The Color Purple is a movie to cry to.

Also, Whoopi Goldberg is a pretty good actress. I have historically been somewhat meh on her.

I just saw Team America: World Police. It was really funny. I thought it was a pretty spot-on send up of action movies and American foreign policy. Plus there were puppets and explosions.

I thought the puppet use was great: very interesting to watch and put a nice layer of absurdity on all the events. They switched up between marionette and stringless puppets to vary the camera angles and scenes enough that the movie didn’t feel constrained by the puppets.

My favorite aspect was the not subtle… but casual humor style. They didn’t shy from a joke but weren’t too in your face about it either because the characters never acknowledged the absurdity of their actions. The songs were really cute too.

So, seriously. Does anyone know why Yoda talks so stupid? He’s had plenty of time to figure out English. He doesn’t seem unintelligent.

I thought from the original trilogy that maybe he was just out on some hick planet where he never learnt to talk no good. But no. It’s clear from the prequels that he’s surrounded by even children with better grammar. I don’t get it.

I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire yesterday. It was awesome. Much better than the previous three films.

It was a lot less smarmy, had better story telling, and was just enjoyable. The estrogen and testosterone schools were a little much, but still.

Producers of movies always worry a lot about getting the same actors for sequels and signing them into multimovie deals. I think their fears are overblown. I’d love to see a sequel with a completely different cast.

Different director, actors, style, everything. It would be neat. You’d have a chance to tell the story a different way, to appeal to a different market, and to keep actor wages down.

Like, have the next Harry Potter be done as anime or something. Have Jerry Bruckheimer direct the next Pride & Prejudice remake.

I know that there is an emotional attachment to the actors, and this strategy wouldn’t work very well with something like a TV show, but still. I think it would be a cool way to tell a story and emphasize the thematic elements rather than the lead.

Ugh, last horror movie review for a while, honest.

So, A Nightmare on Elm Street was actually pretty darn good. Freddy himself was kind of interesting, though a little childish in his attempts to not so much kill you as jump out from behind a tree at you. His backstory was probably the best backstory of all these 80s horror villains. Johnny Depp apparently had his first role in this movie, which is too bad because his character had to be the worst boyfriend ever.

The special effects were notably better than its contemporaries. That helped a lot. The willingness to kill off characters was also refereshing.

The ending was terrible. I understand the desire of these slashers to emphatically leave room for sequels by having the bad guy get away or still live in some fashion. They get sequel squiggle-room as well as the overall scary statement that evil will always win. But, but. At least make a little sense when you write that last scene. Don’t just write a movie with an ending and then slap on some scene where apparently the last 30 minutes of the movie was just joshing and no progress was made.

Continuing my Halloween streak, I watched Friday the 13th. It was entertaining, but not a very good horror movie. Most of the action happened off screen, and the bad guy wasn’t shown until near the end. This didn’t cause suspense so much as fail to scare the viewer.

Despite not being scary, the acting was better than its contemporaries and it serves as a cool set up for future horror sequels. They didn’t really develop the Jason character much or establish his love for the chainsaw in this first one. I queued up Part II to see if they took the series cool places, though I guess Jason still doesn’t even wear a hockey mask in that one.

One of the characters would have been much better played by Angela Lansbury, on several levels. You’ll know it when you watch the movie.

I just finished watching Halloween, that classic horror movie with Jamie Lee Curtis. Holy crap, was it bad. I mean, OK, it was an early participant of its genre and established lots of stuff. But still.

Item the first: Michael Myers (the bad guy) has no motivation at all. He kills his sister for unknown reasons at age six. Busts out of a mental institution 15 years later and wants to kill some more. (Oh, I’m sorry. I guess his psychiatrist does mention that he is pure evil. That’s enough character development for me!)

He randomly picks Jamie and the kid she’s babysitting, neither of whom has any connection to him at all, to stalk and kill. They never interact with him at all except as victims; he only barely glimpses them upon returning to town. Presumably he also saw other people milling around. But, I guess they didn’t have a film crew following them, so it wouldn’t have been as dramatic…

Second, the dude apparently has asthma. Both his heavy breathing and sharp musical notes will announce his presence in a scene. So, surprise factor gone. He doesn’t help it either by moving at a leisurely stroll when pursuing victims that are screaming for help. Oh, and he’ll stand there for a minute just staring at you before he moves for the kill. Seriously. One character stood there and asked him pointed questions while he didn’t respond. Getting worried, she went for the phone and started dialing. Then he moved in for the kill. The man gave her a running start. What a sport.

But worst, worst of all is that two actors are credited for Michael — one as age 6, one as age 23. But 6-year-old Michael’s scene is during Halloween 1963, while 23-year-old Michael’s scene is during Halloween 1978. He aged 17 years in only 15! I mean sure, you’re out of touch when you’re locked in a mental hospital, but the rest of the world does not move so fast that relativity kicks in!