A huge flurry of movies as part of a massive de-compress. Feeling too lazy to write proper reviews for all of them so here’s a brief summary:
- Toy Story 3: It’s pretty amazing that the Pixar folks manage to constantly outdo themselves from movie to movie, but to have a trilogy of movies that just gets better and better each time is mind blowing. Just think how good Revenge of the Sith would have been if that was the case for George Lucas? Anyways, I digress. Toy Story 3 is beautiful and heart rending to watch, as well as being a kid friendly roller coaster of a movie. A must watch, if only for the Buzz Lightyear secret modes…
- Ponyo: Another Studio Ghibli classic, the story of a goldfish princess who goes off an adventure and falls in love with a human child, causing havoc to the balance of nature. Beautiful animation style. A wonderful glimpse at life in fishing villages in Japan and a mum voiced by Tina Fey, what’s not to love? Well, the story is a bit derivative and the ending seems to just happen, so it’s not the best Studio Ghibli film ever but worth a watch.
- My Name is Bruce: Bruce Campbell, star of the Evil Dead movies, stars as ‘himself’ in this send-up of B-movie stardom. A bit flat in places, if you’re a fan of Bubba-ho-tep (“everybody likes Bubba-ho-tep”) then this is well worth watching.
- Prince of Persia: Great special effects, epic scenes and some of the worst ‘English’ accents you’ve ever heard.. even from the British actors. Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina I’m looking at you. The storyline is a hodge podge of revenge and mythology in the classic style of Tomb Raider, another game to film conversion. A six beer movie at least.
- The Last Airbender: M Night Shyamalan has not really produced any classic suspense movies in a while, so I was interested to see how he fired up this new trilogy. The answer? Beautifully shot, with some great special effects, but none of the Shyamalan story magic.
Must spend less time in front of a screen…