Movies by TinPigeon

Very well done. I’m not usually a great fan of sequels, but along with Star Wars, the Indiana Jones story is more like an epic saga, and this “installation” was done quite nicely and well within the Indy “theme.”

They certainly stuck with a tried and true storyline. I won’t spoil the plot with specifics, but as you’d expect, Indy gets called upon to help out his buddy by solving a mystery. He gets mixed up with some bad military guys. He decrypts the puzzle and saves the day.

There were quite a few interesting historical fiction references that I thought were quite clever. Again, I don’t want to spoil the plot by being too specific, but keep your eyes and ears open for these sometimes subtle references.

Featuring a female nemesis was an interesting choice, and it worked out well. She was evil, but I didn’t feel like I was meant to “hate” her. Shia Lebeouf also did a great job. His role stared out a little cheesy, but developed well.

There was just a little too much of that dramatic lighting at the beginning. The sort where most of the scene is subdued, and the actor’s faces are lit up a bit more in that silvery light. It’s an interesting effect, but Spielberg went a little overboard at first.

Well all in all, not a bad sequel. Someone else wrote how they were disappointed that a good plot was turned into a 2-hour war story. However, the first 1:45 hours moved quite slowly.

The mouse warriors were pretty funny. They reminded me of the Puss in Boots character from Shrek, though.

What a run Neil Simon must have had with this project: Broadway, Hollywood, and then television.

Boy, talk about perfect casting.  I love Walter Matthau, as it is, and he’s is superb in this role.  He’s sloppy and grumpy, but his character is remarkably caring and tolerant.  The scene with Oscar clearing his sinuses in the restaurant is priceless.

It’s interesting to note that the actresses who played the Pigeon Sisters went on to play the same roles in the TV series.

I wonder if I was attracted to this movie because of the subsequent TV series? I loved that show. The movie also had its moments, clever quotes, and witty dialogue, but overall it wasn’t terribly exciting.

I always liked the cartoon when I was a kid. That was a long time ago, and I’m not sure what the original plot was supposed to be. It was early Japanimation, so possibly there wasn’t one.

Anyway, this flick had it’s moments. The scene I liked the best was when the mogul Royalton went to visit the Racer’s house during breakfast, the dialogue was priceless. It seemed to me that the more well known actors like Susan Sarandon and Christina Ricci, were much more qualified than such a movie would require. Their performances were really quite good.

As far as effects go, it was alright. The action was too fast to make out much, and it was blended with some more cartoon-like sequences. It was difficult to tell if that was on purpose or due to bad computer graphics. The primary color scheme was great. At the very beginning, there were some very surreal shots.

It went a little long I thought. Perhaps 120 minutes is too long for some children. It was playing on perhaps 5 screens at the Century Tanforan on a Saturday night, so there was a show about every 30 minutes. The 9:00 show was pretty empty, I guess they were expecting a bigger turnout.

Wow. I didn’t even want to go see this one. I’m glad I did. Robert Downey, Jr. was superb with his rapid-fire delivery. His interaction with his own helper robots was quite amusing. He played the unlikely hero, and though he wasn’t invincible, he stepped up to the job and was pretty tough.

I admit I was never a Marvel Comic fan as a kid. The only comics I ever read were Twilight Zone, but I thought those had come out after Rod Serling’s TV show anyway. Much of the storyline is lost on me, and I can’t say I really ever looked forward to any Hollywood rendition of a comic book story. That being said, for the most part I have enjoyed most of them anyway.

There wasn’t much to this plot, it was fairly predictable, but the purpose of the movie was probably not intended to be a complex story. Guy gets shafted, guy gets revenge. Something backfires, feeble plot twist at the end, you know the drill. At least it wasn’t completely aimless in that regard.

I was especially impressed with the special effects, they were quite realistic. All the futuristic gadgetry and such was pretty interesting, too.

This one was seriously off the hook. Dark, in a surreal Terry Gilliam “Time Bandits” sort of way. The characters were all really creepy (they were all clones, midgets and circus freaks.) It was also a little like “Monsters, Inc.” in the way that the bad guy was scaring children to give them nightmares. He’d steal the nightmares, because he couldn’t have any of his own dreams. Then there was the “Oliver Twist” twist, where all the orphans were out stealing and pick-pocketing to pay their way at orphanage.

The scenery was all very well done, and they never broke from the dreadfully dreary freak show motif. I think the original was shot in French, but we watched it with Spanish subtitles. Either way, it is well worth viewing.

When I first read this short story, I was truly terrified.  When the movie finally came out, it didn’t last very long in the theatre.  I don’t know, I thought the story was adapted very well.  There was enough psychological suspense to get things going, and also just enough good special effects to finish the job.

I don’t recognize the woman who played the bible-thumper Mrs. Carmody, but she was excellent.  I was rooting for anyone to throw a can of peas at her from the very beginning.

Another one that didn’t seem to last long in theatres. I’m a sucker for end-of-the-world or zombie plots. This one had both. There were some really truly scary parts, such as when the zombies start to show some intelligence and team-spirit. I suppose I could have done without the gratuitous sports car racing at the very beginning though. That just seemed like blatant product placement.

The location shots were probably the best part of this movie.  While I enjoy this sort of story, there has been a run on this genre in the past year or so.  Boy discovers magical powers, reads background in some dusty, leather-bound book and sets off to fulfill his destiny and save the world.

It’s a few weeks later now that I’m writing this, and I’m having difficulty remembering any parts of the screenplay that stand out.  I think the fact that I cannot do so ought to sum up the impact the film made on me!