Whenever
I make a leg cramping and back breaking transpacific journey, I make
a point to watch as many movies as I can on the in flight
entertainment system. Why do I do this?
Firstly,
I rarely go out to the movies because of the cost. Movie tickets in
Japan cost roughly $20 US and on a public school teacher's salary
that's an extravagance. But so is an international vacation. As
much as the plane tickets cost, every film I watch allows me to tick
$20 off of the price in my head. Not exactly ground breaking
economics, but it works for me.
Secondly,
"I was on a plane" is a wonderful excuse for seeing a film
that you normally wouldn't be caught dead admitting to having seen.
It's somewhere between "I was with a group and was out voted"
and "I was drunk."
So
here are the films I watched during the flights and on the ground
with some quick thoughts:
1.
Mr. Holmes: Ian McKellen plays an elderly Sherlock Holmes. What more
need be said? 10/10
2.
Fantastic 4 (2015): Ugh. While the effects were pretty good and the
acting was acceptable, whoever wrote this drek has clearly never read
a comic book in their lives and certainly doesn't understand the
Fantastic 4. Superheroes all have a core to them. Batman: I am Vengeance, I am the Night. Spider Man: With great power comes great
responsibility. The core of the Fantastic 4 is "Superhero
Family." (That's why the best Fantastic 4 movie ever made is
called "The Incredibles.") Without that understanding as a
base, this movie turns into yet another long, tedious, origin story
that doesn't feel like a superhero film let alone a Fantastic 4 film.
3/10
3.
Pixels: Adam Sandler, I will give you 20 bucks if you promise to
never make another movie. 1/10
4.
Arthur Christmas/Muppet Christmas Carol: Palette cleansers and modern
classic Christmas movies both! 10/10
5.
Hotel Transylvania 2: OK Adam Sandler, you can keep making animated
films on the condition that you NEVER play yourself. Cute movie with
some fun if not horribly original jokes. 7/10
6.
Star Wars 7--The Franchise Reawakens: Woah boy! This deserves its
own separate post. On the whole, a good movie that did most of what
it needed to do. There are a few flaws, including a couple points
where the film comes to a screeching halt (Tentacle monsters) and
J.J. Abram's fingerprints are all over this (Tip: Action scenes are
LESS enjoyable when you can't tell what the bleep is going on). I
still haven't forgiven Abrams for Star Trek, but I will admit that
he's learned from his mistakes and at least he seems to get Star
Wars. 8/10
7.
Minions: OK, I see why people love these little guys, but I just
don't think they can carry a movie on their own. They work better as
side characters or in small doses. 5/10.
8.
Slumdog Millionaire: Very surprisingly, this mostly lived up to the
hype. On the plus side, this reminded me why I love a good game show
and the characters were very well done. I wanted to see the main
character triumph and the villains get their comeuppance. On the
other hand, I can see why this film is not exactly popular in India,
it's one big stereotype. Also, they screwed up the rules of Who
Wants to be a Millionaire (There are two safe points so the main
character should not have been in danger of losing all of his money.
Plus phone a friend doesn't work that way.) 8/10
9.
The Duff: For the love of Aslan, please tell me American high schools
haven't turned into this? Utterly unoriginal story of 25 year old
actors playing high schoolers. Saved by the hilarious performance of
Allison Janney playing a mom who turned her divorce into a self help
book empire. 2/10
Then
I fell asleep listening to an audio book of Dracula. Not
recommended.
