![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've heard jetlag takes as many days to get over as time zones traveled. I traveled thirteen time zones. Well, I traveled TWELVE, that it had morphed to THIRTEEN while I was gone is not my fault. Anyway. I saw three films on the way home.
The Nicolas Cage action adventure "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (ridiculous), "Despicable Me" )horrible, but the minions were funny), and "Flipped" (bucolic set-in-the-sixites teen romance).
The Sorcerer's Apprentice was particularly silly in that it tried to take itself too seriously. It was All Seriouz Bizness, Really. And ill-fated Love, with a near teenager cracking-wise (who couldn't seem to figure out if he was nineteen or twenty - at one point he mentions he was nine when he first met Balthazar, and then he said he was ten. And it was not exactly ten years after that meeting). The science and magic, and the science of the magic was laughable. But the giant metal eagle was a cool CGI effect. And the left the door open for a sequel which I hope they do not make.
"Despicable Me" is a particularly BAD animated feature. Not even the trio of adorable girl children do anything to make this movie better. The main character, Groo, is an evil mastermind baddie who has the ambition to shrink and steal the moon.
He has a legion of minions that look like twinkies in overalls who do his bidding and worship him like a god. Into his life comes a trio of orphaned girls who he needs to be able to infiltrate an up-and-coming baddie that stole his idea (and the great pyramids at Giza - replacing them with inflatable replicas. What exactly he did with the great pyramids at Giza is never explained. I mean, where would you HIDE them?).
It is all very ridiculously tangled. And fairly stupid.
Then I watched "Flipped" which is told from both the boy perspective and the girl perspective (based on a book). She falls in love with the boy when they are probably around eight (he thinks she is weird, and wants her to stay away from him, she thinks his eyes are dreamy, and he is destined to be her first kiss). And through a series of teenage boy stupid-hood, and teenage girl sillyness, she finds he is less and less captivating. In turn, he starts to fall for her.
It is a completely sweet movie, even if parts of it made me wince with how embarrassing some of it is. The kids that play Bryce and Juli are pretty good at the messy emotions teenagers get tangled in. Plus, Anthony Edwards and John Mahoney are also in it as Bryce's dad and grandfather. And lots of other actors I recognize.
Juli is brainy and dreamy, but trying her best to learn about the world and her place in it. Bryce is just trying to survive middle school. Says a lot about growing up and what is really worthwhile.
Such were the movies I actually watched. The ones I passed on were "Dinner for Schmucks" and "Cyrus" both of which I could have watched on the way to China and didn't because, well, bad movies, bad premise, not attractive. Even if "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" wasn't a particularly good movie, at least it had explosions! And cool f/x. And a pretty bad-ass giant metal eagle flying around down town NYC.
Well. Maybe I'll try to sleep some now.
The Nicolas Cage action adventure "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (ridiculous), "Despicable Me" )horrible, but the minions were funny), and "Flipped" (bucolic set-in-the-sixites teen romance).
The Sorcerer's Apprentice was particularly silly in that it tried to take itself too seriously. It was All Seriouz Bizness, Really. And ill-fated Love, with a near teenager cracking-wise (who couldn't seem to figure out if he was nineteen or twenty - at one point he mentions he was nine when he first met Balthazar, and then he said he was ten. And it was not exactly ten years after that meeting). The science and magic, and the science of the magic was laughable. But the giant metal eagle was a cool CGI effect. And the left the door open for a sequel which I hope they do not make.
"Despicable Me" is a particularly BAD animated feature. Not even the trio of adorable girl children do anything to make this movie better. The main character, Groo, is an evil mastermind baddie who has the ambition to shrink and steal the moon.
He has a legion of minions that look like twinkies in overalls who do his bidding and worship him like a god. Into his life comes a trio of orphaned girls who he needs to be able to infiltrate an up-and-coming baddie that stole his idea (and the great pyramids at Giza - replacing them with inflatable replicas. What exactly he did with the great pyramids at Giza is never explained. I mean, where would you HIDE them?).
It is all very ridiculously tangled. And fairly stupid.
Then I watched "Flipped" which is told from both the boy perspective and the girl perspective (based on a book). She falls in love with the boy when they are probably around eight (he thinks she is weird, and wants her to stay away from him, she thinks his eyes are dreamy, and he is destined to be her first kiss). And through a series of teenage boy stupid-hood, and teenage girl sillyness, she finds he is less and less captivating. In turn, he starts to fall for her.
It is a completely sweet movie, even if parts of it made me wince with how embarrassing some of it is. The kids that play Bryce and Juli are pretty good at the messy emotions teenagers get tangled in. Plus, Anthony Edwards and John Mahoney are also in it as Bryce's dad and grandfather. And lots of other actors I recognize.
Juli is brainy and dreamy, but trying her best to learn about the world and her place in it. Bryce is just trying to survive middle school. Says a lot about growing up and what is really worthwhile.
Such were the movies I actually watched. The ones I passed on were "Dinner for Schmucks" and "Cyrus" both of which I could have watched on the way to China and didn't because, well, bad movies, bad premise, not attractive. Even if "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" wasn't a particularly good movie, at least it had explosions! And cool f/x. And a pretty bad-ass giant metal eagle flying around down town NYC.
Well. Maybe I'll try to sleep some now.
Tags:
