The Incredibles

The Incredibles. Pixar made it. That' pretty much all you have to say. I mean, it's friggin' Pixar, the guys who brought Disney out of their slump. Before, Disney was stuck with their tired formula of good vs. evil, where both were clearly defined concepts embodied in characters as flat as their animation cells. Then Pixar came along, and with the 3d graphics came 3 dimensional characters. Yes, I know I'm just making generalizations, but if you compare any Pixar film to any later era Disney film (Let's say, Chicken Little), you'll see a much greater attention to character development and personal challenges in Pixar's works.

Alright, so on to The Incredibles. Here we have a world full of Superheros in hiding, who can't save the day under threat of frivolous lawsuits from anyone hurt during their heroics. Forced to live the lives of “ordinary” people, they essentially have to hide what makes them special. This is a struggle that the Incredible family faces every day. Dash, the son, acts out in school because he isn't allowed to compete in sports (in which his incredible speed would give him away). Bob, the father, works each day at an insurance company, where he's rewarded for preventing people from getting help.

The message of the movie is “It's alright to be good at something,” which is a little non-traditional for a kids movie. Usually Barney will just pop up and tell everyone to feel good about themselves, but that's not what this movie does. At least, not exactly. Don't get me wrong, the movie is about feeling good, but it's about feeling good about the things you're good at, not just because you're different. The film makes the distinction several times through a repeated line: “If everyone's special, no one is”(paraphrased, of course).

This movie is just a great movie because so much attention is payed to the characters and their personal problems. I really, really like Pixar.

Evan Almighty

Evan Almighty is a completely unremarkable movie. I mean, that's about it. There's not much else to say. It's not really “bad,” but neither is it good. It just follows a formula which has been passed down in Hollywood since as far back as I can remember. Well, actually it's a little different since it injects a bit of religion in with the rest of the ingredients.

First thing we're introduced to Evan Baxter, who has just made a step-up in life from being a newscaster to a congressman. You may remember Evan Baxter from the previous film Bruce Almighty, in which Jim Carrey, who had the power of god temporarily, had Evan speaking in tongues on the air. It was slightly funny, in every commercial, and was apparently interesting enough to spawn another movie. Anyways, that's not important. What's important is the character set up here, which isn't too different from the setup of any other character in the film. Evan has just attained personal success, but at a cost of his family (this isn't established very well, but the audience understands it because of the over-use of this tool in the genre). He'd rather read a giant bill than spend time with his kids on a hiking trip like he's promised (once again, I'll state that this is the only notice in the movie that Evan has been neglectful to his family, along with the reaction of one of his children, “just like always.”).

But hey, Evan needs to change his ways, so here's God to intervene. God tells Evan to build an ark, Evan's compliance means abandoning his personal success to connect more with God and his family. It also means a test of his family's faith in each other, which is executed quickly in the movie by a short subplot.

At the end, Evan learns that by putting his family first, he is truly happy. Also, like any other cop-out hollywood movie like this, everything that he's been doing that has put his job in jeopardy has turned out in the end to make him even more successful. The message of the movie is “If you make sacrifices, you'll become happy, and just to make sure everything is still cool, you'll get the things you've sacrificed back.”

This Film is Not Yet Rated

This Film is Not Yet Rated is a great view into how film ratings and distribution systems can turn into film censorship. The film maker speaks with several directors whose works which have been victims of the MPAA's ratings board, and how they work with that system.

First off, this film shows the hypocrisy of the ratings board very successfully, though obviously you may not get all the details. In one section of the film, for example, scenes from R rated movies depicting heterosexual sex acts appeared on one side of the screen, and eerily similar scenes from NC-17 movies depicting homosexual sex acts appeared on the other. This part of the movie was meant to show that the ratings board is somewhat homophobic, and while I'm willing to believe that, I can't just take it on this scene. How am I supposed to know that the specific love acts depicted in the NC-17 movies were the parts of those movies which gave them the rating? Perhaps later in that movie something else happens which is not familiar to the R rated counterpart which redeems the NC-17 rating.

The filmmaker also hires some private eyes to find out the identities of the ratings board, who are supposed to be anonymous. Through the work of the private eyes, we find out that few of the rules which are supposed to govern the ratings board are actually held to.

This is a great film for anyone who wants to work in the film industry or wants to know more about movies.

The Host

This film obviously makes reference to some kind of Korean-USA relationship, and since I have no experience in Korea-US political relations, I'll just keep my mouth shut and enjoy this film.

The film is great, at some points hilarious, at some points full of suspence, and at all points very well executed by the director. The film succeeds in making its point without taking itself too seriously, and this is what makes it so fun to watch.

The plot: Illogical white guy has his assistant dump tons of toxic chemicals into the river, where it mutates a creature which grows up and begins to feed on people. The creature eats the daughter of our hero, who is taken off to a quarantine zone because officials believe there to be a virus connected with the creature. Soon, our hero realizes that his daughter is still alive, and is hiding from the beast in the sewers. If only someone would believe him...

We have the family dynamic here of the slacker (our hero), the college boy who doesn't respect his family, the shy but successful daughter, and the father who tries to keep them all working together. Sadly it is his death which finally allows the father to succeed in his goal, and the family comes together as one to try to save our hero's daughter.

Also, the digital effects were done in California. I thought it was interesting that a Korean movie's effects would be done in California, but I guess no one else shares my enthusiasm.