Up (3D)

Saw this last Thursday but my office station was down so haven't posted my thoughts of it.

The first five to ten minutes are really pedestrian, though, and might put you off and you'd think that this couldn't really be a Pixar movie. It does pick up, though. Overall, I don't think it's as good as the first 2/3rds of Wall-E or the entirety of Finding Nemo but it's pretty good, anyway.

The house with the balloons is pretty well-drawn. They're going for a pseudo-realism here, albeit the human characters are still out of proportion. Anyways, this is the first time Pixar uses normal people as main characters, I think. I find the Asian kid a bit annoying but that's just me.

What is nice, though, is the view on the cycle of life, with Carl's nearly over and flowing to the Asian kid's. The talking dogs are hilarious, though, with the funniest bit being the Alpha dog speaking in a pipsqueak voice (his modulator's broke). An unexpected villain, looking like Kirk Douglas, and nods to Miyazaki's Laputa : Castle in the Sky and Howl's Moving Castle completes an already sumptous feast.

The 3D effects are not invasive, merely to create depth, no things flying out of the screen. The tickets cost a bomb, though.

8 out of 10.

GI Joe : The Rise of Cobra

Just caught this over the weekend and really enjoyed this, to my surprise.

Two points in its favour is that it isn't overly long and there are no lousy special effects, unlike the one with the giant robots.

I suppose I have to dock points for having nothing at all in common with the comic or cartoon besides the character's names and that Snake Eyes has an outline of a nose and a mouth on his mask (the comic version is a smooth mask).

But it moves along pretty well. Good enjoyable fun for two hours. 6.5 out of 10.

The Personal Best of Monty Python

6 discs with new material from the Pythons, with Graham Chapman's disc being a tribute. Mostly each member's personal picks from the TV series. I dunno, I once revered them as a young adult but these days, just find them to be full of histrionics, and the sketches, mostly absurdities, aren't really terribly witty or clever. Sketches such as Wuthering Heights in Semaphore, once you get past the surrealism, doesn't really strike me as anything that giggle-inducing. My favourite new bit is the John Cleese video, full of bile and venom while my favourite disc is the Terry Gilliam one(all animations), at least it doesn't try hard to make you laugh, just floats right on by.

Eddie Murphy - Delirious

The classic stand-up routine from the Washington set. All the oft-quoted jokes are here, my three fave ones being "take the wheel, Stevie Wonder", "put your dick in and explode" and "GI Joe in the cave of bubbles" ones, all here. Funny and makes you miss his comedic genius, what he is now being a caricature of the funniness of his youth.

Spaceballs

As again, I loved this as a kid. But find it groan-inducing now. The timing of the jokes aren't particularly good, nor the parodies of Star Wars that clever. Can't understand why it has such a cult following. Deuuhhhhrrrrrr!!!!!!!! "I see your schwartz is as big as mine". Only enjoy the good-natured humour of John Candy, that's about it.

The Indian Tomb

One of the last movies by Fritz Lang, this is the sequel to "The Tiger of Eschnapur", both based on early German silent films written by Lang's ex-wife and Nazi sympathiser, Thea von Harbou. Nothing much to savour here, no evidence of the Lang touch, being a routine romp that proposes to be a gateway to India. Still, to its favour, it doesn't drag and it's quite entertaining. In Eastmancolour.