Savages (2012)

This was less of an action film than the trailers made it out to be. That's neither good nor bad, it just wasn't the film that I was expecting. In some ways, that is for the best since it turned out to be a more compelling story than I was expecting. In other ways it was worse than I respected as there are several long, slow scenes where you want to them to move along. I also had a hard tiem with some of the characters, but not the actors. Del Toro's character, while well-played was more of a caricature than a character. In fact this caricature would have fit better into a Quentin Tarrentino or Richard Rodriquez film playing opposite Antonio Banderas, well a character played by him at any rate.
The standout performance is by John Travolta as a crooked DEA agent, or as he would have us believe one of many. He showed off his receding hairline and made it work. He brought a bit of a beer gut to the action scenes which he mostly stayed out of. Travolta wasn't the only actor to land a complex character, but he is the only one that sells it. The rest of the actors do from fair to very good but none of them standout. If Salma Hayek's drug Cartel leader had been written better she would have wowed us too. Instead, I just kept thinking in every one of her scenes that this was the scene that we were going to see the other side fo the character. By the time she does get the opportunity, it's her last scene of the movie and by the nature of the scene we don't get to see very much. That was a waste.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the graphic violence including scenes of torture and executions. I'm not sure if Stone was trying to keep what he thinks of as real or if he was trying to make some kind of point. With Stone it might even be both or neither. Hard to tell. The word that instantly pops to mind is, "gratuitous". Sure, by the nature of this film there is going to be some violence and by the nature of the topic of this film, some of that violence is going to be extremely graphic. But, you couldn't spent the rest of the time showing us some more complex characters.
Actually one other thing worth mentioning, and that is the character of O, played by Blake Lively. Good for her for being in scenes where the boys are nude but she keeps covered up, but on the other hand, her character, whom is also the narrator is so boring - which is completely not related to the whole clothes versus naked thing.  Even undressed, her character would have been boring. My only thought on this is that in the novel this film is based on that she must a have a lot more going on, like actually analyzing things instead of just reporting them. There is nothing wrong with reporting, but in the case where the narrator is trying to get stuff across, especially the inobvious and internal dialogues, she can't be boring.

Savages on IMDb

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)

Everyone loves Aardman films. Everyone loves pirates. Therefore, it follows that everyone will love an Aardman film about pirates. It's logic, bitches. Deal with it.
This film is reminiscent of Aardman's Chicken Run more than any of the Wallace and Grommet films, so it doesn't quite have the same look as W & G. You can still tell it's an Aardman film, but the humans look more like humans, though there was not a single mention of Wensleydale. Like Chicken Run it's a bit of an adventure where the main character must prove he's worthy of his mates. It was a little formulaic, I guess, but that did not stop me from enjoying myself.
Watching this movie, I kept thinking what I always think during Aardman movies, and that is you have to really love what you're doing to do a stop motion feature length film. And with clay or putty or whatever they sculpt in? You have to be downright obsessive. I think that love of the craft really shows through. Could this be done with computer animation? Probably. Certainly parts of the film were, like the water and skies. To be honest, computer animation is advanced enough that they could have done the whole thing digitally and if they did it is so good that I can't tell. But, to me the characters, props and most of the sets look like Aardman had a hand in them. Literally.
The voice actors do a wonderful job. Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Martin Freeman and Imelda Stauntos are the four mains and are superb. I'm not the least surprised since I like them in live action roles. That's not always the case, the crossing over I mean. Not all actors can pull off the voice acting. *cough* Adam Sandler *cough*. The only voice that stuck out to me was Jeremy Piven and not because he did a bad job or anything. He did stick out though, as the American, but I was really trying to decide if it was him or Jason Lee. And if that's the only thing I'm concerned about watching a film, well damn, it's a pretty good film.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits at IMDb

Wild, Wild West (1999)

So, I only thought to watch this because Tor.com did a story about this film, The Avengers (the one with Uma Thurman, not the super hero deal) and another one who's name is eluding me, but like these two was based on a 60s television show but became a 90s movie. I put all three on hold so I could watch them, with The Avengers being the only one that I've already seen.
They made Wild, Wild West sound like a horrible movie, apologizing for even picking it and apologizing again for Kenneth Branagh. Or maybe they were apologizing to him. I'm not sure. Now, this is the same place that loves the original Men In Black. Could it be that they only love M.I.B. so that they can contrast it with M.I.B. II? That could very well be, but I digress. They love M.I.B. but apologize for WWW? WTF?
Is this the greatest movie ever? Nope. But, it's pretty damn funny. The premise is completely ridiculous and I love it. This came out right after M.I.B. For the three of you who don't know, Will Smith stars in both movies. But in WWW, he's traded in Tommy Lee Jones and Vincent D'Onofrio for Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh. Oh, and they threw in Salma Hayek to sweeten the deal. The actors bring to their roles what you would expect. No real surprises, but that ain't always bad.
What really rocks about this film are that it doesn't take itself too seriously. I'm guessing that likely comes because they were trying out a Western version of M.I.B. But even more important is the Steampunk aspect. That aspect is pretty much the whole movie. Steam-powered jet-bicycles, giant steam-powered spiders that can blow up cities, ingenious gasgetry and men who are part machine. That's what I'm talking about!
I knew of Steampunk in '99, but I wasn't into it then (I'm a newcomer). I know this was the perfect opportunity to prove my hipster geek creds by saying that in '99 I had already been into it for a couple of years. But that would be a lie. I was into Cyberpunk, though. And Cthulhupunk. I wasn't an early adopter of Cyberpunk either, but that's because I didn't know about it. When I started to get into it, Gibson's books had been around for a while, but at least I was there before they put Keanu Reeves and Henry Rollins into a movie based on one of his books. Now Cthulhupunk, I have been into since the very beginning as far as I can tell. I learned about Lovecraft in like '87 or '88 when a teacher recommended to me that since I liked Poe, I should look to the man who inspired him. From the moment of the first short story I was hooked and have devoured all things Lovecraftian ever since. Which means I have read a lot of crap to be quite honest. When the Call of Cthulhu RPG came out in the mid-90s, I was all like, "Hell ya!", but even my hardcore gaming buddies, the ones that played every game of Vampire in full costume, thought it was a bit out there. I blame the game system on that one, not the Cthulhu. It was some point after this that the Cthulhupunk scene started popping up and now it's everywhere. Just today I was looking at something a buddy posted on facebook - a fake political poster in support of the big C in the upcoming election. I wanted to share with him my desktop background from 2004 - "Cthulhu 2004 - Why choose the lesser of two evils?" Wtih the big guy all Nixonesque in a red-white-blue motif. I wanted to share that with him and explain that even by that point, Cthulhupunk was being swallowed up into the larger geek community. Um, why am I talking about this? Oh my god! Behind you....quick run away!

Wild, Wild West on IMDb