Children of the Corn is an interesting movie. I wouldn't call it a very good movie, but it is a nice adaptation of a Stephen King book in my opinion. There is not a whole lot I like about this movie, but there isn't a whole lot to hate either. I would say that the movie is one that you should watch with friends.
I'll start with saying that I think this film meets the criteria for being an adaptation of a Stephen King novel. The only thing I am surprised by is that neither protagonist is a writer because I know how much King loves to have one of the characters be a reference to himself in some way. Now, with the movie, I think that the film fits King's writing style pretty well. I don't think that they compare at all as films, but I found myself comparing this movie to The Shining in some ways. I don't know what it was, but I found myself getting similar styles in the filmmaking. I do know that Kubrick directed the good Shining, but I thought the movies were similar in some ways. I was thinking that the beginning of the movie would have some longer exposition, but you can't have that and within the first five minutes it is an all out bloodbath. The weird thing about it is that its children killing parents. Normally, if it were the other way around it would be super uncomfortable, but I found it more uncomfortable that the kids were the ones committing the murders. The rest of the film seemed to follow how other King books I've read before. Setup, into protagonist doing stuff and figuring out the story, lots of death in between, with the final act having some sort of supernatural thing come out of nowhere that needs to be defeated. I think that this movie is almost in the category of, it's so bad that it's good. The filmmaking and acting are not the greatest (but what can you expect with mostly child actors). Some character decisions and things that happened almost seemed not realistic, but I haven't read the book so those scenes could be coming straight from the book. Another surprising thing with the acting being pretty poor is that Sarah Conner is in this movie. She doesn't do horribly, but she didn't exactly help the acting situation either. The other actors are really where the funny things come from. Isaac's actor was actually pretty good, but all the other children actors weren't very good. Although you could consider this movie a horror film, I would definitely recommend it as a movie to watch with friends to get a laugh because I don't think this film was supposed to be a box office breaker. I wish I had more to say, but there wasn't a whole lot to this movie. 5/10.
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This movie was disturbing to watch. I watched this with my whole family and I can't decide if it would have been worse to watch this by myself. However uncomfortable I was, I could tell that it was a very well made movie and definitely deserves the praise I've heard it get before. Even though the movie is rated R, I still found myself surprised with the gore and detail that went into the dead bodies and the skin suit. While starting this movie, I wasn't very invested because I wasn't in the biggest mood to watch a movie, but as the film went along and the story developed, I found myself more and more invested in the story.
With not being the most invested in the movie, I quickly found that this movie was very well crafted and would be interesting to watch. One thing that I noticed was how Clarice was shown throughout the movie. Multiple times Clarice is by herself in a room filled with guys that are big and taller than her like in the elevator in the beginning and the police officers in the funeral home. Another thing you see, which Lector brings up is that people are attracted to Clarice. You see this with some FBI trainees, as well as some random civilians turn and stare at Clarice. The owner of the psych ward that Lector is at straight up tells Clarice she is attractive and asks her out which was weird, but it shows up a whole lot in the movie. This kind of moves to another thing I thought of. The theme of man and woman. With how Clarice is treated in the movie and women in general are treated it is ironic (I hope I used that correctly) that Buffalo Bill is and transgender person that wants to become a woman by literally using their physical features which makes them attractive. I guess a thing that did make the movie so good was the gore. I won't talk a lot about it, but I definitely think that the movie would be as good without all the gore because the movie wants to make you uncomfortable and suspense for the characters. The one officer that Lector cut up and hung on his cage to look like an angel was very gory, but an awesome shot none the less. Another thing with the gore is the suspense in the second and third acts. The first act does have some things that set up the suspense, but it is magnified by 10 in the second and third acts. The thing fresh in my mind is when the cops SWAT the house they think Buffalo Bill is in and are completely wrong was suspenseful, but what made it worse was that Clarice found the house by herself and figured it out on her own. Other things that I could think of are when Lector first escapes and they are trying to figure out where he is. Another scene is after Clarice has discovered Bill and she is being hunted in the basement with the night vision goggles. The movie also has enough fakeouts that when Lector escapes and Clarice says he won't come after her, you both believe her, but also don't believe her and think that Lector will show up out of nowhere to try and kill/eat her. The cinematography was also great with some memorable shots being when Clarice first meets Lector. In their second meeting where you can just barely see him in the shadows. I mentioned it earlier, but the elevator shot with Clarice and the other dudes. Lector being rolled out of the plane with the mask over his face was creepy. When Lector and Clarice are talking and Lector's reflection is seen, but you don't see Lector in frame. The cut up officer outside of the cage I already mentioned, but gets a second mention. Another thing I remembered is all of the POV shots in the movie. There are so many shots that you see from so many characters' POV and their are so many closeups of characters as well and they all show the emotions and tone very well. Besides not being a huge fan in the beginning, the only complaint I have is how Lector got the pen from the ward owner because I don't know why they would take him out of his constraints long enough to get a hold of the pen, but the movie wouldn't happen without it, so I guess I'll just have to say MOVIE MAGIC! This was a very well made movie that deserves the praise it gets. Easy 9/10. Do you call the movie THE Silence of the Lambs or just Silence of the Lambs? It feels like a Mandela Effect kind of thing. This movie is so awesome. I feel like I enjoyed this too much, something feels wrong liking this movie so much, but I very much enjoyed this movie a lot. This is only my second full Tarantino movie which I find hard to believe since I know a whole lot of other movies that he's made. My Tarantino viewing collection has now expanded to Django Unchained, Reservoir Dogs, and parts of Crimson Tide. I know not everyone likes Tarantino the most, but this was so good. I've said the film is so good already, but that's all I can say right now. I guess I'll move into more details now.
The first thing that I will say sets this movie apart from others I have seen is the camera work. Holy crap was it good. I noticed it almost instantly in the beginning scene, but once I saw that I knew the camera work was going to be good in this film. This film has so many long takes that are just shot masterfully. They make you feel watch you should be feeling at all times. The movie does have guns and shooting and LOTS of blood, but the amount of dialogue just makes you feel on edge during the long takes, because you just feel like something is going to happen and it doesn't completely. There is one scene that I would call the most famous from the movie, but its where Mr. Blonde goes from the warehouse to the car and back into the warehouse, but that long tracking shot/long take is so beautiful. Blonde leaves the building listening to music being played on the radio and as he leaves the music fades out. Once Blonde gets back into the building the music picks back up. This is such a small detail and it makes sense that it happens, but the way the movie is made you almost forget about it and are blown away by noticing it. The actors and performances were also phenomenal. My favorites were Tim Roth (Mr. Orange), Harvey Keitel (Mr. White), and Steve Buscemi (Mr. Pink). They all killed their performances and everyone else did insanely well. The only thing I remember that Tim Roth has been in was The Incredible Hulk and that movie was kind of average so I was not expecting this performance out of him at all. Keitel as Mr. White was so good because even though he isn't the good guy, you almost sympathize with his character because he goes through so much trauma so quickly and its just ends badly for everyone. Steve Buscemi also surprised me because I didn't know he was in this movie, but I didn't think he could be in this serious of a movie. I guess the next closest serious movie he would be in would be Fargo, but I think that even in that movie he still seems like a non serious character because of how the movie is almost more of a comedy. The relationship that White and Orange build in just a short amount of time on screen is crazy and it hurts even more at the end of the movie. Its left very subjectively so I'm choosing to look more on the good side of things even though my guess is different. One thing that I noticed was early in the movie Mr. White looks into a mirror and says that he thinks he is jinxed. He then explains that a couple of jobs back there was an undercover cop in his group. Later in the movie Mr. Orange (who is an undercover cop) looks into a mirror before he leaves his apartment and we know he's an undercover cop, but White doesn't know that so I felt like that was a motif or something. The movie flashes back a lot, but Mr Orange looks into the mirror earlier in time, but later in the movie. I don't even know if I have any criticisms for this movie right now. That feels wrong, but I can't think of a mistake or anything I saw. The film was that good to me. I think that this movie is probably the best I have seen so far this year and gets a very very strong 9.5/10 from me. I will definitely need to watch some more Tarantino eventually. This movie is weird. I guess it makes sense that it is though because its a German Expressionism film, but it is still very weird. I chose this not only because it was only 45 minutes long, but also because it said that it was a horror movie and I wanted to see what was considered a horror in the 1920s.
Not a whole lot stuck out with me on this movie. I didn't find too many good things that I enjoyed. Mostly just smaller details that I noticed or things in the editing that I thought were odd. I'll start with the plot/editing because man that is confusing. The plot of this movie I think we've definitely gotten in the more modern era, but it is very hard to follow because of how the film was edited. With the way the film was edited it looks like there should be another 30 more minutes in this film because every time there is a card for when someone speaks the film jumps forwards many seconds or even minutes and I was left lost because I thought that I missed something even though I didn't. Not that I would want it to be, but I think this movie should have been around 1:15 to 1:30 minutes long. If it was I think that the story could have been a lot more effective and I think I would understand more about the film. The movie does however hit the mark on being a German Expressionist film. It doesn't have such sharp angles as Dr. Caligari, but it still has a weird feel to it in most of the sets that put you on edge a little bit. One thing you see is a massive skeleton with a clock replacing the skull. This is cool and all, but also very weird. There isn't much more about this movie I think I can say. I didn't hate the movie, but I am very far from liking it. 4/10. This is hard. This is a movie that I enjoyed, but also was very sad. This is a hard movie to talk about. I'm no where near watching every X Men movie, but I know how big Hugh Jackman was as this role of Wolverine. I've maybe seen one or two with him in it, but this hit hard because I know that he won't be returning in one of his most iconic roles. I think that this movie you need some time to sit and think about it before you can really dive deep and give your thoughts. I will try to anyways.
Logan is awesome. Pardon my language, but he is a badass in this movie even though he is slowly dying throughout the movie. He struggles so much and so often and goes through so much stuff, but he just keeps fighting and getting back up because he cares so much about Charles and Laura. He doesn't want them to die so he won't go down until he knows they're safe. The beginning scene where he goes all out on the guys trying to jack the limo is awesome and the end scene in the forest when he gets juiced up and goes out until he's killed is so awesome to watch. This however doesn't compare to a certain scene for me. For some reason in my head I think that the best thing Logan does in the movie is when he picks Charles up out of his wheelchair and carries him into the spare bedroom. This ties back into giving everything for Charles and Laura, but I find it Logan's most powerful moment in the film. All the action scenes in this movie were cool. I think besides the beginning limo scene and the end forest scene, my favorite action was when Xavier had the massive seizure and Logan kills a bunch of guys while they are stood still because of Charles' mind. The R rating is very deserved in this film. There is a lot of gore and violence, but it makes sense in this film to me. Poor Xavier. I watched a video on Logan and it pointed out something I didn't notice, but it made me like Xavier even more. At the beginning of the film when Logan first gives Charles the medicine, Charles says that he knows it is Logan, but it is hard to recognize him. Then when you realize that the Wolverine clone that killed him didn't get noticed was because Xavier knew it was Logan, but didn't realize is was the clone. I think that Charles Xavier deserved a better send off, but Logan does bring it back. Speaking of... Logan's death was hard to get through. I mentioned it before but this time he didn't have Xavier to care for, so now he cares for Laura because he finally came to terms that she was his daughter. This makes him to everything he can till the very end. Another call back is when Xavier tells Logan to take a moment and take it all in because they were in a house with a family that there was love. Logan didn't take Charles seriously, but after his clone was defeated he finally got his moment to take everything in and he says "so this is what this is like." This made me almost tear up. I feel like there is so much more I could talk about in this movie, but I can't think of anything. Logan is a great comic book movie and an all around great movie. 9/10. Oh yeah baby. It's the Transformers, they are just so freaking awesome. Before I first watched this movie as a kid, I watched an animated Transformers movie and I had some Transformers toys as a kid. This Michael Bay movie heightened my love for the Transformers because the CGI is done so well that it makes Transformers actually seem possible. The Transformers just make me nostalgic.
Now time to talk about this movie and not just my childhood nostalgia. Because it's been so long since I've seen this movie, I was fully expecting it to be only a purely enjoyable movie and not be a great movie all around. I would say I'm partially right. I enjoyed the heck out of this while watching, while recognizing where it did have some flaws. There were so many things that made me happy to see again like Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, and Megatron. All the Transformers in this movie are just awesome, except for the radio one from the beginning. With this movie being so enjoyable, it makes sense that there are so many things that give you that joy. The first I'll mention is the acting because while it might not be the greatest performances from actors in all of film, I think that everyone plays their part extremely well. The highlight is Shia LeBeouf as Sam because Shia plays an awkward teen trying to be cool so well. He's also insanely witty and I remember laughing multiple times from him saying something. Other performances I would say were good were Sam's parents and the weird Sector 7 agent. After the acting, the next enjoyable thing I already kind of mentioned is the Transformers. Every single one that we see is a complex CGI thing that looks so real and blows me away. There was something so enjoyable about the giant living robots beating the crap out of each other that makes the movie so enjoyable. I'm going to say it, but the Decepticons are better than the Autobots. Megatron, Starscream, and Blackout are the standouts in this movie, but in general the Decepticons are just cooler than the Autobots. I will say that Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are awesome, but the enemy are just better. This movie was just so great to come back to after so long because I have been searching for this for so long, but the 3rd movie was the only one available for so long. This was just a massive nostalgia trip and I don't regret watching this at all. 7.5/10. This movie is great. That's the first thing I want to say about this movie.
I was scrolling through HBO Max looking for the movie that I wanted to watch and I kept seeing samurai movies. I've always been interested in samurai movies and I had scrolled past some already and I said to myself that the next one I see while scrolling I'll watch. This happened to be it and it looked good, so now I'm here. There are two other movies, which I'll probably get to either this week or as my next few assignment blogs. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. At first I wasn't to sure because the movie started very fast, but I was quickly enveloped in the movie and the story. The story follows Takezo (Musashi), a samurai, and his original quest for fame. This quickly changes when his friend gets injured during the battle and they hide as dead bodies to avoid being killed themselves. I don't want to spoil to much more of the story, but the movie jams a lot of story into an 1 hour and 30 minute long movie. The surprising thing is that the movie moves fast and does have a fast pacing, but it doesn't feel unnatural. I think if that this movie was made today it would probably be somewhere around 2 hours, which I would not be against. I will say that the movie is not perfect, but the biggest negatives I have about the movie are outshined by the good things that I noticed. The only big negative I had was the choreography for the fights, but I will give the movie some credit because it is from 1954 and they didn't have things that we have today that could make the fights more realistic. The only other thing I would knock on the movie is the acting. Another thing I would give to the age of the movie, but I would say that the acting is only barely average. So not unbearable to watch, but a thing I did notice at first. Again these things didn't bother me as much as I watched more of the movie. The first positive I will talk about is the cinematography. Oh my God is the cinematography beautiful. I was watching on my phone and tried to take some screenshots of shots that I thought were amazing, but they didn't work. I don't know where this movie was filmed, but it is seriously a beautiful movie. It's not super complicated shots, but the location played a big part in the effectiveness in the shots that did really stand out to me. Every building is so pretty and amazingly designed and whenever characters were in the forest or in the towns, I was blown away by the location. The next couple of things that I want to talk about relate to the cinematography a little, but the next one is the set design. At the beginning of the movie Takezo is in a battle and we see the two armies collide and because we just watched Birth of a Nation I was paying attention to this and was very surprised at the size of this battle. It wasn't Birth of a Nation Civil War battle big, but it was very big and there were so many people and not one person looked out of place. There are also some other scenes with a large amount of people in them that I noticed, but this battle was the one that really kind of got my attention. The next thing that I noticed was the editing. I wouldn't say I often pay attention or notice a films editing, but I am glad that I did notice the editing of this movie because I thought that it was great. The movie has some cuts where I didn't even realize that it was a match cut until I notice the character moving showing time passed and that it is a new shot. The film is a very well made movie and I would give a lot of credit to how the camera works in this movie because it elevates the movie to great status. That's about all I have to say now, but I want to watch the other two movies and make blogs about them without them counting as my weekly blog. Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto gets an 8.5/10 from me. Hmmm. This movie is interesting for me. This includes Black Widow because I also saw that over the summer, but the new Marvel content I have been watching hasn't been as good as people say it is. I watched Wandavision and I didn't like it all besides the possibility of the other Quicksilver and the Mutants. I didn't watch Falcon, but I'll get around to it. I watched Black Widow over the summer, and I thought it was a decent movie, but it didn't feel like a Marvel movie. It felt like a movie that just had Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow on everything. Loki was also very similar. The multiverse stuff and Owen Wilson's character were the only things I cared about. Everything else just didn't feel like the good things. I think Shang Chi fell into this category, but as I'm writing this I think that it is actually better than the things I just listed. The movie still didn't feel like the other Marvel movies we got in Phase 1, but it was a very solid movie I think.
Shang Chi does have some pretty strong things going for it I think. The action was very good and I think that the score was also pretty good because I have always been a fan of the "Chinese" style of music and Shang Chi is based in China for most of the movie, so that works for me. Imagine the Kung Fu Panda score, but a little worse. I want to talk about the action because until the big bad boss fight at the end I thought all the hand to hand action and the fight scenes were very well done in the movie. When Shang fights his sister in the ring the camera and the choreography of the fight was very well done and I would say the same thing with the fight scene on the side of the building with all of the scaffolding. The camera moves from close up to far away shots and I generally don't feel lost, which is a good thing. The end fight with the lead ninja guy was probably my favorite fight. Second place goes to Shang and his dad in Ta Lo with the staff versus the Rings. Now onto the things I disliked about the movie. The first thing is the villain. For a majority of the movie the villain is Shang's dad because he wants to destroy Ta Lo because his wife died. Then when Shang and company makes it to Ta Lo we learn of the reason Shang's dad was trying to get to Ta Lo. This big bad is different from other Marvel villains because it isn't a person/god it is a massive monster, which I would say we haven't seen too much of besides the giant Chitauri in Avengers. With the combination of the two bad guys I think that both of them as threats are defeated too quickly in the third act. Actually I think a lot of the third act was a little rushed with the final conflict, but the pacing for the rest of the movie is pretty well done. Shang beats his dad and learns to combine his abilities from the Rings from his father as well as the martial arts technique from the Ta Lo. Shang's dad has released the big bad from its prison and he gets his soul taken from him and he dies. This then shifts the fight to the big villain which could destroy the world, which sounds like a pretty big threat, but the heroes defeat that threat pretty easily in my opinion and the world is saved. The big bad also has these little minions and their purpose is to steal souls from people and feed it to the big bad because it makes it stronger, and from what we see, a bunch of people die from getting their souls taken but we only see like two people's souls taken and I think that it makes their deaths seem insignificant. The last thing that I didn't like was Katy. She was annoying to me and wasn't the greatest choice for the comedic relief. The rest of the movie was actually pretty funny, but I found her to not fit in anywhere in the movie even though her character was all about not knowing where to fit in. I think that she literally did not fit in this movie at all. Well that's all I have to say right now. I'm sure there is some more positive things I could say about this movie, but they aren't in my head right now. Shang Chi gets a 6/10 from me. I watched Night at the Museum. I didn’t watch it for any specific reason, I was scrolling through Disney+ trying to find a movie to potentially watch and when we scrolled to Night at the Museum nostalgia overtook us. The movie was just as good as I remembered surprisingly because most of those movies are almost never as good as you think they are. The first thing that I felt was a hit of nostalgia was from the score. Alan Silvestri did well on this score because it felt like I just listened to the score just the other day.
It was also nice to see some actors that I knew like Ben Stiller (Larry), Dick Van Dyke (Cecil), Owen Wilson (Jedediah), and Robin Williams (Roosevelt) were all nice faces to see. There were also some surprises that I did not expect at all. I had no idea that Paul Rudd was in this movie. He only has a small part, but it's so weird seeing him in a small role like this with how popular he is now. I also forgot that Rami Malek was in this until his name showed up on screen and I realized he was the Pharaoh in the movie. Now my thoughts on the movie. I already mentioned the score, but I think it deserves a second mention because I legitimately think that it is that good. The score captures the absurdity of the museum coming to life so well as well as having a fantasy tone along with it. Another very positive thing to mention is the special effects are superb for 2006. The T-Rex is very well done and didn’t look fake at all from what I saw. The tiny people in the replicas were also done very well because it looked like the large actors were actually interacting with tiny people and not just looking at nothing. Also I think when a wax character goes from alive to wax the change is done seamlessly and is almost unsettling how well its done. The story might not be all that great, but I think that this movie is very fun and the effects and cast hold the movie together very well. 7 out of 10. Mister Roberts is a film set during the end of WW2. It follows the crew on a boat which has been named "The Bucket". The main protagonist is Lt. Douglass Roberts who is the 2nd in command on the boat. Roberts is important to the boat because he has been holding the ship together by their tyrant of a captain. Roberts is holding the crew together because none of the crew has been allowed for well over a year. Roberts also has a goal. Roberts wants to be transferred off of the boat and onto a ship that is actually fighting in the war. To get transferred Roberts has to write a letter and the captain then has to accept it and send it on, but that has never happened even though Roberts writes a new letter every week.
I watched Mister Roberts with my brother and dad and at first it wasn't my first pick, but my did is a big movie person and said it was a great movie. For the most part I wasn't super interested in the movie, but as the movie moved along and even after watching the movie I think it was actually a really good movie. The movie is from 1955, but it still has a good story even if we might have seen something like it in a more recent film. When I wasn't enjoying the movie I really didn't like too many of the characters except for Roberts and Doc, the ships surgeon. It makes sense why Roberts is likeable because he is the protagonist, but I just couldn't enjoy many of the other characters until the end of the movie. I liked the Captain character because of how immediately everyone despises him. You just can't like him in any way. The first half of the movie is quite slow with my favorite seen where Roberts humiliates the captain, but beyond that it is really a lot of exposition about the characters and world they are in. Once the crew is granted liberty to go onto land I think that the movie increases in quality. The very end of the movie in my opinion is the best part of the whole movie. It goes with out saying, but SPOILERS! At the very end of the movie Roberts gets transferred to a battleship. At first he is told a lie by Doc, but he eventually tells him that the whole crew wrote up a letter impersonating the captain to give Roberts clearance to leave. After Roberts shares a special moment with the crew where they give Roberts a makeshift medal he leaves and the movie cuts to a couple weeks into the future. The crew is receiving mail and the successor to Roberts, Frank Pulver, gets mail from Mister Roberts. Roberts' letter gives the crew some of his life aboard the ship. There also is a sweet moment where Roberts says that the makeshift medal is hanging in front of him and he would rather wear that medal than the Medal of Honor. The next piece of mail that Pulver gets is from a friend that is on the same ship as Roberts. This is wear things change because we learn that a kamikaze pilot flew into the boat and Roberts was killed. For me this stung because I knew in the back of my head that Roberts wasn't going to be alive by the end of the film, but I never really thought it would happen. Now when I think about the movie I think that the foreshadowing was there the whole time, but I just didn't fully realize until Pulver looked at the new mail. If I were to give the movie a rating out of ten, it would probably be a 7/10 because the ending of the movie is great, but the beginning drags it down a little bit, but I would still recommend it. |
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