lion of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) mane is extraordinarily detailed and flows realistically in the wind. The witch of the aforementioned name unfortunately just reminds me of the Borg Queen of Star Trek: First Contact with bad tube looking hair coming out of her head instead of actual tubes coming out of her head.

Unfortunately unless you’re going into this movie for its Christian allegory, there’s not much that this movie lives up to. Stated plainly, this movie is boring and I’m one who’s usually amused by simple things such as effects and battle scenes. While I can’t accurately predict how much children will like this, I am giving the movie two and a half stars as a children’s movie. I think kids would enjoy the beautiful scenes, talking animals, and four kids saving the world, but I just think the first half of the movie may move too slowly to keep their attention. As a fantasy movie, I give it one star. It follows The Lord of the Rings in bringing the fantasy genre into the mainstream by pushing the limits farther, but once again, the lack of an engrossing story won’t lift the genre as much as a really good fantasy movie could have. Overall, my enjoyment of this movie is a mere one and a half stars which stems mostly from the amazing detail of the CG animals and the battle scene full of fantasy creatures at the end. My fear is that the book is actually just as mundane and I just didn’t realize it as a child.

Childrens: **½
Fantasy: *
Enjoyment: *½

Trapped in the Closet - DJ

For those of you that haven’t heard of this “masterpiece,” Trapped in the Closet is R. Kelly’s ongoing narrative that is released one chapter at a time.  To the casual observer, every one of the 12 chapters on the DVD sounds like the exact same song with the words changed.  To those of us who pay more attention, every one of the 12 chapters on the DVD sounds like the exact same song with the words changed.   Needless to say, you don’t go into this one for the music itself.

There’s so much to say about this “video,” and yet after watching it I was left completely speechless by its extensive craposity.  Have you ever seen one of those movies that is so bad it’s funny?  Evil Dead is of course the first one that comes to mind.  This is not the level Trapped in the Closet is on.  Below that level are the movies that are so bad they’re not even funny anymore.  In fact, you feel nauseous after watching them…yes, I’m looking in your direction Charlie’s Angel’s: Full Throttle.  Nope, we still haven’t reached the level of this movie.  There’s another level below the nauseous one at which your complete disbelief in the pile of crap you’re watching makes it funny once again.  This is the level at which we find Trapped in the Closet.  With such lyrics as “Then a tear fell up out my eye,” this yet unfinished lyrical waste pile may be one of the funniest things I have ever watched.

Every chapter ends with a “cliffhanger” of sorts which basically amounts to something repeated in an echo fashion to let you know that was the cliffhanger.  In addition to just these cliffhangers, there are of course wild plot twists that would surprise anyone with an IQ less than 58 were it not for them being distracted by hysterical laughter caused by the lyrics.  About 3 minutes into the video anyone not doubled over in pain from laughing too hard determines that any character with a significant other in the video is probably cheating on this.  Even R. Kelly must have figured out this was fairly predictable, so by Chapter 9 he manages to eliminate all pretenses of seriousness.  Unfortunately for him, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his intention.    Fortunately for me, this rekindled my hysteria.

Just in case the actual storyline wasn’t funny enough on its own, R. Kelly seems to have absolutely no comprehension of the size of a human being.  In Chapter 1 the husband, after determining his wife is cheating on him, for some reason searches in the dresser drawer.  I’m sorry, who exactly fits in a dresser drawer?  In Chapter 9, a completely different husband checks behind the refrigerator.  Why?  Who are you going to find behind the refrigerator.  I guess it all fits in with the crazy Russian that broke my door down and searched my backpack for his wife.  That’s apparently just what you do when your wife is cheating on you, and apparently R. Kelly has more experience in cheating than me.

As a comedy, I’m going to give this one four stars.  I’ve watched it a couple times in one week and it’s so incredibly ridiculous that I don’t see this getting old anytime soon.  As a drama (as I’m pretty sure it was intended), I give it 0 stars.  Not only is it predictable, the lyrics are laughable at best or written by a 3 year old gang member at worst.  If you’re actually a big fan of R. Kelly, stay away from this one, you’d try too hard to actually respect it and end up either disappointed or creating a self delusion that it was great.  If you’re the kind of person that laughs at the rap industry’s self-deification and is enjoying their downward spiral into diluted obscurity, this one should be high on your list.  On my personal enjoyment scale, this is a strong four stars.

Comedy: ****
Drama: o
Enjoyment: ****

Trapped in the Closet - Fargus

I had heard whisperings of R. Kelly’s magnum opus for some time now, but I never had enough interest in the man, or in anything about him, to find out what it was all about. A couple of weekends ago, a friend happened to produce the DVD, and I sat for forty minutes, mesmerized by what was unfolding before me on screen.

Trapped in the Closet consists of twelve separate chapters which, taken together, form the beginning (that’s right, twelve chapters and it’s not even close to done) of one cohesive, ongoing plot.. And believe me, in conjunction with this production, I use the word “cohesive” quite lightly. Each chapter is sung by R. Kelly (narration, all the characters, everything) while actors portray the people about whom Kells (that’s what he likes to call himself) is singing. So let’s go through the major elements:

• The music is bad. It doesn’t change at all, through forty whole minutes. There are no themes when certain characters come onto the screen, and the one cadence that makes up the whole epic isn’t really very catchy, even cut off at three minutes.
• The lyrics are bad. When Kells attempts to rhyme, he fails miserably. Therefore, he rarely attempts to rhyme. The last four lines of the first chapter end with the words “the closet.” You can tell that Kells feels that this emphasizes his point in a significant way, but nothing could be further from the truth. The lyrics are lazy, uncreative, and just plain bad.
• The acting is bad. Nobody really looks like they’re into it terribly much, and Kells’ dual performance (as both the narrator and Sylvester, the main character) is arguably the worst. I’d say that the actors do the best they could do with the material that they’re given, but the material is so terrible that I can’t even hope to assess whether or not that’s true.
• The characterization is bad. People act completely out of character throughout Trapped in the Closet. A man released from prison only hours ago begs Sylvester to let him shoot a police officer. A pastor berates his wife with such gems as, “Bitch, say no more,” “Cathy, go to hell,” and “Bitch, I don’t give a f**k.”
• The story is bad. I mean, like really mind-numbingly bad. It’s ludicrous, and it relies on a bunch of plot holes that are either poorly explained or not explained at all.

So, given all of that, my overall feeling on Trapped in the Closet should be pretty obvious, right?

Wrong.

I love this DVD. I bought it myself shortly after watching it for the first time, and I’ve watched it several times since then. R. Kelly has achieved something special here. Somehow, in combining all of the elements I listed above, he’s reached sublime depths of terribleness that haven’t yet been probed by artists in any era. Though every element of the thing is really bad, it’s somehow very watchable.

In the final reckoning, I have to give Trapped in the Closet four solid stars as a comedy. It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten such a good, deep laugh out of anything new, and Kells certainly filled that bill for me with this one. As a drama, I’d give it negative stars if I could. Since I can’t, it’s a solid zero. My thought on the whole thing is this: If Kells intended for Trapped in the Closet to turn out as it has, then it’s terrible. If somehow he intended it as simultaneous sarcastic commentary on the ridiculous state of soap operas, hip hop music, relationships, and entertainment, then there’s no other word for it than “genius.” But regardless of its author’s intentions, for personal enjoyment, I give it a solid four stars.

Comedy: * * * *
Drama: 0
Overall: * * * *

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Our Purpose

Darren and I have played for some time with the idea that movie reviews are basically worthless, and in more ways than one. The simple "thumbs-up, thumbs-down" system doesn't have enough nuance in it for someone to distinguish between a movie that's hands-down amazing, and one that's merely enjoyable. Extending that thought process a little bit, it doesn't seem to make much sense to rate all movies on the same scale. I mean, really, is it fair to rate Catwoman on the same scale as you rate Citizen Kane? For that matter, is it fair to rate Catwoman on the same scale as any other film?

The concept with this blog is for us to provide dual reviews for each film we see (both current films and older films), and to rate them using more criteria than just a worthless, one-dimensional "how good was it?" scale. We might have guest reviews in every now and then, too.

Bear with us as we develop a ratings system that we feel will be more valuable to those folks who actually want to know whether or not they should go see a movie.

Fargus...