The Legend of Suriyothai

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A very neat movie… But, the US version is cut/edited rather poorly. It’s really a ~5hr movie about Thai royal intrigue in the 16th century. The US version is cut down to 2.5 hours, which can leave you really confused. I’m told there is no full-length version with english sub-titles. Too bad for me, but fine for Thai speakers. I guess it was partly commissioned by the Thai royal family as a sort of “this is our history” movie. Anyway, it’s not really a conventional movie, I think it would fall more into a category halfway between a regular movie and an “historical dramatization”. In any case, it’s worth watching just to see the set designs & costumes – very elaborate & well-done.

 

The Last Starfighter

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How many kids playing video games have wished for this to happen? You’re actually training to fly a real life space-ship? there are really aliens out there? cool! the best thing about this movie was its early use of computer effects for the outer-space scenes. Sure it looks fake, but that was the limit of the computers of the day. After a few minutes, your mind will just accept it as real.

 

The Last Days of Disco

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The latest of whit stilman’s movies. It’s much the same as his others – Metropolitan & Barcelona. It even ties together with Barcelona… sort of. It’s about a bunch of privileged rich kids who are just out of college. They spend their nights in the disco (during disco’s last days of course), and their days struggling with their lives (jobs, apartments, VD). What makes this movie (and whit’s other movies) so watchable isn’t the plot, it’s the dialogue. I find it hard to believe that anyone really talks like the characters in this movie (even ivy leaguers) unless they’re reading a script. It just feels good to hear all that useless wisdom and chitter-chatter being dispensed so eloquently.

 

Ladies in Lavender

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A couple dysfunctional old women along the English shore have a dose of reality interrupt their fantasy lives. It’s pretty well done, though a few of the characters left me scratching my head. Plus, the violinist guy was a bit annoying… I don’t know… I liked it I guess. I wonder, do I have to like or dislike everything? I mean, can’t we all just “be”?

 

K-Pax

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I’m not going to attempt to guess whether K-Pax was really an alien or not, I’m willing to admit that I just don’t know. Whatever you think, this was an entertaining piece of work. One thing I didn’t get though, did the Jeff Bridges character really need to fly to New Mexico to learn about Prot? He could have just called.

 

Krull

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I just re-watched this in 2012 (of all movies, which this one? I don’t know), and just wanted to update my review. Man was this cheesy. I feel kind of like I got ripped-off in my fantasy childhood movies. I mean, compare this with the Lord of the Rings trilogy… Ha! Perhaps the funniest thing was how the hero was dressed in tights the whole way through. It’s almost like hollywood simply hadn’t figured out how to do fantasy movies back then. The technology wasn’t there, and nerds hadn’t yet inserted themselves into powerful positions in hollywood. Anyway, despite all that, it does have its moments.

A fantasy epic with a somewhat original story. Sure the “theme” has been done many times: villian captures princess, holds land hostage until she marries him. But, the bits and pieces that made up the movie were mostly unique – like how the evil castle changed location every day or so. This movie probably works best with a young audience. That’s when I first saw it, so I only have fond memories.