This movie really jumps right into the main storyline. It wastes no time setting up the setting, characters, anything. It assumes you know who Buzz and Woody are, at least remember the general plot of the first film and just goes right to the meat of the movie. Within 5 minutes the entire plot is set up. Another noteworthy feature of the film is how heavily it plays on your emotions. It'll tug at emotional strings you didn't even know you had. It has such a range of feeling it's incredible, things that only this film can really do. The animation is better than the first, obviously, but in a way to not be noticeably different. If you've seen the first, you need to see the second.
9/10
Film#123 - Cocoon, 1985, dir. Ron Howard
I really had no idea what this was, apart from the small introduction John Cusack does for this film when showing it to a group of senior citizens in a retirement home in Say Anything. And it makes so much more sense after seeing Cocoon. The basic idea is, well, it's not very basic but, a group of mysterious strangers move into an old mansion beside a retirement home, and everyday they go out and scuba dive for these large egg-shaped rock-looking things, 'cocoons' if you will. A group of men from the retirement home spend their days swimming in the abandoned mansion's pool, and even after the strangers arrive they keep doing it. The strangers leave the cocoons in the pool, and what happens is after a swim, the old men are rejuvenated. Their youth is returned and their lives are improved. Long story short, there are aliens and space adventures. It was a unique take on the alien genre and a bit of a forgotten classic.
8/10
Film#124 - The Cove, 2009, dir. Louie Psihoyos
I had a different idea of what to expect from this film from the publicity than what was actually in it. Yes, it is about a cove where dolphins are slaughtered. But what was surprising was the way it dealt with larger issues, namely the high mercury content of dolphin meat. I also didn't know that literally the entire film is leading up to actually filming what happens in the cove. The film, which I have to be more gentle on because it's a documentary, but it doesn't have a large attention to shot composure or aesthetics. It's really just to present the information. This would be fine if it wasn't so one-sided. It's entire thing is to make you feel sorry for the dolphins rather than logically sort out what's wrong with the situation. The actual footage of the dolphin slaughter is insane, like nothing I've ever seen before. But my issue was that if you were to see any animal slaughter, you'd probably be equally as shocked. We aren't used to seeing things die, and as such the film plays on that, when I think it should have put more attention on the implications of dolphin slaughter, as well as the issue of whaling that they only briefly touched on. I felt the discussion of how Japan basically bribes impoverished countries in order to get votes on their side was incredibly interesting, but that was literally 5 minutes long. It could have been the entire film really.
7.5/10
Film#125 - Gangs Of New York, 2002, dir. Martin Scorsese
Unbelievable. Daniel Day-Lewis, of course, is insanely good. Everyone was so good. The whole look of the film, my my. The dialogue though, that's where I think the film stands out. They use a dialect so different from what we would use today, yet it's all recognizable based on the way the words are used. Great stuff.
10/10
Film#126 - Extract, 2009, dir. Mike Judge
I'm a big fan of Mike Judge's Office Space, and this has a lot of the same feel to it. At times it even seems to be the same film. It is again about alienated workers, tired of their jobs and subjected to the formulaic work they have to do for a living. This time we're positioned to relate to the boss rather than the workers though. It has a lot of obscure plot points and some strange scenes that at times seem incomplete and left too open. This is where it starts to differ from Office Space. The general plot is about exploiting the business, but again, the only real difference is we're put in the place of the opposite side this time. There are some genuinely funny moments, but I found almost all of them had to do with Ben Affleck.
5.5/10
Film#127 - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, 2008, dir. David Fincher
Where to begin. My biggest problem with this is the way it constantly reminds you how he's aging backwards. We got the idea before we even saw the movie. I also had an issue with the chemistry between Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. They didn't seem to be 'destined' for each other. As kids, although he was super old looking, they meshed. Then they get separated, meet in their mid 20's, but she's radically different. She won't let him get a word in, conceited, and in a way, shallow. Yet for some reason he still wants to be with her. Years later she passes it off as she was 'so young back then', but my problem was, so was he. He's not mentally aging backwards. He stays the same but she goes through phases. I didn't get why he liked her, it just didn't make sense. I actually thought he was so into her simply because she looked like Tilda Swinton's character. Still, it was a beautiful film, and Jared Harris as Captain Mike was a great character. Brad Pitt was good, his mother was better, but it relied too much on gimmick. I also didn't like how it was set as a story told during hurricane Katrina, which is rumoured to be because New Orleans offered a higher tax credit than Baltimore where it was originally set.
7.5/10
