Shmee.Me

April 9, 2013April 9, 2013

Investigate the ParaNorman

ParaNorman is one of three major stop motion animated films from 2012. Made by Laika Animation Studio it was nominated for best animated film, and my buddy Daniel thought it should have won. I think he was right.

Norman is a boy who can see ghosts, and unlike most people this doesn’t freak him out, but it does cause him to get bullied quite a bit, and makes him a loaner. Things get worse for Norman as he starts having strange premonitions about zombies, and a crazy uncle that tells him he is the only one that can stop a witches curse. This causes him to get bullied even more. Thankfully a boy name Neil befriends him, and helps him with his troubles. It is not often a movie about zombies is so moving, but considering all the trouble our culture has with bullies, you really feel bad for the way Norman gets treated, and you are very happy for him when he comes in to his own and saves the day.

The stop motion is great, and Laika has improved since their last stop motion movie Coraline. There are so few stop motion studio’s left it is good to see a new one doing so well.

If you are looking for a quirky film, with more charm and heart then most movies could dream of, then you should give ParaNorman a try. I am sure you will be glad you did.

April 6, 2013April 6, 2013

Can Star Trek Survive the Voyage Home?

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is obviously the follow up to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and it is the first Star Trek movie that I remember coming out as a kid. I was very excited when Dad brought home the VHS tape for us to watch. It is also the completion of a three story arch that started with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Is it as good as I remember? It is defiantly one of the better Star Trek movies.

This movie starts right where the last movie left off. Spock is still trying to remember who he was and is, and the crew of the Enterprise is taking their stolen Klingon Bird of Prey home, so they can stand trial for disobeying orders and stealing the Enterprise, but on the way home a giant probe is threating the Earth and sending out some sort of strange sound. When Spock hears it he recognizes it as humpback whale songs, but since they are extinct they cannot answer back, so the crew of the stolen Klingon vessel go back in time to get some.

Even though this is hardly the first giant thing to endanger the Earth in Star Trek, it is still a fun story, and seeing the crew as fish out of water in the 1980’s is pretty humorous. The Voyage Home is one of the funniest Star Trek movies made. Leonard Nimoy does a great job as the director of this movie, and gave Gene Rodenberry the time travel movie he wanted to make with the second movie, without the need to make sure JFK gets assassinated.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a good movie, and it is miles better then movies that are about to follow, unless I am remembering them wrong (I am not). It is hard to believe that his movie is almost 30 years old, but then again I am almost 31 (sigh), but it holds up well.

April 3, 2013April 3, 2013

Is The Search for Spock Successful?

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is the first Star Trek movie directed by Leonard Nimoy, and even the though it is the third Star Trek movie it is really the second movie in a trilogy of sorts that ends in the next movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. So how does Nimoy fair in his directorial debut? Not bad, but not great.

This movie directly follows Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan‘s plot, so Kirk’s son is checking out the new Genesis planet, and Kirk is home mourning the loss of Spock, when Spock’s dad rushes in to Kirk’s apartment and asks why he left Spock’s body on Genesis, and why they didn’t meld minds at the end of Spock’s life to do some kind of Vulcan mind backup. They soon discover that Spock backed up his mind in Dr. McCoy’s head, so they get McCoy, steal the Enterprise because Star Fleet is going to trash it, and are off to save Spock. Also, Christopher Lloyd plays a Klingon trying to take Genesis as a weapon.

That is the type of plot you get when you realize killing off Spock, a major draw to your franchise, is a bad idea, so you have to unkill him, and the plot is really the weakest part of this movie. The actors do a great job with what they are given, but the story really is just a way to bring Spock back from the dead. Nimoy does a pretty good job as the director, and it is not hard to see why the kept him on to direct the next film. He is definitely better then Shatner, but we will get to that later.

This movie is pretty good, despite just being way to have Spock back, and we all know that without Spock we couldn’t have had the latest Star Trek movie, so it is an important film for that reason alone. It is not the best Star Trek movie, but there are much worse.

April 1, 2013December 22, 2014

Watch Out When Fire and Ice Meet

Fire and Ice is a 1983 movie directed by Ralph Bakshi. It was the Online Film Critics Society, 99th greatest animated film of all time. It was also a major box office bust. What did I think of it? Meh.

The plot is that there are two major strongholds: Icepeak on a giant moving glacier led by Lord Nekron and his Mother, and Firekeep in the mountains with the volcanoes led by King Jarol. The people on the giant moving glacier are declaring war on everyone else, and captured the princess of Firekeep, Princess Teegra, to try and force Firekeep to surrender. Meanwhile a young man, Larn, finds the princess and hopes to rescue her. It is pretty much a Conan rip-off, except animated, and nobody wears any clothes.

This film does uses the technique of rotoscoping, where they film live footage and then pencil over it give it a smoother look in action scenes, and it gives it that Conan comic book brought to life vibe. Sadly this movie lacks any real substance, and is just watching a bunch of mostly naked people run around and do heroic things.

I hear that they are thinking about remaking this movie, but I don’t see why. It seems you could make any barbarian movie, and have it be just as good without buying the rights to this film, and everyone would be happy.

If you are hard up for barbarian action, or a big fan of the Conan comic books and want to watch something with that esthetic then this might work, but I would skip it otherwise.

March 30, 2013March 30, 2013

Beware of the Wrath of Khan!

The Wrath of Khan is normally thought of as one of the best Star Trek movies made, and interestingly enough Gene Roddenberry (creator of Star Trek) was removed from this picture because he wanted to make a movie about the crew going back in time to stop the Klingons from stopping the Kennedy Assassination. I think this is one of the rare times that the studio did the right thing.

In this movie Kirk decides to retake command of the USS Enterprise, so they can check on a transmission being sent out by his former girl friend Dr. Carol Marcus. Meanwhile the USS Reliant has been captured by Kirk’s old enemy Khan, who sets a trap for Kirk and the Enterprise. I haven’t given away the whole plot, but already more has happened then Star Trek The Motion Picture.

It was really smart to bring in a foe from the TV Show for this film, since most people going to watch the movie loved the show. It was also briskly edited, so it didn’t drag so much, which was a huge problem with the previous movie, and watching Kirk and Khan yell at each other through space is always fun.

They made this movie on the cheep, so the special effects were kind of lame even for the 80s, but they did the best they could with the money they had, so they didn’t have to focus on cool special effects. They did find the money to replace the blue pajamas with the cool red Velcro uniforms we have all come to know and love.

Khan isn’t just a good Star Trek movie it is a good movie period. The story and the action is really top notch, and fact it is a Star Trek movie just makes it better. There are only a couple of Star Trek movies that are must watch, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of them.