Secret of the Wings (2012)

Today is my daughter Azalea's third birthday, and her favorite film is Secret of the Wings.  It's the latest film to feature Tinker Bell.  It's actually become part of her bedtime routine.  She only requires a few hours a sleep a day so this movie helps her calm down.

Remember in the first Tinker Bell movie, Clank and Bobble lead Tinker Bell through the Winter Woods as part of their tour?  Yeah, no, just completely disregard that scene because "warm fairies" are not allowed there and "winter fairies" are not allowed in the warmer seasons due to potential damage to their wings.  This sort of makes sense if you consider that winter fairies have to live in a much colder climate and have apparently evolved to survive easily while wearing little clothing.

Tinker Bell becomes curious about the Winter Woods after watching the snowy owls fly there for a delivery.  She inquires about the place, but everyone is afraid to go.  She finds the first opportunity to sneak over there and takes it.  When she gets there, her wings start to glow! She says it was brighter than a thousand fireflies!  None of her friends believe her, so she sets out to the library to learn more.  Fortunately there is a book called Wingology, which is the study of wings.  She is excited to see a chapter labeled "Sparkling Wings", however, it was mostly eaten by a bookworm.  The library has pest control issues.  The local library nerd fairy, complete with tiny glasses, tells her of The Keeper, a winter fairy who writes all the books pertaining to fairy knowledge.  Tinker Bell decides to set out to the Winter Woods to speak with him.  Cue a montage of her using her tinker skills to make a winter coat and accessories and sneak onto a snowflake basket headed for delivery.

Tinker Bell receives the surprise of a lifetime when she realizes her wings sparkle whenever she's near her twin sister!  It turns out they were born of the same baby's laugh.  Tinker Bell grew up in the warm seasons while her sister lives in the winter season.  Her name is Periwinkle and she is a frost fairy, meaning she frosts things.  This will be important later on.

Tinker Bell and her friends build an elaborate snowmaker machine to bring Periwinkle over to the warm seasons to fulfill her dream of seeing butterflies.  Ultimately, she gets overheated and her wings almost melt.  They return her to the winter side just in time.  The Winter Lord, Milory forbids them from seeing each other to protect them.  He pushes the snowmaker into the river to be destroyed, but it gets caught on a branch and starts creating snow.  This causes an imbalance of the seasons and everything starts freezing.  It confuses me a bit because when I was in college in Alabama, it snowed in fall and early spring quite often.

Periwinkle and her other frost fairy friends race over to the Pixie Dust tree and frost it before the hard freeze sets in.  So, it's saved and she is allowed to see her sister whenever she wants. Also, broken wings can be cured by twin sister sparkle wing magic.  This movie has a lot going for it, and has a better plot than most children's films I'm forced to see.  I will give it a 7/10.

Citizen Kane (1941)

Today's film is Citizen Kane.  It is widely regarded as one of the best films ever.  So I was skeptical of a film that requires such high expectations.  However, this film is indeed fantastic.

I already had the ending spoiled by Family Guy, so I decided to watch it first just to enjoy the film, and second to look for clues that would reveal the ending.

Even though the film shows Charles Kane as a great man, in reality he's a sad person.  That's why the sled is so important.  It represents his childhood being taken away from him.  He even attacks Mr. Thatcher with the sled.  His mom didn't help things either.  Look how cold she is.  It's obvious that she wanted to get rid of him at the first opportunity.  When Mr. Thatcher comes to pick him up, she tells him that she's had his things packed for a week.  His dad wants to raise him, but doesn't try very hard.

Kane doesn't want money, he wants his childhood back.  He says if he didn't have money, he could have been a great man.  He wrote that he was not interested in oil or gold mines, but that it might be fun to run a newspaper.

If he wanted his childhood back so badly, why didn't he build his home in Colorado?  He built his Xanadu palace in Florida.  That's the worst place for sledding. There's no steep hills or snow here.  He should have built his palace in Colorado, and go sledding all the time.  He had the money to do so, except he just kept buying and buying stuff he didn't need.  People gain hoarding tendencies when they are trying to fill a void.  He was taken away from his parents to be raised by a bank and later had two unfulfilling marriages.  So he filled the void in his lonely heart with lots and lots of stuff.

Everyone praised Kane for being such a great person, a business man who turned a failing newspaper into a great empire.  But, hardly anyone knew him as a person and I don't think he allowed anyone to get too close to him.  Even with his wives there was always a wall there, or he buried himself in his work.

The best part was the making of this movie.  Orson Welles co-wrote, directed and starred in this film, and it was his first major film.  And he was only 25 years old!  To show the passing of time, everyone wore makeup to look much younger in some scenes and older in others.  The old people makeup left much to be desired, but it's still good for 1941.  And the lighting is perfect.  I love how it produces all the different shades of grey and always provides much visual interest.  The story is okay, but it's the cinematography that's beautiful.  It almost seems effortless.  I will give this film a 10/10.

Slacker (1991)

Today's film is Slacker.  I think the point of this film is that is has no point.  Do films need a point?  I would say yes.  I will rate this film a 2/10.

The camera goes around town, filming people's conversations.  Each person says their piece, the camera will get distracted, and like a child, start following someone else's conversation.  These speeches range from conspiracies to philosophy to insanity.

I went to college in a tiny Southern college town much like Austin, where there is only the college and little else.  Nobody talks like this.  Yes, we did try to discuss philosophy and tried to see the world beyond ourselves and our future career choices, but not on this level.  We must have been focusing on our major and actually trying to accomplish something, which seems to be the exact opposite purpose of any character in this film.  Everyone seems to be having some existential crisis and are trying their hardest to express themselves.  I have heard more pseudo-zen bullshit in this movie than in both Matrix sequels.  I believe that they have much more time to ponder the wonders of the universe and the inner workings of political scandals since they don't have classes or a job.  Maybe they are hiding behind their big speeches because they are afraid of being failures.

Also, in an effort to promote realism, the filmmakers hired actors that didn't fit a standard Hollywood type.  I mean that most of these people are ugly as sin.  On top of that, they are forced to learn an incomprehensible script.  If the filmmakers were going for a realistic angle, I wish they would have put more effort into it.

The Conversation (1974)

Today's movie is The Conversation, a classic that led me to a stunning revelation.  It stars Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, a surveillance technician that's very well known in his field.  He builds most of his own equipment and runs his own business spying on people for a profit.  I will rate this film an 8/10.

Caul is a religious and modest man that keeps to himself.  For his birthday, he prefers playing his saxophone to jazz albums rather than going to the club.  Even though he is great at his job, he never likes to talk about it.  One of his surveillance jobs inadvertently led to the murder of three people.  His most recent job entails audio recording the conversation of a couple in the park, financed by a man called "the director".  After recording them, his team returns to their workshop.  As he tweaks the audio, he starts to believe that this couple may be in danger.  Is he hearing it right or is he just misinterpreting the whole thing?  Who is really in danger?

I absolutely love the old fashioned technology, which was cutting-edge in its day.  I have always enjoyed working with analog equipment.  It is amazing how much effort it took for his team to record one conversation from one couple.  Today, the NSA can record 12000 facebook conversations in one day.  Suck on that 1970s!

The ending was so shocking and I in no way expected it to happen. Also, I was thinking about this film all day and I was reminded of my Will Smith movie collection. Fun fact: I watch any film that he is in no matter what because I've had a crush on him since second grade.  So, one of his films is Enemy of the State, where he plays an innocent man (Dean) chased by the NSA.  His character is helped greatly by a former surveillance technician who worked for the NSA called "Brill".  If you look at Brill's id photo from his younger days, it was actually taken from The Conversation. Brill has the same personality and temperament as Harry Caul, has an elaborate workshop just like him, and knows everything about wiretapping and surveillance, obviously from his years of experience.  At the end of The Conversation, Caul tears apart his apartment in search of hidden bugs, just as Brill expertly removes all of Dean's bugs. He even wears the exact same raincoat. I believe that Harry Caul is Brill, living under a pseudonym and willing to help Dean with his knowledge.

Our Hospitality (1923)

Today's film is Our Hospitality, which is yet another Buston Keaton film.  Really, another?  Why do we need another?  We already have The General and Steamboat Bill Jr, and they were enjoyable.  We don't need another film from the same director, especially when they are of the same genre.  If a director has films under multiple genres, say, horror, drama and comedy, then it is important to view and compare the works.  But, I have no desire to watch yet another physical comedy that offers nothing unique to the audience.  Also, the list doesn't need 15 vampire films.  It just doesn't.

 

So, this film is about the Hatfields and the McCoys, two families in the 1830's that hated each other.  Their feud got so bad that people remember it to this day.  Except this film changes it to the Canfields and Mckays, for reasons I don't know.  The baby Willie Mckay is sent to live in New York away from the feud.  Twenty years later, he returns to claim his inheritance.  He meets a girl on the train heading there.  Of course it turns out she's part of the rival family.

The girl invites him to her house for supper and her brothers and father are planning to kill him.  However, their code of honor states that they cannot kill him while he is a guest in their house.  So, he gets comfy and stays for days!  Later, he tries to escape which results in all manner of physical comedy.  Eventually, he marries the girl in the upstairs bedroom, which is totally normal.

That's it.  If you like physical comedy and dialogue heavy silent films where you have to read a lot, you'll like this.  I will give this a 5/10.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Today's film is Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.  It's a simple film, and yet it is sweet.  This film is so simple that nobody even has a name.  There's the man, his wife, and the woman from the city.  You know that woman is going to be trouble.

So, the man, being bored in the country with his boring farmwife, meets the exciting woman from the city while she is on vacation.  Then, he cheats on his wife with her.  They want to run away to the city together.  The woman tells him to drown his wife.

So, the husband tells his wife that they are going on the lake.  The wife is so excited to be noticed and to go out.  It seems like he hasn't paid attention to her in a while.  He goes to try and grab her to push her overboard, but can't do it.  They reach the shore, and the wife, having realized what's going on, runs away in terror.  The husband follows her and tries to apologize.  He even goes and gets her a plate of sandwiches.  She cries and her husband is like, "Don't be like that; look, I bought sandwiches!"

They witness a wedding nearby and the husband realizes how awful he's been to her.  Not just the whole trying to drown her thing, but the ignoring and cheating on her.  He begs her to forgive him, and she does.  Then, they spend an enjoyable night on the town while involves getting pigs drunk.

When they return to the boat to go home, the weather is getting stormy.  They fall out of the boat and the husband believes she is gone.  But she's not.  Once she is found, everyone is happy.  The woman from the city silently goes back home and nothing happens to her.  And the husband and wife and their baby (who appears from time to time) live happily ever after.

The story itself is simplistic, but I liked how the man and his wife interacted with each other.  Like when they went in to get a portrait done and broke a statue.  Their actions are just so natural, especially their facial expressions which help tell the story.  This movie didn't need any talking, and it is surprising how much I didn't miss it.  I will give this film an 8/10.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

Today's film is Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!  It is one of the funniest movies my family has seen.  I don't know if it was meant to be, but it was funny.  The name of the film comes from the three main causes of excitement: speed (faster), sex (pussycat), and murder (kill).

The film features three go go dancers having fun racing their cool cars in the desert.  Their names are Billie, Rosie, and Varla.  A guy and his girlfriend show up in their car to do time trials.  Then, Varla beats the crap out of the boyfriend with her bare hands and kills him.  Then, they decide to take the girl hostage and they all go to a house in the middle of nowhere to steal a creepy old guy's money.  Yeah, I really don't understand the plot, but I don't think the plot was the point of the movie.  The point is to see girls with really tight clothes in the desert.

This is the first film by Russ Meyer I have ever seen, and I really enjoyed it.  This movie was a lot of fun.  The over-the-top violence and humor reminded me of many of Quentin Tarantino's films.  I will rate this film a 6/10.

When I heard Varla say, "I never try anything, I just do it," I was shocked because that's exactly what's on the song Thunder Kiss '65 by White Zombie!  I grew up listening to this (and to Rob Zombie when he went solo). I had no idea that song sampled those words from this movie, but it makes sense because this movie came out in 1965.  At first I thought I should post just the sample, but I decided to post the entire song for you to enjoy.  At 1:30, you'll hear Varla say, "You're all shook up, aren't you baby?  I never try anything; I just do it.  Wanna try me?"