VIDEODRONE

By only

Monday December 17, 2007

NEW MOVIE MONDAYS
The Simpsons Movie
Thank God this movie was better than the past eight seasons of The Simpsons. It’s been a long, painfully unfunny bunch of years. New cartoons have come out, new forms of humour have inevitably developed, and The Simpsons have sadly tried to emulate and adapt – unsuccessfully. It’s kind of like when Penthouse came out and were showing lots of graphic vag shots. Palyboy had no idea what to do. Their image was always wholesome nakedness, and then all of a sudden the girl next door is using a chrome plated vibrator in a university letter sweater? Just doesn’t work at all. But this movie is really funny. It’s not the multi-dimensional achievement that, say, the South Park movie was, but it isn’t a let down. That’s about all we could ask for.


Halloween
While we’re kind of Rob Zombie fans – well, we liked Devil’s Rejects — it’s hard to get past the “Why?” factor. Like, Michael Myers is freaky and bad ass, the movie is well paced (maybe even better than the original) and we can even sort of understand Rob being all obsessed with the idea of taking a stab at a slasher classic… but we just keep coming up with “Why?” Why are you remaking Halloween? What is the fucking point? Not to mention this DVD being released right before Christmas makes zero sense. Who screwed the pooch on that one? (See what we thought when it was in theaters)


Once
It’s kind of weird when you come across a movie as sincere as this one. Basically about a busker in London who meets a girl on the street who can play the piano and together they play music. It’s a way for them both to work through their own sadness and loneliness. Together. Early on there’s a good scene where they go into a music store and she sits down at a piano and gets him to play one of his songs to her and she joins in. It’s really simple and earnest and all the things we would normally make fun of, except it’s really… sweet. Christ, we’re getting soft.


Stardust
This one kind of gets a pass. A fantasy movie for kids starring Claire Danes, Bobby DeNiro, Ian McKellen, Michelle Pfeiffer and Peter O’Toole. How that cast ever got assembled is beyond us. But you’ve got to hand it to anyone trying to compete with Harry Potter these days. That guy totally has a monopoly on the movies about magic things these days… There’s magic aplenty in this magical love story about a poor boy who travels into a magical realm to retrieve a fallen star he had promised his true love. Except the fallen star is Claire Danes, so he kind of magically falls in love with her along the way. Which is cool ‘cause his first true love is a bit of a bitch.