Shmee.Me

November 19, 2013December 18, 2013

Take An Unexpected Journey With The Hobbit!

Thanks to my HBO Go, I got to stream one of the bigger movies of last year The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I of course saw this movie when it came out in theaters last year, but I thought it would be a good time to revisit it due to the impending release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. The film was once again directed by Peter Jackson and produced by New Line Cinema and MGM.

The Story follows a younger Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) from the Lord of the Rings as he is roped in to an adventure by Gandalf the Gray (Ian McKellen). He is trying to help thirteen dwarves lead by Thorin (Richard Armitage) take back their ancient home land The Lonely Mountain.

Tolkien purists are hard on this film because it differs from the book a lot. They also add in a lot of things from the appendices and other works like The Lost Tales to try and pad the running time. I quite liked the changes because it fleshes out the movie and gives it all more context. After seeing the trailer for the new movie , I can tell that they added bunch to it as well.

The story is weakest part of this movie because it doesn’t stand on its own. We all know that it will be continued this Christmas, but it doesn’t help this movie. It is three hours long, and lot of things happen, but nothing really amounts to anything. That may sound harsh, but it is true. Luckily for us it gets better from there.

The actors are all fantastic, especially the three leads. Freeman, McKellen, Armitage all breath life in to their characters and play off one another well. The rest of the cast do what they can with their characters given their much smaller amount of screen time, and they all work great together.

The special effects are wonderful. From the dark caves to the valley of Rivendell. It all looks fantastic. Some have complained that it looks a little too cartoony in places, but I think it works well with the lighter storyline of The Hobbit. I also like all the random touches that must have been added by Guillermo del Toro. Like the little goblin that sends messages, or the piece of ax stuck in a dwarf’s head.

It may not be The Hobbit we read as kids, but it is a good interpretiation of it, and bringing in all the random side information makes the story more complete. Once we get the whole story that is. This movie suffers from not telling us enough, but I am sure it will be a great part of a whole once the third film rolls.

November 9, 2013

Shmee Enters The Dark World With Thor!

Thor: The Dark World is the sequel to 2011’s Thor, but it follows the events of The Avengers. All the major stars return, but this time it is directed by Alan Taylor who is most well known for directing several Game Thrones episodes, so fantasy is well within his wheelhouse. This movie is not perfect, but it is very good.

The Dark Elves who ruled the universe before time began, have returned because Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) has found their ancient weapon the Aether. Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who was busy bringing peace to the galaxy, must reunite with Jane to stop the threat. In other words, it is very similar to the plot of the first Thor movie, but don’t worry the story really doesn’t matter.

I say the story doesn’t matter because they infused this movie with both a darker theme and lighter and wittier dialog, so it really makes this movie feel more important while making sure you know that the characters still have a sense of humor, and it might actually be fun to be super hero. Joss Whedon’s fingerprints are all over this movie, and while he may not have written it or in been charge of it, everyone is doing their best follow the model he made with The Avengers.

Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) are pitch perfect in this movie. This is their third time around as the gods of Asgard, and they know their parts inside and out. They really make us all believe that all the craziness going on around them is reality. The rest of the cast is fine and do their parts well, but this movie is all about the brothers, and they are fantastic!

Yes the story is unfortunately bland, but everything else about this movie is great. I have no problems recommending this movie, and I am sure that you will have good time in theater. Also just an FYI, be sure to stick around after the credits because there are two scenes not just one, and they are not to be missed. Let’s see if they can keep up the good work in Captain America: The Winter Soldier!

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013

Oh DC!

The guys over at DC/Warner Bros crack me up. Things have been going so well with the new Arrow show on the CW that they have decided to add a few more shows to their comic book line up: The Flash, A Gotham cop show that may or may not have James Gordon in it, and saving the best for last an Hourman TV show.

Yes you know Hourman … oh you don’t. Well I guess you weren’t buying comic books in the 40s, or paying real close attention to the Justice League of America comics. He is always in the background somewhere. He takes drugs to be super strong and fast for one hour, and in later comics he can see an hour in to the future. As a crime fighter you could see how that could come in handy. He has never really been a fan favorite, but I guess one hour precognition and general super awesomeness are easy powers to show on TV, and good on them for digging through their catalog and finding something interesting.

What is intriguing about this that there is the potential for at least four DC Comics TV shows, but that there is only going to be one movie so far, and that may not come out until 2016. The TV people are finding all sorts of fun things to do, but they can’t get more than one creative movie group. That is astounding.

I almost want to drive down to DC studios and shake somebody. It can’t be that hard to write a good superhero movie. As we all know freaking Marvel has like six of them on the docket, so I am sure that they could at least poach one of their writing teams to make something happen.

Now you may have heard that Jaime Alexander (my number 2 choice) is in talks to possibly play Wonder Woman in the new Batman Vs. Superman movie, but that is putting a lot of eggs in one basket. I just hope that it is successful so Warner Bros can be as creative with their movies as they are with their TV shows.

Just for fun I am going to leave you with what looks like the best Justice League movie we are going to get: The Lego Movie.

November 5, 2013

Shmee Endures American Warships!

There is something fun about watching a truly bad movie, and American Warships is a bad movie. It was written and directed by Thunder Levin, who also wrote the classic Sharknado, and it came out in 2012 direct to video to try and convince people that it was the Universal/Hasbro movie Battleship.

A mysterious ship is using a form of EMP pulse, and it is knocking out the Navy’s high tech warships, so it is up the USS Iowa to deal with this threat. Can this floating museum save the world? Honestly in a movie this bad it might be worth it to let the world go.

It “stars” Mario Van Peebles and Carl Weathers, but you can tell that they are just picking up their paychecks. I just kept waiting for Carl Weathers to go in to Arrested Development mode and start saving the food around the set to get a stew going. Van Peebles just did his best to look stoic, and not to look visibly disinterested in what he was doing, but he fails most of the time.

I know this movie had a micro budget, but I can’t believe that people could bring themselves to make a movie like this, and not just be laughing the whole time. They all play it so seriously, but the movie is complete and utter garbage. Now that is not to say I did not have a good time because I did, but that is mostly due to the friends I was with that helped me trash it at every turn.

This movie is bad, and if I had watched it by myself it probably would have been unbareable, but thanks to good friends it was the perfect movie to do a little home MST3King with. If you are in the mood for something bad then this movie might be just the ticket. Otherwise stay far away.

November 1, 2013November 1, 2013

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit!

I was going to watch my favorite Halloween/Christmas movie The Nightmare Before Christmas while answering the door for Trick-or-Treaters, but HBO had other plans, and I watched Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Curse of the Were-Rabbit came out in 2005, and it was created by Aardman Animations, who is known of their Wallace and Gromit stories. It was the second DreamWorks Animation distributed film to with the Academy Award for best Animated Feature Film.

If you don’t know, Wallace and Gromit are a pair of inventors who’s inventions always lead them in to hijinks. And by them, I should say Wallace because he never ‘listens’ to his dog Gromit, who never speaks, when he is about to do something stupid. This of course happens when they are tasked with guarding the town’s giant vegetables for the upcoming competition, and Wallace accidently creates the titular giant Were-rabbit.

This movie is incredibly British, so it is amazing that it won the Oscar that year. The jokes are a bunch of wonderful puns and site gags, and since Gromit can’t talk they get to throw in quite a few silent movie era comedy pratfalls. The story is simple, so it doesn’t get in the way of all the fun the animators and story tellers are obviously having.

This movie is stop-motion animated, so I would probably love it even if it wasn’t great, but it is so I can still recommend it to anyone who has a sense of humor. It is a great movie for the kids at Halloween, and the adults will have just as much, if not more fun than the kids are having.