The Big Miscellaneous: 9 in November

Be Kind Rewind – I had higher expectations for this Michel Gondry film, especially as it seemingly had to do with love of movies, but I don’t know that I was dissappointed either. The film is definitely cute, but it rarely makes it to the level of funny (although I do find sweding inherently funny). The cast is also generally good, and the pacing seems to work, but the movie as a whole just feels a little too whimsical to actually have much effect.

Hatchet - I watched this again with family, about a week after watching it the first time. It's till pretty funny, though a little less good than I originally thought.

Kung Fu Hustle – Stephen Chow follows his awesomely concepted Shaolin Soccer with an even more impressive free-for-all battle. The Asian hyperbole is brought out in full force, as is the silly humor, but for action sequences, it rarely gets much neater than this.

Leatherheads – George Clooney and John Krasinski clash over the love of Rene Zellweger in this throwback to 1920’s football. Although not exactly a blunder, the film does spend a little too much on the romance, and less on the football aspect, which for my tastes is where I wanted to spend my time: I found that, and the period detail, fascinating. But the romantic aspects dragged a bit, owing mostly to Krasinski’s character. He was supposed to be a kind of villain, but he was too affable to root against, and his talent for playing an everyman was not well suited to that role anyway.

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus – I had never seen an Asylum film before this, but I knew they were bad. True enough, the writing is incredibly stupid; the directing and special effects are pretty terrible; plus the film editor has crappy taste in transitions and frequently reuses the same footage. So, the film is terrible, and that it can be forgiven for. But a movie called Mega Shark vs, Giant Octopus has no right to be this boring. I was excited to see it, and I was practically falling asleep. That’s just wrong. Phooey on you, crappy flick.

Son of Rambow – This cute British import deals with a pair of mismatched kids who become friends while filming their Rambo-inspired action extravangaza. As I said the film is cute, and it’s fairly funny as well. But there’s an over-arching aura of sadness to the whole affair, which is probably intended, but I don’t know that it was the right way to go. It kind of brings the movie down, ya know? All in all, though, it’s good.

Starman – Some of this John Carpenter flick is enchanting, some of it surprisingly obvious, and a lot of it blasé. John Carpenter gives the film a lighter-than-usual touch, which does work in the film’s favor. And I can give props to Jeff Bridges, even though I don’t think he was all that successful. But the film felt a little too close to ET without bringing much new to the proceedings. Plus, it gets a pretty big negative point for making the geographically inane assumption that Ashland WI would pick up a Madison radio station. Seriously….

Today You Die – Uh, Steven Seagal beats some people up, teams up with escaped con Treach, and treis to steal money from a weird occult gangster guy. Thank you, Seagalogy!

Wayside – I was super excited that one of my all-time favorite childhood books was turned into a TV show and movie. And it’s not bad per se, it’s just clearly made for kids. Oh, and it’s less than an hour, so I don’t think it actually qualifies as a movie.