MOVIE: Bolt (2008)

by benmweilertNo Comments
BoltYear: 2008Rating: PGLength: 96 minutes / 1.60 hours Mid-2000s Disney was an interesting time for their CGI movies. Pixar had been dominating for at least a decade and created gorgeous films with heartwarming plots. Struggling to keep up with this new medium, Disney still hadn't fully committed to CGI, and it has not aged well. Just as an example, think about how incredible WALL-E (2008) looked and realize it came out the same year as Bolt (2008). Not to say that Bolt is a terrible movie, it just feels bland in comparison—both on looks and plot. Part of the problem of this era of CGI movies is how dated they can feel. Sure, Disney was using some CGI in their animated films even as far back as The Little Mermaid (1989). It's just that Pixar seemed to understand that humans needed to be more like caricatures to escape the uncanny valley. The people in Bolt look so weird and wrong that it's...
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MOVIE: Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019)

by benmweilert1 Comment
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood Year: 2019 Rating: R Length: 161 minutes / 2.68 hours Quentin Tarantino has changed. While I loved Inglorious Basterds (2009) for its alternate history, and Django Unchained (2012) was another strong showing, it seems like he’s just getting out of his western phase. For his latest film, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019), Tarantino seems to have continued his trend of making very long movies but chose to condense his trademark graphic violence down into an intense sequence that only lasts a few minutes at most  (like The Hateful Eight (2015)). Perhaps he has matured as a director, but that’s what makes this film so jarring compared to his previous work. Anyone familiar with the Tarantino aesthetic knows that he’s particularly fond of the pop culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Consequently, it’s interesting to see how real he’s made this era feel on the big screen. That being said, some of the “fake” movies appearing in this film are...
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BOOK: As You Wish (2014)

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As You Wish – Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride Year: 2014 Author: Cary Elwes Length: 421 minutes / 7.02 hours While I love audiobooks for their capacity to let me mindlessly absorb books while I’m driving to or from work, much of the story comes down to the narrator and their inflections. Sometimes these narrators can be annoying, or incomprehensible, or vary their volume too much. It is a rare treat to find an audiobook that fully capitalizes on the medium, either by adding music and sound effects or (in this case) using the voices of actual people to narrate the story. As You Wish is just such an audiobook, and I would even go so far to say it is the superior version of this book, even without “reading” it for myself. As one of the most frequent and common of quotable movies, The Princess Bride (1987) is an odd little film that just works. It’s fantasy, it’s comedy, it’s family-friendly. It’s all these things...
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