Smashbomb

"I wonder if a little kid is watching that movie, is it scary? Because when the kids get shot with the pie or whatever, they disappear, they don't come back, you're dead. I love the sound of all the songs, and the songwriting is amazing - it's just one of those perfect combinations of songwriting and production, and I think he sings all the songs. That's what gives the film its unique tone, because it could be this soupy Disney-style exploitation of the innocence of a child's voice, but it's this grown man, and you fully buy into the reality of the setting. Sure it's a send up of the Prohibition-era gangster genre but you can watch the scene of the guy singing 'Tomorrow' and start weeping - it's just so real. And you've got the little girl dancing around doing her ballet, it gives you shivers. And it's a very dark movie, it kind of looks like The Godfather, very darkly lit. Jodie Foster is amazing - she's like one of the best child actors of all time. I think that a great musical has its moments of hilarity and then also moments of deep sadness, pathos. I think we probably veered too far on the dark side with our musical."

Source

Kudos

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Onward (2020) in Movies

Sep 20, 2020

Onward (2020)

2020 | Adventure, Animation, Comedy

8.1

(48 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

This could have been the whole game, instead just feels like a fetch quest. Gotta say, (sarcasm incoming) really love the idea here to get two once-charming actors who have since had most of their personality sucked dry by the Marvel beast to lend their hardly descript vocal talents to a hardly descript movie of hardly descript characters. Did we just collectively decide against actual voice acting anymore over dry celebrities practically voicing themselves? Ends with a complete cop-out and its breathtaking animation is clouded by either murk or oversaturation seemingly deliberately. Not to mention the character design is ass-ugly. Can't entirely hate it though, not without some charm and handful of okay moments - but whose idea was it to set up this gold mine premise of magic being systematically pushed out of the world by technology for nothing more than simple convenience... and then do fucking nothing with it while setting it in this bland suburbia of normalcy? Potential brilliance in storytelling through an epic, gorgeous video game-esque Disney film is squandered for another antiseptic, indifferent retread of the most basic themes from the company. Not even funny, either. Had more fun with it than I'm probably letting on but I simultaneously loathe what this represents.

Kudos

David McK (3473 KP) rated Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) in Movies

Nov 27, 2020 (Updated Nov 27, 2020)

"Captain Jack Sparrow. You are, without a doubt, the worst Pirate I have ever heard of" / "Ah, but you have heard of me ..."

The first Pirates of the Caribbean film (based on a Disney theme ride!), this is far less bloated and self referential than any of the later sequels, with Johnny Depp's portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow a breath of fresh air (at the time) in a genre that had become increasingly stale: indeed, I can't even remember there being any other pirate films in my lifetime other than 1995s Cutthroat Island.

The plot, here, makes much use of the superstition and folklore of the Caribbean - "You better start believing in Ghost stories again, Miss: you're in one!" (to paraphrase a certain other character - with the crew of the Black Pearl all cursed to an everlasting life by an ancient Aztec curse unless they can restore all the stolen coins.

And this is where Will Turner comes in, as the son of 'Bootstrap' Bill, a colleague of Captain Jack Sparrows before his crew mutinied, stole the treasure, and were cursed. When the governors daughter Elizabet Swann is kidnapped, Turner sets off to rescue here in the company of Sparrow and a crew of n'er do wells, in a very entertaining slice of Pirate action!