Review – Big Hero 6

Ugh, so much family member death. So depressing. At least the movie includes some sympathetic characters and interesting visuals. Mildly amusing

Because you know I’m all about the sluts (no shaming)

I'm trying to imagine a world where "slut shaming" isn't exactly what it sounds like.

Perhaps it could be an obscure term of art used by Victorian chimney sweeps for a trick of the trade especially useful for removing stubborn soot.

Or maybe it's a rough translation for the name of an annual religious observance practiced only in a small town in southern Portugal during which Mary Magdalene is burned in effigy.

Nope. It's exactly what it sounds like.

Sigh.

Review – The Boxtrolls

If Coraline had been really depressing and preachy, it might have been something like this. A town hires a creep and his creepy henchmen to rid the place of the harmless trolls who creep about after dark. Though the animation is fine, the script doesn’t measure up. The trivia notes on IMDb were more interesting than actually watching the movie. Mildly amusing

Review – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Sort of like Gandhi only with a much smaller cast. And with much greater emphasis on the subject’s personal life. It’s nice to see Idris Elba get the chance to sink his teeth into a more substantial role than his usual casting. This should make especially good viewing for those who don’t remember what Apartheid was all about. Mildly amusing

Review – The Book of Life

For some time now I’ve been waiting for a good kids movie about Hispanic culture. Guess I need to wait awhile longer yet. This isn’t a terrible picture. But given the richness of the source material the filmmakers had to work with, they should have been able to conjure something better than this often-confusing reheat of the Orpheus myth. The animation could have been better, too. Mildly amusing

Review – Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

At this point I’m starting to lose my ability to tell the difference between Young Jack Ryan movies and Jason Bourne movies. I hope the distinction doesn’t come up during a job interview, cocktail party conversation or some other awkward situation. On the other hand, extreme generic filmmaking has advantages. Like McNuggets, you get what you ordered. Mildly amusing

Review – Jupiter Ascending

So this really wasn’t based on a comic book or YA sci-fi novel series? I’m genuinely surprised. It has that choppy, episodic, weak-plot quality common to movies that start with a good source but then cut out big chunks of the story in order to conform to a pre-set running time. As an “original” story, this thing has no excuse for being a space opera version of The Matrix for girls. See if desperate

Getting caught up

It’s been so long since I posted content to 8sails that Dreamweaver (the app I use to manage the site) has undergone significant and not entirely welcome revisions in the interim.

Needless to say, there’s a lot.

New in movies:

• Admission
• American Hustle
• (500) Days of Summer
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Last Days of Patton
• Tim’s Vermeer
• Ghosts at Sea
• 13th Child: Jersey Devil
• Doctors of the Dark Side
• The Heat
• Blended
• The Poisoner’s Handbook
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Oculus
• The Monkey’s Paw (2013)
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier 
• Beauty Is Embarrassing
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 
• The Wind Rises
• The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies
• Noah 
• Project Almanac
• Houdini
• The Giver
• Burton and Taylor
• Fury
• The Imitation Game
• Leprechaun: Origins 
• Dracula Untold 
• Nightcrawler 
• Mr. Turner

And in books:

• A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling
• Revival
• Secret Windows
• Old Friend From Far Away