A hidden review

I have reviewed the movie "The Prestige" here. I archived it because of the VERY disturbing nature of this film. If you're interested, please read. But please do realize that this is a very dark, disturbing, thought provoking movie.

Tiffany

Up!

Last weekend, my mom, sister, her fiance, and I attended the opening weekend of Pixar's new movie "Up". I know I said I wasn't going to give an opinion, but I think I might be justified in saying, "What a great movie!"

Without giving the story away (I think that's one of the best thing's Pixar does: keep the story closely under wraps until it's opened) it's about an older man and a young man (boy) who are raised (literally!) together.

But it's about so much more than that. It's about learning to let go of those you love. It's about learning to deal with the hurt that's around you. It's about learning to let go of the idols you've raised. It's about learning to care for what's really important. It's about learning to understand dogs. It's about learning.

And it's all done with Pixar wonderful storytelling abilities. This is a true story in the sense that they makers haven't just thrown together something that will please an audience and make them go out and buy the newest merchandise. But this is a true story in that you learn to care about the characters (cartoons though they may be).

We watched the film in 3D which was supremely fun. It's the first 3D film I've seen and I really enjoyed it. We're trying to go back and see it with my dad (he was sick the day we went).

Again, I know I said I wasn't going to recommend any movies, but this one might just be a "must see".

Pros
~learning to work with those you might not be drawn to at first
~learning to decide what's important and act on it
~learning to care for those around you more than yourself
~learning so much more than can even be written down here

Cons
~the villian, but then again, he's not supposed to be good and he is dealt with in an appropriate manner
~the little boy's parents are divorced, but this is handled in a gentle way while still showing the harmful effects of divorce on children.
~the story somewhat is focused on saving a bird that has been thought to be extinct and therefore has a slight "save the animals" flavor

Language
None

Immorality
None

Rating
PG for some peril and action

I hope this gives you a little insight into this movie! Let me know what you think!

Tiffany

City of Ember

For centuries, the residents of the underground City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights and quiet contentment. But when the City's massive power generator begins to fail, the street lamps start to fade-- along with the hope and dreams of the townspeople. now it's up to two courageous teenagers to follow a trail of clues left by the ancient Builders and find a way out of Ember before their world is plunged into darkness forever.~~From the DVD back

The world was being destroyed. A group of people got together and decided to build an entire self-sustaining city underground. This city would last for 200 years. By then the world above would be ready to accept people back to it. With that idea they send a box down with the first mayor set to open in 200 years. The box is passed from mayor to mayor, until one mayor dies without passing on the box. It becomes lost and forgotten in a closet in the Mayfleet house.

Over 200 years later, the box has quietly opened unnoticed and now the City of Ember is dying. The generator, the only source of power and electricity, is shutting down. Food is getting scarce. In fact the citizens of Ember are looking at a black future with no food.

In the City of Ember, once you reach a certain age you attend Assignment Day. There you will draw out of a bag what you will spend the rest of your life working on. Doon is desperate to work in the generator because he thinks he can fix it. Lina just wants to stay "above ground". When Lina picks "pipeworks" and Doon picks "messenger" both are extremely disappointed. So they switch. Lina gets to run through the city meeting many different people. Doon gets to be close to the generator even if he isn't in it.

One day Lina discovers a box in her grandmother's appartment with what looks like a message inside, but it isn't until she deciphers the word "pipeworks" that she brings it to Doon to look at. Doon discovers the word "exit" on the paper. They both begin to think that there might be a way out of Ember.

As they are trying to piece together what the message is, they stumble across the Mayor's secret chamber where he has hidden food and drink enough to feed several families for weeks. Lina goes to the person she believes she can trust, only to discover that they are in on the secret.

Now with a price on their heads, Lina and Doon are frantic to find a way out: before the lights go out, before the food runs out, before they are caught.

Now the analysis:

Rating:
PG for "mild peril and some thematic elements"

Language:
None that I can remember

Immorality:
None

Pros:
Throughout the movie, Doon's father consistanly imparts his wisdom to his son. In a world where the people have obviously stopped passing knowledge on (no one knows how to fix the generator) this is a good and comforting thing. (I'll mention Doon's reaction later)

Lina, the main female character, lost her parents a number of years before. She now lives with her granny and little sister, Poppy. She is very kind and patient and gentle with them both. She doesn't get upset with her granny even when she's obviously not thinking right and tearing up the couch. When her granny dies, Lina and Poppy go to live with their neighbor. Lina continues to take care of Poppy. She watches out for her and makes sure she is safe. When Lina and Doon decide to try to escape, Lina risks being caught and goes back to get Poppy to bring her with them.

Early in the movie Doon shows his care for animals when he finds a moth with a torn wing and uses his shoelace to patch it up and watch it fly away. (Incidently this occurance also causes him to begin to question where it came from.)

At the end of the movie as Doon and Lina are trying to escape, they discover that the water wheels have been stiff for so long that they no longer work properly. Sul, the man Doon works for in the pipeworks, risks (and looses) his life to let them try to escape.

Lina and Doon really learn to work together to solve the mystery of the "message". They listen to each other and put their thought together to learn the important truth about the exit.

Faith is one of the "hidden" messages in the movie. Mrs. Murdo, the lady that Lina and Poppy go to live with after Granny dies, is constantly reminding Lina that the builders knew what they were doing, and would take care of them. At the time, Lina shrugs it off and the thought isn't really brought up again in the movie, but we find out that the Builders did indeed take care of them and it was the carelessness of others that prevented their help from arriving on time.

This might sound like a silly "pro", but in this movie, the robots are just robots. Not trusted family friends, or sassy housekeepers, or machinery that have taken on a life of their own, but just robots. I really do like this aspect as it shows what robots are....machines.

Cons:
The biggest problem with this movie is Doon's attitude. While his father gives him pieces of wisdom, Doon treats it like "just an old guy talking". He is sulky and upset. He blameshifts this attitude on the fact that the city if falling apart and he could help if someone would let him. But that all is it, blameshifting. He has an almost constant attitude of "I know better than you" to his dad and at first scorns the gift his dad gives him as useless.

During the course of the story, you find out that Doon's dad had been a part of an escape attempt. He gave it up when one of his friends died. Now he wants no part with escape talk. He doesn't take initiative to follow what his son tells him he's found out. He's scared to try again. He does redeem himself by drawing the soldiers who come to capture Doon away so Doon can escape and by telling him to follow whatever evidence he has about an escape route.

Much of the story would be classified as Fatalistic. Everything from "You don't have a choice in what you're going to do in life, you just have to follow what's given you" to "Trust the Builders, they know what they were doing, and it will all turn out right." In fact one of Lina's good adult friends tells her, "Don't dig too deep, Lina." All the Emberites just follow what those before them have done and don't try to change anything. Doon's mentor in the Pipeworks keeps answering Doon's questions about how things work with, "I don't know, it's not my job!" Doon and Lina do break this mold in their adventure, but everyone around them is stuck in the "It's fate, don't fight it" mentality.

Another big problem with the movie is the portrayal of authority. We find out pretty early on that the mayor isn't really interested in the people he governs, but is concerned with himself. That's only the beginning of the conspiracy in the government. This government is painted as not being able to competantly rule, but self-centered.

Cinematography:
First of all, let me say that I am not a cinematographer and I'm only going to give my impressions of what I like. One thing that I really appreciate in a movie is when I view it multiple times (and I view most movies multiple time) I can see something new each time. So some things that I've notice after a few viewings:
~In the beginning the hands of the mayors get older as they pass the box on
~You can see Granny knitting as a little girl
~The dark bag that they draw their jobs out of
~In the pictures on the wall in the mayor's hall, you can see some of those who were in the beginning scene.


Well, there you have it. The City of Ember is only the first in a series of books (to read my review of the book click here) and I will be very interested to find out if they plan on making more of the books into movies.

Have you seen this movie? What did you think?

Tiffany

The Prestige

All right, there is a very strong warning with this review. This is a disturbing movie. Not necessarily bad, but disturbing. Please take this caution very seriously. I DO NOT recommend this movie.

For the synopsis, I'm borrowing the synopsis on the official website:

"Award-winning actors Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Cain, and Scarlett Johansson star in The Prestige, the twisting, turning story that, like all great magic tricks, stays with you.
"Two young passionate magicians, Robert Angier (Jackman), a charismatic showman, and Alfred Borden (Bale), a gifted illusionist, are friends and partners until on fateful night when their biggest trick goes horribly wrong.
"Now the bitterest of enemies, they will stop at nothing to learn each other's secrets. As their rivalry escalades into a total obsession full of deceit and sabotage, they risk everything to become the greatest magician of all time. But nothing is as it seems, so watch closely. And be prepared to watch it again and again."

Now this movie really depends on the the "trick" being a secret when you watch, so I'm going to keep it that way.

Pros
~obsession is shown to be the horrible thing it is
~murder is shown as wrong, for whatever reason
~secrecy from your spouse has dire consequences
~every one of your actions has a consequence
~"magic" is shown as just tricks

Cons
~animals are killed just for the pleasure of the audience...and it never shown as a bad thing
~the whole film is dark. Now this could be a con or it could be a pro. Because of the subject matter, I'd almost put it as a pro (the darkness of the films lends to the feeling that the whole idea of what is going on is wrong), but I wanted to put it here to issue another warning that this is indeed a dark, disturbing film
~there are several deaths (really magic tricks gone wrong) and one suicide shown on film

Language
While I didn't count exactly how many, there were quite a few bad words.

Immorality
~One of the men is married at the beginning and they do show him with his wife discussing a trick in their bedroom. Definitely ends up as a fast forward scene.
~The other man is married, but has an affair with his assistant
~All of the female assistants in the film are wearing just a corset with a short (really short) skirt while on stage (which seeing as the film is about magicians on stage, amounts to a lot of time)

Rating
PG-13 for violence and disturbing images

I am once more going to risk beating a dead horse and make completely sure that you know this is a dark film and should only be watched with the full understanding that once you see this movie, you will not be able to forget it.

You might wonder after all these warnings why I've reviewed it. After each viewing our family spends at least an hour discussing it. Going over what was good, what was bad, where the characters made the right decisions, where they made the wrong decisions, etc.

If you have seen this movie, I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Tiffany

Wall-E

Well, I decided to start off big. Here is the official synopsis of this movie:

"What if mankind had to leave Earth, and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off?

"After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, WALL*E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) discovers a new purpose in life (besides collecting knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. EVE comes to realize that WALL*E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the planet's future, and races back to space to report her findings to the humans (who have been eagerly awaiting word that it is safe to return home).

"Meanwhile, WALL*E chases EVE across the galaxy and sets an adventure into motion. Joining WALL*E on his journey across the universe is a cast of characters including a pet cockroach and a heroic team of malfunctioning misfit robots."

All right, now to analyse.....

Language

~none

Immorality

~none

Pros

~The characters show great devotion to each other

~Both WALL-E and EVE are sacrificial in the care for each other and the others on the Axiom.

~The people on the Axiom are at first have no care for themselves physically, or each other. They talk to the person next to them with the screens in front of them. But this non-caring is presented as a bad, harmful thing. By the end of the film, the people work together to rebuild the world.

~The humans understand that they are responsible for making the earth an inhabitable place.

Cons

~Gender roles are somewhat reversed.

~WALL-E is sentimental, bumbling, and nervous.

~EVE is confident, take-charge, business like (although she does try to abandon her "directive" to save WALL-E.), and has a major anger problem.

~Humans are somewhat portrayed as having been irresponsible by letting the earth get as bad as it was.

And of the course the most important lessons in the movie:

~Twinkies never get too old to eat.

~Cockroaches never die.

So what are your observations of this movie?

Tiffany

Welcome!

I want to welcome you to Take Two. Grab a bowl of popcorn, sit back, relax, and watch these movies......

Hmm, if that's what you want to do, maybe you'd better read on.

My purpose in starting this blog is to challenge people to really look at what they are putting into their heads in the name of entertainment.

Every director has an objective. Every movie has an object. And if we're not careful we can let the directors, actors, and writers determine how we think.

As I watch movies, I will be keeping track of every wrong attitude, look, action, worldview that I see in the movie and report it here. I will keep a tally of bad language as well, but I will not report the words here. I get frustrated when I go to movie sites and they present for my eyes to see what I didn't want my ears to hear.

However, I will not recommend any movie. It is my strong belief that no one person can tell someone else what is appropriate to watch. It is up to each head of household to make those decisions. I want to present facts that will enable people to know if the movie is even one they or their parents would consider.

The movies I choose to review will be ones that are generally believed to be safe for families to watch. I don't do this to show people how bad they are by allowing these things into their head, but rather to give people a view into what they are allowing moviemakers to tell them is true and what they swallow without question.

I would love to take suggestions for movies. So if you have a movie that you would like to see a review of, let me know! I'll see what I can do. One caviat to that, I don't promise to watch every movie.

So pull up a chair. Put your thinking cap on. And let's watch a movie!

Tiffany