"The Ghost Goes West" (1935)

I found this movie quite amusing, and therefore, I enjoyed it.  The plot early on reminded me of a comic rendition of parts of Henry IV--part 1, just small bits of it.  After that, the plot seemed cartoon comic to me.  The music, too.  The comments about Americans by the Scottish characters made me laugh--a laugh in a smirk and one raised eyebrow kind of way.

The movie is short and family--friendly.  So, quite a nice choice for Halloween if you're not into scary.

Okay, an example of the smirk-laugh and raised eyebrow (and yes this is from the movie, it doesn't give anything away, but if you don't want to know even that, then stop reading, 'cause I'm telling it):  In Scotland, the Americans are introduced to music at meals via bagpipes.  In America when they attempt to duplicate it, you get to watch a marching double string bass.  What?  A marching double string bass?  Who can play a jazz bass line on a double string bass when you're booking it around the table?  There's your smirk-laugh and raised eyebrow.

And, ah yes, the early "we don't have a budget for this" solutions--ocean liner in a tub of water for a camera shot.  Okay.  You do what you gotta do.

So there you have it.  A family-friendly Halloween romance.

"Green Lantern" (2011)

A bit slow in places, but good enough to keep watching.  The early story elements that I thought would foreshadow later obstacles to the story line turned out to not be the case.  Instead of it being the obstacle, it turned out to be the key to saving things.  That was a nice twist.  The rest of it seemed basic.

I fast forwarded through some parts, but not very much of it.  Mostly for clock reasons.

Half expected to see "Filmed on location on planet Oa" in the film credits.

End credit music is kind of nice.  I liked it.  I could listen to it again.

Green is a soothing color to the eye.  And the coming and going of the face mask was cool.

There's a few nice quotes out of this movie, nothing outstanding or humorous, but milestone quotes to bring up when thinking back over the movie.

(SPOILER):  The quote I like:  "You don't think I would recognize you because I can't see your cheekbones?" (IMDB.com)  Ah, the pokes at so many superhero costumes!

"Overcome" (2008)

If you think of this as a modernization of the Saul to Paul story from Acts, then it's a pretty good story.  It's fairly non-denominational Christian--for sure, not Lutheran--but it's not overtly anything else.  In fact, the place the Bible is pretty much in the back ground and God and Jesus pretty non-existent.  So, if you're looking for something with strong themes that way, you may be disappointed.  However, if you see it as a modernization of a Bible story (without the "becomes an apostle" ending) then they do well with it.  That makes it hard to figure.  If just looking for a good, decent story, then it succeeds.  If you're looking for something with strong Christian or Christ themes, then it's not quite there.  I don't know that I like calling that failing though.  Can it be okay to just go part of the way?  I know when it came to books, I disliked tales that just slapped a verse here and there and just left out the whole salvation story.  Why bother calling it Christian if it is only barely that?  In that way, this movie risks the same criticism--why bother putting it in there at all if it is only going to be in there minimally.  If you try not to offend any branch of Christian, then won't you risk offending all of them?  Or is it a statement that maybe movies aren't the best place to get into the depths of where change comes from?  I think I'm going to be guilty of playing both sides--I think that the movie should've added more than it did.  At the same time, I think that the moment it would've added more, it would've felt forced and unrealistic.  So, where is that happy medium?  If you're going to put any in there, then put it in boldly.  I think part of the fact might be that I am Lutheran.  Being vague about beliefs, about doctrine, about how Christ is integrated into my life is very different from those who grow up going to church but don't know what it is they are going for.  That 2nd way of thinking is foreign to me.  So, perhaps this needs a non-Lutheran Christian to tell me if this is more relateable to their high school experiences?

I think this movie does an accurate job of portraying high school life.  I think it does a nice job telling a story.  And I think it does a fair job of modernizing Saul-Paul; (I'll rate that 73% success with that)--so passing, but not outstanding.

SPOILER ALERT:  Story elements--includes the girl playing tennis--character Sarah.  The guy plays hockey, but hockey really only shows up a little at the beginning.  Youth events--volleyball, Frisbee (ultimate frisbee?).  Prayer is shown, but mostly not heard.  Colton has a vision--done through image collage, but nothing is heard--though he reports something heard.  Sarah's knee gets bunged up.  Colton's arm is in a sling for a little while.  Not everyone comes around by the end of the movie.  It does show quite a turn around from Colton before and Colton after.  Music present, but nothing outstanding.  Church is gone to, but not shown at all.

"Ocean's Twelve" (2004)

Was told "it's not as good as the first one"--they were right, but still had a surprise or two and some nice moments.  (SPOILERS), the music under the extradition exit was as close as you could go without going over the top--well, that, and knowing it wouldn't be a "good" movie if they didn't pull it off.

I still like Matt Damon's character "Linus"--family criminal.  Love it.  Makes me smile big.  And I dig "Rusty Ryan"'s hand tattoo.

It's not a 10 out of 10 movie (maybe an 8 or 9), but I still enjoyed it and am glad to have watched it.  And Linus's mom was a nice surprise.  Like the first Ocean movie, there is Tom Jones humor in there--some things are even funnier the 2nd time than the first time.  Tom Jones humor isn't in there a lot, but there's a little of it there.

"South Pacific" (1958)

May be a slight hint at spoiling here:

In my opinion--and even if its sounds far fetched--this musical seems to me like a more "modernized" and more musical version of Taboo with a slightly happier ending, a semi-happy ending.  (There's one of your slight spoilers.)

And maybe 'cause we just finished studying it, Billis has reminiscences of Falstaff when it comes to war.  And there, too, both stories have a couple of people in love with each other who can't hardly speak a lick of each other's language; and yet they are married or pretty close to it.  Sure.

Of course, the music is very nice, very wonderful.  Part of what is so well-known about this musical.  I don't have any argument there.  And the scenery is lovely.  Just not quite my line of story-telling.  But now I can say I've seen this musical.  I like the opening number--but that might be because it's a little more light-hearted, and I like bass voices--they don't use 'em enough, in my opinion.  Don't get me wrong--nothing wrong with baritones or tenors.  You need a tenor for that "Some Enchanted Evening".

"Ocean's Eleven" (2001)

Oh my, Oh my, Oh my!  If there ever was a "Cad" movie, this is it.  This movie catches that spirit.  My only regret is that there are only 2 people in the whole world who know what I mean by that phrase--so, for the rest of the world out there, don't guess at what I mean by "Cad" and let me explain the long way.

So, what do I mean by "Cad"?  It's a combination of things.  It's that slight of hand, in-your-face, breaking the rules, this shouldn't work kind of a deal that cracks a joke and boom whatever it was that wasn't possible, happens.  And you find yourself pondering where the skill comes from, where it was hiding, or if it was the humor that powered it into happening.



And then there's that fact that I like many of the characters that I've seen Matt Damon play.  I have watched the first three Bourne movies more times than I can count.  I like Matt Damon.

There it is.  There's what I think of this movie.  What more can I say?  Oh, perhaps, don't take my "Cad" phrase.  That's mine.  Okay, so maybe I didn't explain everything about what I meant by "Cad", but I don't want to write this blog without it.  To me that would make this post bland.  It would also take away one of the reasons I write these--as a record to myself of what I thought.  And I was laughing at the movie and thinking about this phrase.  And I still dream that some day my created story will get written or produced or something in a form beyond that beginning's script that I've already mailed to myself.  I'm digressing ...

I was skeptical when I read the description of the movie, but I also knew it had a couple of sequels, so I was curious.  Definitely wasn't disappointed.  A smooth movie that I would enjoy watching a second time.

And if I digressed too much in my review this time?  Then here:  I liked it.  It made me laugh and smile.  I'd watch it again.  And I enjoy many of Matt Damon's characters.  And the movie has some great lines in it.

"Upside" (2010)

SPOILER ALERT:  Solomon White is a high school lacrosse player.  He receives an injury at a game that threatens getting a lacrosse scholarship to college.  The injury is visual; he sees everything upside down.  In the process of dealing with this injury he meets a girl who is blind.  Through her and through a couple of teachers working with him on his writing, he works to figure himself out, to decide what he wants, and comes to hear about the Christian faith.  When the blind girl, who he has been dating, takes him to a church for the first time, his vision rights itself after he joined in prayer at the church.

The movie doesn't play up the faith healing angle at all.  I enjoyed exploring with "Sol"/"Solly" how he copes with his upside down vision.  These include looking at other people through reflections such as a mirror or reflective surface of a cell phone.  Shaking hands with another person was also a trick.  Reading, a challenge.  These are minor details to the story.  The focus of the story is first dealing with others who are pushing for his life to go in a particular direction, and second, spiritual, but nothing past basic salvation--and a prayer to take a step farther with it.

Haven't figured out if the poem repeated throughout was written specifically for the movie, or if it is a quotation from somewhere else.  Either is possible.

The church scene is filmed in a Lutheran Church in Georgia.

I gave this film 5 out of 5 stars based on personal interests in particular scenes, but it is a 4 star quality film otherwise.  It's a nice relaxing spiritual quest/love story that suits well a low-key Sunday afternoon/evening.

"Cadet Kelly" (2002)

When I started watching this movie, I was hoping that it would be at least tolerably enjoyable.  I like the teen genre, but so much of it seems to miss the mark for me.  Maybe I'm over-estimating the abilities of the target audience.  Maybe they tend to under-estimate their target audience.  Maybe it's a little of both.  Much to my delight, not only did I thoroughly enjoy the movie (a 4 out of 5 rating), but this got one of my rare 5's.  It did pull early story elements into later parts of the story, but sometimes it wasn't quite in the way expected--both in regards to plot and in regards to how the story was told.  I found myself expecting the story to fall into a particular pattern, to let itself be ruled by typical story patterns.  Yet, it found to abide by those patterns in a style that didn't make it completely predictable.  So, it both didn't let down my expectations and it called my bluff when I found the story didn't go down like I expected.  Utterly and truly, it did both.  I think part of the misleading might have been the cover that they chose to put on the movie play list chart.  I think that is part of what mislead me.  This was a good movie, and an enjoyable one.

I think movie makers know how to make movies for critics, for academics, for adults of all preferences, and even for children--movies in all cases that could be real quality classics.  I don't know that a quality classic as been created for teens--for teens, with teens--and also be set in a "real world" setting.  The only movie, or more accurately movies, that I can think that would qualify for this, would be the Harry Potter series, and that is set in a fantasy world.  So, is that the only way a believable, classic-quality teen movie can be done?  Can you seriously think of any other?  A teen-centered story for a teen audience that has the ability to be labeled "that is quality, that is not treating the teen audience like dunces".  A movie that as a teen you go "wow, great movie" and you can re-watch as an adult and not only have the same reaction, but realize that it has depth, and can make you think or ponder over something, even if it's something unnamed.  The feeling that there ought to be something more to say about it than what you thought before, but might take some time to put it down, because the thoughts are still forming.

And, yeah, only one slight after affect.  It will be interesting to see how long the short-clipped teen "scream" back and forth exchange stays in my ears.  That sound, um, sticks.  :/     :)