Mistress At The Movies

The Last Airbender

My husband and daughter are huge fans of the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender so naturally they were climbing the walls to see the M. Night Shamalan live action version that hit the big screen. I finally took them to see it last night. I will admit that I was a little excited to see this as well. I watched the cartoon a fair few times and out of all the anime style cartoons I have been forced to watch over the years I enjoyed Airbender quite a lot. So off we went prepared for M. Night to pull his switch.

Over all the look of the movie was very good. M. Night succeeded in making an epic style movie. Beautifully rendered scenery and cgi. Ong, the Last Airbender was fairly cute and did a decent job of showing his turmoil. The rest… well, they did alright as well. Over all the movie was alright in My opinion. It might have even been good had there not been a conspicuous lack of Chinese leads. This is a story that is based out of China. They are named Chinese names. They read and write Chinese. They dress in the Chinese style. So why was I up to My eyes in white kids? Expect of course for the Fire Nation which seemed to be mainly Indian. What the heck would have been wrong with having at least one of the characters resemble what they looked like in the cartoon? It became distracting. Especially during the fight scenes where all of the extras were some sort of Asian, and then peppered throughout were the white leads.

Ugh.

Not a bad flick by any means. And if you can get past the white washing then you may have a good time watching this. It’s a huge world that M. Night has managed to put together. He even managed to make it believable.

Mistress at the Movies: King Kong

Science Fiction Double Feature

King Kong

“…Then something went wrong, for Fay Wray and King Kong. They got caught in a celluloid jam…”

The first SFDF pick was King Kong. Why? I haven’t seen it. I mean I have seen parts of it. I’ve seen King Kong fighting the T-Rex. I’ve seen the big doors swing open. Which made Me wonder if I really even needed to see the movie. However that would kind of defeat the purpose of this so watch I did. But which version. It’s been remade a fair few times. So I left that decision with My husband. He picked out Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

Now that is a long ass movie. It was beautiful to watch. Every scene looked like a post card. I mean the ones that didn’t have Jack Black. Who would send a post card of him? Ugh. However the rest looked absolutely beautiful. However looks will only get you so far with Me. After that I need some content. Now this flick has a LOT of content. However I am not sure that was a good thing. There were huge lengths of time that it just DRAGGED!!! Jesus Christ on a pogo stick it dragged. I will admit that part of this movie I watched in fast forward. Mainly long looks into the distance and long sweeping shots. I know it’s important cinematically but I would rather fast forward and enjoy a movie then suffer through watching 3 hours.

The length aside (Have I mentioned it was long?) I did enjoy it. Well let Me be a bit more specific. I enjoyed King Kong. As in the ape. I enjoyed the relationship building between King Kong and Fay Wray (or whatever the hell the modern actress was). I am a sucker for Great Apes and he is about the Greatest I have seen. In the end when King Kong did his Koko impression I about died. I loved it.

However the rest of it…umm not so much. Adrian Brody annoyed the hell out of Me. I like him as an actor but I just didn’t like him as the love struck lead. I didn’t mind Jack Black as much as I thought I would. However the leaps that Peter Jackson asked Me to take as the viewer were ridiculous. The stampede scene make Me sing Black Eyed Peas. (Brief explanation. When I say that ____ made Me sing the Black Eyed Peas I am referring to the BEP’s song “Let’s Get Retarded”). As did several other scenes.

But the reveal of The Empire State Building was well worth the wait. I really liked the ending up till King Kong died. Honestly I think King Kong was the best part of the movie and the rest of it could go suck a dick. But that is the point. It’s supposed to melodramatic. I will say that I enjoyed it but I won’t be watching it again.

Mistress at the Movies

Mistress at the Movies

I don’t have cable. SHOCK! GASP!! In fact I don’t have television coming into My home at all. In My experience television sucks most people in and they rarely escape. And I just don’t get down with that. Besides that most of what is on television blows. So instead We play games and read and watch DVDs. I control what comes into My home. This means that I watch A LOT of movies. A LOT! I have seen pretty much everything that has hit a movie rental shelf for the past 5 years. I also scour Netflix looking for new and interesting movies. They advertise they have over 500,000 and I am working My way through them.

Now when it comes to new releases I have no problem getting My husband to watch. But when it comes to something made before he was born or if the movie is ::cringe:: black and white he has a tendency to run screaming from the room. Ok that might be a bit of an exaggeration but he has been notoriously uninterested. However having exhausted New Release I decided that I want to watch some older flicks. And he can damn well learn to deal. Thus W/we have been watching quite a few older flicks recently and have decided to call it O/our Classic Cinema.

The other day W/we were looking through the “Classics” section of the movie store. He starts pointing them out “The Day The Earth Stood Still” and “The Flash”. Now you know Me… I immediately broke out in “Science Fiction Double Feature” from RHPS. That was when W/we decided in addition to our Classic Cinema W/we are also going to watch all of the movies from that song.

And what good is having a blog if not to share what I am doing with the world. So I will also be reviewing these flicks and lucky, lucky you get to read all about it! Aren’t you excited!!!!! I am!!!

One final note. I know some people sit down with no opinion about a movie or only consider it good if it fulfils a certain criteria. When I watch a movie I am watching it to enjoy it. Not every movie makes a statement. Some are just brain candy and that is ok. I will be honest on how I liked the movie. You may not agree. You are welcome to not agree. But the first person to tell Me My opinion is stupid or I don’t know what I am talking about gets a big boot to the face. And not in the happy way. If you want to hate, feel free to make your own blog and tell everyone about how bad My reviews are. Otherwise kiss My tit.

I’ve been adding older movies to my Netflix queue. Some of which I have never seen and others I smoked away. This gives me a chance to refresh my memory in some cases and see what all the fuss is about with others. Now I can’t do this too often because the husband freaks out if too many movies are sans color so I just sprinkle them in here and there.

This weekend I got The Shining and A Streetcar Named Desire.

The Shining

Although I heart Jack, I have never actually seen this movie before. So onto the list it went. I will be honest with you, I didn’t expect to like it. I’ve seen so many clips of that movie, not to mention parodies, that I was pretty sure this would be an Exorcisit which when I saw it let me down thoroughly. I am pleased to say that was not the case here. I really enjoyed the movie. Jack was simply fantastic. I bought his brand of crazy. Something about his eyes that get right under my skin. The little boy was plenty of creepy all on his own. I’d love to see him in later years. Will Tony stick around and if so, he’s got some akward times in store. I did not care for Shelly Duvuall however. I mean talk about a waste of space. She looked like a Muppet running down the halls. I’m not kidding! If you can play Shelly Duvuall running down the hall from any random scene from The Shining against Animal running down any hall in any Muppets movie you will see. Same run. And if anyone has ever held a weapon and looked less ineffectual than Shelly with the knife or hell even the bat, I have not seen it. Thankfully Jack ate scenes around her and in the end I was with him. All crazieness aside that gal needed to go, if you know what I mean. And as an aspiring author I can absolutely empathise with Jack. I’ve felt quite similarly when I’m trying to write and they just keep inturupting and inturupting and INTURUPTING ME!!!!!! Good flick. If you haven’t seen it, do. If you haven’t seen it in a while, reacquaint yourself.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Sometimes you just need some Tennessee Williams in your life. I have seen this before however it has been a number of years. Although I won’t blame the smoky treats for the haziness of my recollection, at least in this instance. This one my Aunt Hazel showed me when I was a bit too young to understand what in the hell was going on the screen. My Aunt Hazel by the way was 50% Auntie Mame and 50% Blanche DuBoius. I never really knew how much of my aunt was defined by A Streetcar Named Desire until I watched it last night. Just about every phrase I remember her saying was a direct quote. That was interesting to learn.

Aside from the familial revelation it was a bang up play. Vivian Leigh was great. Although so much Scarlet peeked through that in the end I decided that A Streetcar Named Desire was really Gone With The Wind 2. Scarlet: The Later Years. My heart hurt for Scarlet..I mean Blanche. Everyone making things hard for her and HASN”T SHE BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH??!!! I mean besides bringing a whole herd of people through a war and life after the war. Once she lost her only real love, once Rhett left…I mean her young husband…once he was gone she didn’t know what to do or where to go. She drank away everything that Rhett…her young husband… had left her. And not too long after that Mammy died. That was when Scarlet…Blanche lost all sense of direction. She fell back on the only thing she had ever known to deliver her from bad situations in the past. Her looks. And she found they were still sufficient enough to put food on her table and provide a place for her to sleep. Thankfully she kept some of Rhett’s presents and added to them from her various admirers. It was tiring work keeping up the constant Moonlight and Magnolias but Scarlet… Blance was used to hard work. She never complained. Not even when she was run out of town for being a whore. No she didn’t complain. She set her chin and went to see her sister … I mean Stella. And well.. we know what happened there. Scarlett.. Blanche was simply taking a well deserved break from reality after the struggle that had been her life. I’d say she earned it. Or was that not the same story you saw?

I also have a new appreciation for Marlon Brando. And not just his svelt adonnis-like physique, which is worth seeing the movie for all on it’s own. I mean it. He’s hot. Even my husband (straight arrow that he is) sat up and said ‘Damn”. No, he’s more than hot. He can act! Yes he can. And the way he acted made me sit up and say “Yes!” I know you are supposed to not like the guy but when he was throwing his wife around and the way he would break Blanche off about herself…. Mmmm… Yes Sir! Sick puppy that I am, it turned my crank.