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The Iron Giant (1999)
The Iron Giant (1999)
1999 | Animation, Family, Sci-Fi
A Warm Tale of Friendship
In the 1990's, it was rare for a studio besides Disney to release an animated film. So when Warner Brothers (home of Bugs Bunny) decided to release an animated film, everyone expected it to be some sort of "Looney Tunes" and were sorely disappointed when it was not.

And that is too bad...for the film that was released - THE IRON GIANT - is a wonderfully warm and heartwarming tale of friendship, acceptance and, yes, intolerance of those different from you, set against the backdrop of the Cold War of the 1950's.

Marking the full length feature animation Directing debut by Brad Bird (THE INCREDIBLES), THE IRON GIANT tells the tale of young Hogarth, who finds a...well...Iron Giant... who has fallen to Earth from Outer Space. Hogarth befriends The Iron Giant and helps to hide him from Military-types who see this as a threat to the safety, security and superiority of the United States.

Featuring the vocal talents of Jennifer Aniston, John Mahoney, Harry Connick, Jr., Christopher McDonald and Eli Marienthal (as Hogarth), this film is warm and inviting, showing "good characters" that you want to root for and spend time with spar with "bad guys" that you want to see defeated. All of this over a character that is naive to what is going on around him. Special notice should be made of Vin Diesel's vocal work as The Iron Giant. He says very few things, but the words that he does say, convey strong emotions.

You can see the seeds of THE INCREDIBLES in this work of Director Bird. The action sequences are fun and effective and are off-set by slower, more personal, scenes of the characters getting to know - and interact with - each other. He shows a deft touch in balancing these items, finding the right amount of pathos and pace throughout.

The main themes in this film - fearing that which you do not know/do not care to understand resonates to this day and is a reminder that kindness can go much further than fear/ignorance/intolerance.

Letter Grade: A-

8 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)
  
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LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Chopping Mall (1986) in Movies

Sep 28, 2020 (Updated Sep 28, 2020)  
Chopping Mall (1986)
Chopping Mall (1986)
1986 | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
8
6.5 (17 Ratings)
Movie Rating
So yeah, I freaking love Chopping Mall. It's a prefect slice of ridiculous and cheesy sci-fi horror from the 80s and a great example of how fun low budget horror can be...

The premise alone is amazing - eight teenagers get locked in a state-of-the-art shopping mall after a lightning storm hits the roof-situated antenna that controls the malls' robotic security team, sending the machines haywire and turning them into killer robots. Less than ten minutes in and Chopping Mall has absolutely all of my attention.

A huge positive about this movie is how likable the group of survivors are. A couple of them are a little throwaway, but the majority of them are given just enough backstory to make them feel real, and are all played well by their respective actors (ALWAYS love to see Barbara Crampton).
It's almost a shame when they start to get picked off. As is par for the course with this era of horror, Chopping Mall uses practical effects for the most part, and what we see he is pretty decent (ridiculous head explosions anyone?) and the few "special" effects we are treated to (the robots lasers for example) are so wonderfully low budget that it ends up adding even more charm. There is also an unholy amount of explosions just for good measure.

The dialogue is typical slasher fare, but it's boasts such gems as "Let's send these fuckers a Rambo-gram", "it's gonna be good time to the max!", "They're trying to french fry us, well I'm no damn potato" and "I'm sorry, I guess I'm just not used to running around a shopping mall in the middle of the night being chased by killer robots". Just spectacular really, especially the big guy stuffing his face whilst dead pan saying "Waitress, more butter" before an immediate cut away.

Chopping Mall for me is near the upper echelon of 80s horror. Sure it's cheap and silly but it's also great, and gets criminally overlooked due to more popular franchises. Do yourself a favor and give it a watch if you haven't before.

                    
Also, the soundtrack absolutely slaps.