Tag: Sorcerer

Movie Round-Up: July 16th, 2010

Reviews

Standing Ovation:

If you like those Disney movies about singing kids, you’ll probably like this too, and so will most kids. Of the three opening films this weekend, this is the best one for families.  Not really my cup of tea, though it is highly likely I will see this some day after it shows up on Netflix.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice:

I am a sucker for magic and fantasy.  And despite him being quite awful in a number of films, I always find myself wanting to like anything that Nicolas Cage is in.  The special effects look great, and the trailer has me hooked, and even Mr. Cage appears to not be awful.  If I go to the theater this weekend, it’ll be either to catch up on an older film I missed (damn you free passes that excluded the first couple weeks of release!) or it’ll be to see this movie.

Inception:

But really, the only reason The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is at the top of my list is because I’ve already seen Inception.  I’m going to try do describe this movie without spoiling it.  Have you seen the movie Dreamscape from 1984?  In that film, specially gifted people could enter the dreams of others and try to help them defeat their nightmares.  How about The Cell from 2000?  Here, a woman who enters dreams to help people takes on the task of going into a comatose serial killer to locate his final victim before they die.  Inception has its roots in the same ground.  The mind and dreams are important.  In this case, Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb leads a group of people who are thieves.  They call it extraction.  They enter the mind of a dreamer and get at the secrets he holds.  But they are hired to do something different this time, to plant a new idea into a target’s mind.  The movie is almost two and a half hours long and I’ve just described the first, maybe, twenty minutes, in broad strokes leaving out the juicy details, and that’s all I can really say.  That’s all I want to say, because you must see this movie.  I can’t even tell you why you should see it without spoiling the film.  Visually, the movie is stunning.  It is fabulously paced, and there isn’t a single bad performance by any actor, though in my opinion Joseph Gordon-Levitt came out on top.  Totally worth your hard earned ticket money this weekend.

Recent Movies and My Opinions

Reviews

I’ve actually been to see a few movies lately, so here is what I thought in no particular order.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. This was a good movie. Not being a fanatic, nor actually having read the book, I’d have to say it was slow though. There were a number of things that were in the movie because they were in the book, and had this been a less popular book many of these scenes would have been cut, but they were playing to the fans. No biggie, but it means the movie clocked in at 2 and a half hours long. A bit overboard for someone seeing it for the first time. Still, it was a solid story, good acting and effects, and great for kids.

Serendipity. Fantastic movie! The way that love should be. I laughed and smiled, I hoped and dreamed and I twisted in my seat when things didn’t look so good. A beautiful film worth every cent spent.

Monsters Inc. From the people that brought you Toy Story I and II, and A Bug’s Life. Pixar makes good family films and their animation is sweet. Again, worth the money.

That’s it for now, feel free to give me your opinions on the discussion forums, but I will delete messages with spoilers, so please avoid giving away the secrets of the movies.