Archive for the ‘5 Mutant Smileys’ Category

The Wachowski Brothers were geniuses.  Not only did they manage to make floor length black trenchcoats cool again, but 10 years after the original release, The Matrix is still mindblowingly awesome.  In fact, The Matrix is so cool that even if they devoted the rest of their live to making movies like Aeon Flux, Catwoman and Elektra, their awesomeness would still rank well in positive numbers.
I’m not going to bother going into the plot here because if you’re reading this after seeing The Matrix I needn’t bother, and if you’ve got this far without seeing it, you need to go directly to your favourite dvd retailer, buy it, and come back after watching it.  You may find you need to watch it a couple of times before you can drag yourself away from it though.
While some of the acting is pretty good, (not Keanu Reeves’ performance, but he just had to look pretty), it’s not the acting that makes the movie, it’s the special effects.  The invention of “Bullet Time”, without which Max Payne would have just been another completely ordinary FPS, was a stroke of true genius, and allowed them to create gunfights that gave John Woo wet dreams.

The Matrix is one of those movies which causes me to feel great sadness that the dodginess and rewatchability scales only go up to 5.  It just jumps from scenes that make you go “Wow” to ones that cause you to exclaim “Oh My God, that was sooooooo awesome!!1!1!!1!oneone”  In case you hadn’t figured it out already, The Matrix scores a 5 on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man index.  Choosing the dodgiest moment in this movie feels like having to choose between puppies in a pet store.  They’re all so good it doesn’t matter which one you choose you’ll still feel bad that you had to leave some behind.  In the end, I had to look for the least dodgy moment, which is Mr Anderson getting into trouble for being late to work again.  At this stage, you could still almost believe that this was going to be just another office-drone-cuts-loose movie.

The Matrix scores a 5 on the rewatchability rating, but really deserves more, pesky limited rating system.  Normally, movies like this have a couple of scenes that make you want to rewatch the movie.  The Matrix is not like this.  The whole film makes you want to rewatch the movie.  Even the scenes that progress the story rather than devolve into action orgasms are necessary as they allow you a chance to recover before another wave of toe-curling cinematography explodes on the screen in front of you.

You’re always tempted to go with the more common main stream quotations like “There is no spoon,” or “Why didn’t I take the blue pill?” when looking to quote a movie like the matrix. However, this would cause you to miss what is undoubtedly the best line in the film, “Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

Just remember, you can’t watch The Matrix, you have to experience it.

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Hoodwinked is a musical, film-noiresque detective story version of Little Red Riding Hood.  If that doesn’t immediately make you run out and buy it, and it should, you may be on the wrong site.  But, if you need more convincing, read on.

Hoodwinked starts off by showing the end of the story, which turns out to be the middle of the story, but you only find that out later. The main players in this musical drama, Red, Granny, The Wolf and Kirk all get detained by Flippers, the police investigator,  and each is interviewed. During this process, you can piece the entire story together if you pay attention, but to get all the subtleties you will need to watch it more than once.

The interviews start, and you’re still convinced that this is a Disney cartoon made by a small budget studio. Then the singing starts. The first song is a crayon version of Julie Andrews in sound of music.  You’re still fairly sure what you’ve gotten yourself into, and that’ll be the last time you question whether this movie is dodgy.  After this, the musical numbers include a yodelling goat, a singing bunny and The “Schnitzel on a Stick Song” You have to see, well, hear  them to truly appreciate the full extent of the dodginess.

Vignettes abound, including homages to the great dodgy movies XXX and The Matrix.  There is also a group of singing porcupines dressed as The Village People, which is really just icing on top of the goodies. Ultimately, the mystery is resolved and the story ends happily for everyone that you care about, despite the fact that Kirk ends up in “Der Happy Yodelers”, but it makes him happy, even though yodelling has been outlawed by the Geneva Convention as a cruel and unusual punishment.

Cartoons don’t normally qualify for more than a 4 on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man scale as a certain level of dodginess is expected. Hoodwinked, however, manages a well deserved 5. It’s hard to pinpoint the moment that pushes this movie up to the maximum rating. The schnitzel song and yodelling goat, the “battle of the iron cage gladiators” champion granny as well as the squirrel after being fed caffeine could compete for that privilege. However, the Broadway-esque musical number in which the Bunny’s plan is revealed, complete with choreography by the evil henchman, including Jazz Hands, pushes it over the edge.

I bought this one having only watched the trailer, and my faith was well rewarded. Every time I watch it I find something to appreciate, and it isn’t always something new. Even the musical numbers grow on you after a while, and for that, this one gets a 5 Mutant Smileys for rewatchability.

The most memorable quote was almost a tough choice, with gems like “Oh good, More singing” and “Use the hood Red, Use the hood.” But it wasn’t even close once the bunny started dishing out commands. “Keith, darnit change your name.. Please.. That’s not scary and I’m embarrassed to say it. Boris, try that. Keith, you know, oh watch out for Keith.” We all know the importance of scary henchman names, and this spells it out in flashing neon letters.

You won’t get the  slick, polished visual smorgasboard that you experience in the newer Pixar films, given that Hoodwinked had a far smaller budget. However, the script carries this one, and the animation is more than watchable, making this one a must buy for everyone.

Evolution starts out with a lot of promise. Directed by Ivan Reitman and starring David Duchovny, dodginess is assured. Throw in a plot containing aliens, Dan Akroyd and Sean William Scott and you’ve got a winner.

The film opens with Sean William Scott saving a blow-up-doll from a burning building and just goes downhill from there. The burning building gets destroyed by an incoming meteor which conveniently happens to contain the alien organisms. With this, the thrill ride begins, taking in interesting sights along the way, including a giant alien bird hunt in a mall and the administering of an anti-dandruff shampoo enema to the giant alien.

The movie has a plot, which is nice and straightforward. This is good as it doesn’t get in the way. Basically, aliens land, they evolve, the military steps in, stuffs it up, and it’s up to the psuedo-scientific heroes to save the day, with a brilliant deduction about Arsenic and Selenium and carbon and silica based lifeforms that would make any movie scientist proud.

Essentially, the plot exists to move the film from one dodgy moment to the next, not that this is a bad thing. However, it does get a little tricky to pick out a favourite.  I have managed to narrow it down to 2 key moments. The first occurs while hunting the giant alien bird in the local mall. Sean William Scott steps up to the microphone and utters the now infamous phrase “ca-caw, ca-caw. Tooky tooky tooky.” The second, a career defining moment for all involved, is the administering of the head and shoulders anti dandruff shampoo enema to the giant alien creature using a firetruck. Despite the ensuing explosion being reminiscent of the giant marshmallow man exploding sequence in ghostbusters, it is no less memorable. As a result of these two scenes, the film gets a Staypuft marshmallow man rating of 5.

Evolution has firmly established itself as one of my top 5 movies of all time. I have yet to get bored while watching it, even though I can almost recite the script. This gives it a massive 5 out of 5 for rewatchablilty. If I didn’t already own this one, I’d have to buy it.

You’d think that the line “There’s always time for lubricant” would have no competition in the category of “Best Film Quote of all time” but, such is the strength of the script, that it doesn’t even win best quote in Evolution.  That dubious honour goes to “ca-caw, ca-caw. Tooky tooky tooky” and a well deserving winner it is.

Do yourself a favour, if you haven’t already seen Evolution, go and watch it, and if you have, go watch it again.