Hancock 2008

Hancock is a weird film. The film seems to have an identity crisis. The first half of the film enjoys being a postmodern parody of the superhero genre, while the second half takes itself deathly serious. I really enjoy the first half with how it re-contextualizes the superhero as celebrities and jerks like what comics from Image Comics in the nineties did such as Youngblood ( a lousy comic) as well as more recent comics like The Authority (fantastic) and Kick-Ass (your milage will vary) as at the time there really was not a film like that. The second half however, I did not enjoy. There is such a tonal whiplash that it is like you are watching an entirely different film. Instead of subverting superhero tropes it instead falls into them thus losing the cleverness the first half had. There are so many superhero films that play it straight far better than Hancock, so it would have been nice to have something different. The climax of the film is also pretty violent compared to most other superhero films. Handcock gets the s-word beat out of him. It is quite gruesome. Handcock is played by Will Smith who pretty much acts like all the action heroes Will Smith plays. Granted, there is something likable about the way he plays those characters. I just do not understand this film. It could have been much more if it just tried. I give Hancock a five out of ten just for the first half.

Cowboy Bebop

I am going to do something a little different with this blog post. Instead of reviewing a movie, I am instead going to review a television show. If you [my teacher] do not like it too bad. Now then let us begin the review.

Cowboy Bebop is a twenty-six episode anime series about four bounty hunters and their misadventures that come with their jobs. The world they live in is that after Earth becomes uninhabitable due to meteors constantly bombarding the planet humanity heads to the other planets. Because of the vastness of space it has become necessary to have bounty hunters to catch criminals that the police can got get to just like in the old west hence the title Cowboy Bebop. The series is a mixture of noir, western, and science fiction. Throughout the series we learn about each character pasts and how each one deals with it either by running away from it or trying to find it. Most of the episodes of the series are one and done stories focusing on the characters going on missions, with the exception of some episodes a the beginning, the very middle, and the very end, which ends up amounting up to have only 5 episodes that deal with the actual story line. Each of the main characters gets episodes that deal with them personally with the episodes dealing with the character of Spike facing his nemesis Vicious acting as the main story line. Every important character in the show is incredibly interesting and shows a different aspect of humanity (Except Edward). As the title suggests, the show has an emphasis on music. The soundtrack of the show is amazing ranging from jazz to blues to heavy metal. This series is fantastic and I highly recommend it to anybody including people who hate anime. There is also a film spinoff that is like an extra long episode of the series that is also good. I give the series a ten out of ten.

Up (2009)

Up, like all Pixar movie except Cars 2, is a masterpiece. As with Pixar films, Up knows how to bring humanity to their characters no matter what they are. Carl, the main character, is a sympathetic character despite being a grouchy old man due to us knowing why he is. His backstory is sympathetic as everybody can relate to feeling regret over life-long ambitions that are never accomplished. At the beginning of the story Carl has pretty much retreated into himself after being disillusioned by the death of his wife. During the story, Carl learns to enjoy the small moments that he did have with his wife and to enjoy the time he has left instead of chasing after his lost dreams. Like all great villains, Charles Muntz presents a reflection of the protagonist. He wastes his entire life trying to attain his life long ambition that he loses his sense of morality, which leads to his downfall. Like all Pixar films, the animation is top of the line and state of the art with expressive characters and beautiful scenery. This movie has to be Pixar's most colorful film with its lush color palette with its purple mountains and its tropical colored forests. Another noticeable thing about this film is that this film I believe has the second and third minority character in a Pixar film, which I applaud the effort and is a good first step to increase the representation of minorities in media. The film has an African American nurse as a minor character and an Asian American boy as the other main character. The story is full of emotion and imagination, and I highly recommend the film to anybody young or old. I give the film a 10/10

My Place in the World of My Blog Topic

I am just a nobody on the blogosphere. I make really short reviews that nobody actually reads except for my teacher. I do not really care for this position. I cannot really do anything to improve my status as there is no real way for me to advertise my blog. I have no idea on how to create connections with other people that are interested in what I am producing. In addition, my reviews are not that special for they are way too short for a general audience. Even if I could drastically improve, I doubt that it would make much difference in raising my status. I should try to do my best as I am being graded on these entries, but I am just not that great of a writer without having some sort of inspiration. Maybe if I inject some humor into my reviews, my readership will increase. That seems to work for a lot of reviewers especially ones that do video reviews. It does not matter if I get big by blogging, since I never set out to become big. I honestly doubt that I will even use this blog after I am done with this course. I have never been that great at expressing myself, and blogging is a lot harder than it looks, so even if I could raise a large audience before this course ends, I do not think I would be able to maintain this blog for much longer. I just do not see me gaining status from writing this blog.

What I Would Change

If I had the power to change things in the movie industry, I would change many things. I would first ban remakes. You can count the number of good remakes on one hand. All Hollywood seems to be making are remakes, sequels, and adaptations. That is not to say this has not been true in other periods of time, but it is especially bad now. There are hardly any original movies being made. I would also make it so that directors have creative control over their production. producers do not know anything about the art of cinema except producers that are also directors. So why should they decide how a movie is cut? By changing these things, The quality of the output of movies will increase drastically. I would also get rid of the bias the Academy Awards have toward science fiction and animation. This bias has snubbed many great films just because they are not oscar bait films. I would also prevent Armond White from ever being allowed to publish professional reviews. He has badmouthed his fellow critics including Roger Ebert. He has been known to personally insult creators. He is known as a troll in the movie industry. He also insults the audiences of films in his reviews for the many films he dislikes. He is the only guy to give Toy Story 3 a bad review resulting in breaking the streak of having all three Toy Story movies have 100% Rotten Tomato scores. These are what I would do if I could change the film industry.