My Review: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D

This was my favorite movie when I was nine years old. My uncle Ryan took me and my cousins to go see this at Lake 7 theater in Rice Lake, WI. I remember thinking that it was the coolest thing that I had ever seen, and soon became totally obsessed with it. I had a Star Wars backpack, a Star Wars lunchbox, a Star Wars calender (that was really cool because it had flip book animations of scenes from the movie), and I was Darth Maul for Halloween that year. It was kinda shitty because lots of other kids were too and my mom was way late in buying my costume so while the other kids had the cool normal sized double sided lightsaber, I had one half the size and it was filled with candy. So, now it is almost 13 years later and I was psyched when I saw that this movie was being released in 3D. The Phantom Menace is the least bad of all of the Star Wars prequels and is filled with great scenes like the podracing scene and an extremely epic lightsaber battle between Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Maul. Here are the main reasons why I went to see ths movie:

• I thought that the lightsaber battle and pod race scenes would look epic in 3D
• Nostalgia
• To see if the underwater scene would scare me as much as it did when I was nine (seriously I had my hands over my eyes the whole scene)
• Ewan McGregor is crazy beautiful
• Um..its Star Wars....

Since this movie wasn't made to be in 3D, there aren't any really cool 3D moments. It was basically like watching it the first time, except now Yoda is CGI. They probably did it to make it consistent with the second two prequels, but I like puppet Yoda better. I still think that seeing this was worth the $9 and 15 minute bus ride, though. One of the greatest things about seeing Star Wars movies in theaters is hearing Ben Burtt's great sound design. The sound during the pod race is just amazing. Everytime the pods rounded a corner, I was just like "wow!"
Its also cool to watch this now that I know that Keira Knightley is Natalie Portman's decoy. I remember being shocked when I found out that Padme was Queen Amidala. That to me was my Crying Game scene. Except instead of Dil having a penis, it was Portman being the queen. I really couldn't tell the difference between Natalie as queen and Knightley as decoy queen.

Now that it is 13 years later and I have a shitload of movies featuring these two actresses, I can easily tell the two of them apart. It was interesting seeing how many times Knightley is in the background in just her handmaiden robe. Speaking of Queen Amidala, how amazing is her wardrobe? I used to have this book that came out with the book and there was a few pages dedicated to her wardrobe and I ended up ruining the book by cutting them all out. I wish I hadn't done that now because that book was really cool. It has lists of all the droids and spaceships and everything. Anyways, Queen Amidala has the most amazing clothes. Here are my favorite outfits.

Also, that lightsaber battle is just amazing!



Poor Ewan McGregor always has to have someone die in his arms. I'm surprised Qui-Gonn didn't say "tell a story Christian...or Obi-Wan." Speaking of Ewan McGregor...how gorgeous is this guy?!!?!?

Seeing this again made me realize how little he is in this movie. At least he is in the best scene in the movie. (I am referring again to the lightsaber battle).

So in conclusion, although the 3D aspect was somewhat disappointing, and I prefer puppet Yoda, this was really fun to see in theaters again.



Spotlight On: Ewan McGregor

This is a spotlight that is way overdue! I can't believe I haven't done a spotlight on Ewan McGregor already! I have had a major crush on him ever since I saw Moulin Rouge when I was around eleven years old. He is an amazing actor who can do a whole variety of roles. He has done comedy, drama, musicals, romance, war movies, and has even played a jedi. He also happens to be one of the most gorgeous human beings on the face of the Earth. He just has a smile that makes you happy and a beautiful pair of blue eyes. Here are some of my favorites of the movies he has been in.

Trainspotting

Here McGregor plays a heroin addict named Renton who spends the movie trying to get clean only to get back on the junk again. There are a lot of really disturbing scenes in this movie that really show how degrading and horrible being an addict is. We see Renton digging through a disgusting toilet filled with shit looking for his drugs, and one of the most disturbing scenes in the movie is a nightmare sequence when he is detoxing at his parents' house.


Emma

Emma is my absolute favorite Jane Austen novel, so it is really cool that McGregor has played one of her characters. He plays Frank Churchill, who ends up being kind of a douche. He is someone that Emma crushes on for a while, but we eventually find out that the whole time he was engaged to Jane Fairfax. He ends up making Mr. Knightley very jealous because he thinks that Emma is falling for him.


A Life Less Ordinary

I just watched this movie for the first time today, and I thought it was kind of odd. It is a romantic comedy, but there were parts that were pretty disturbing. It is about a guy who kidnaps his former bosses daughter because he lost his job. The girl doesn't really care that she has been kidnapped and even helps him out. Also, there are two angels who are trying to get the two of them to fall in love. What I mean by disturbing is that there is a part where one of the angels makes Ewan dig his own grave and tells him he is going to shoot him. It was horrifying! This was an odd movie, but it does have some cute scenes.


Velvet Goldmine

Curt Wild! I love this movie so much! Ewan plays Curt Wild, a rock star who is based on Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. Ewan is just sexy as hell in this movie! This has a lot of great actors in it like Christian Bale, Toni Collette, and Jonathon Rhys Meyers, but my absolute favorite character is Ewan McGregor as Curt Wild.



Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Say what you will about the Star Wars prequels, but Ewan McGregor was a great young Obi Wan. They give him some pretty cheesy dialogue in the second two films, but I love him in this one. He is probably the best looking jedi ever and was a part of one of the best lightsaber battles in any of the Star Wars films!



Moulin Rouge

I do not think that it is possible to watch this movie and not fall madly in love with Ewan McGregor as Christian. Here he plays a young writer who falls in love with a courtesan. It starts out wonderful, but he has to deal with the fact that she has to sleep with The Duke. Basically this whole movie makes me cry, but one of the most heartbreaking scenes is when Satine is forced to tell Christian that she doesn't love him to save his life. This whole movie is just heartbreaking! It probably wouldn't be so bad if Ewan wasn't so damn perfect in this movie! He is just beautiful and his singing voice is amazing...I just love this movie and him in it so much! Just listening to him sing Come What May makes me want to cry...



Big Fish

One of the rare Tim Burton movies that doesn't feature Johnny Depp. Here McGregor plays Edward Bloom a man who may or may not have had a bunch of extraordinary things happen in his life. McGregor plays him from his teen years to around middle age. There are so many great scenes in this movie, and one of my favorites is the scene at the circus when he first sees his future wife...


The Island

This is a really cool science fiction movie where McGregor and Scarlett Johansson play people who believe they are in an underground shelter for survivors of a horrible apocalypse, but they eventually find out that they are really clones who were made so that their organs could be used to help the people they are clones of. Both this movie and the movie Never Let Me Go are examples of moral issues with cloning. Even though clones are made not born naturally, they are still people.



I Love You Phillip Morris

When I first saw the trailer for this movie I thought that it looked stupid, but I'm really glad that I ended up watching it. Ewan is just so sweet and adorable as Phillip Morris, a man who falls in love while in prison. Every time his character talks in this movie you just want to give him a big hug.



Beginners

This was a super cute movie. Ewan plays a man whose 75 year old father comes out to him as gay. This films is also about a relationship he starts with a pretty actress he meets after his dad dies. This movie was just charming! It is a movie that can put you in a good mood even while making you a little sad.



Haywire

Some good looking men in this movie! It not only has Ewan, but also Channing Tatum AND Michael Fassbender! That alone was worth the movie ticket prices!


Upcoming: He has two movies coming out in the near future that I really want to see. The first is Salmon Fishing in the Yemen with Emily Blunt. If it were anyone else I probably wouldn't want to see it because I really don't care about fishing, but since it has Ewan it'll probably be good. I also want to see Perfect Sense, which he is in with Eva Green. I think that that movie looks really interesting.

Character of the Week: Christian from Moulin Rouge

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and every Valentine's Day I have a tradition where I watch Moulin Rouge. Moulin Rouge has been one of my favorite movies ever since it came out when I was about 11 years old. I love everything about this movie, but one of my favorite things about it is Ewan McGregor as Christian. I remember being 11 years old and falling madly in love with this fictional character. Christian is a young man who moves to Paris to be a writer and live among the bohemian society. Eventually he fall in love with Satine, a courtesean who is dying of consumption (but he doesn't know that...) He also has a great singing voice and is incredibly gorgeous.

My Review: Haywire

Why do female action heroes always have to be super serious? There really aren't that many female action stars (it is basically just Angelina Jolie, Milla Jovovich and Kate Beckinsale) and when we see female action heroes, they never get to be funny or charming like James Bond. That is plainly shown in Haywire. Gina Carano is a badass in this movie. She is kicking ass and taking names but is just super serious throughout. I really just want to see a movie with a female action star who can kick some serious ass but still smile and make jokes and have cool dialogue. Female action heroes get really lame dialogue, or they just don't speak at all like Miho in Sin City and Etain in Centurion. So anyway....movie review. I thought that this movie was okay. I really didn't think that it was all that memorable. I ended up not really caring about the plot at all and was just waiting for the fight scenes, which were the best parts of the movie. I thought that all of the supporting cast members were really underused. With the exception of the main character Mallory, you hardly saw any of the characters. I really don't understand why this movie needed so many bad guys. I hate to say it but I really didn't see why we needed Michael Fassbender's character. He was barely in the movie and it was a total waste of a good actor. Michael Douglas' and Antonio Banderas' characters also seemed pretty unimpotant. The movie was really only worth seeing for the awesome fight scenes. She kicks the shit out of some really good looking guys! (Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, AND Ewan McGregor....DAMN!) The fight with Fassbender in the hotel room was probably the sexiest man/woman fight scene since Mr. and Mrs. Smith....If I were you I would wait for the DVD and skip past all the boring parts. My rating: 5/10

My Most Anticipated Movies for 2012 (Part 1)

I'm going to this this three months at a time because my list always gets too long and I end up forgetting some. So... here are the movies I plan to see in January, February, and March of 2012.

JANUARY

The Devil Inside

Its been a while since I've seen a movie in theaters that actually scared me, and I'm hoping that The Devil Inside will do just that. Although I'm getting sick of all these exorcism movies, this movie does look pretty freaky. The first time I saw the trailer it did give me a bit of a fright. Of course, so did the trailer for Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and that movie was kind of shitty.



Underworld: Awakening

I still haven't seen Underworld: Evolution all the way through, but I have until January to watch it. This movie actually looks pretty cool. I'm loving the little werewolf/ vampire hybrid girl, and Kate Beckinsale looks awesome as always in her black leather suit.



Haywire

This really isn't my type of movie at all. I think that the plot of this movie is something that has been done a million times before and it doesn't really look all that interesting to me. Why do I want to see it then? Well for starters it has Ewan McGregor and Channing Tatum...definitely some eye candy. And oh yeah...MICHAEL FASSBENDER. If that handsome Irish actor is in a movie, you know my ass is going to be in those theater seats.



We Need to Talk About Kevin

This is a book that I was planning to read because I heard that it was both really good and really disturbing. Now I guess I don't have to because I can go see this movie.(And all the literary snobs cry...) From what I have read about the plo,t the trailers that I have seen haven't really given too much away about what this movie is really about. I guess it is about parents dealing with the fact that their teenage son shot up his high school.



Albert Nobbs

I saw the trailer for this movie when I went to see Like Crazy and thought that it looked really interesting. Glenn Close plays a woman who pretends to be a man called Albert Nobbs.



FEBRUARY

The Woman in Black

I love me a good ghost story! This movie looks really cool and the fact that it is produced by Hammer makes it that much better.



W.E.

What make this movie neat is that it is directed by Madonna. This story is about Edward VIII and how he gives up the throne for the woman he loves. We got a hint of this story in The King's Speech, though that movie focuses on his brother. I am curious to learn more about Edwards story with this movie, because in The King's Speech I really didn't care so much for his character. Plus, maybe seeing Abbie Cornish and Oscar Isaac in this will make me forgive them for Sucker Punch.



This Means War

Totally going to see this just because it has Tom Hardy. He always plays such super serious characters, so it'll be nice to see him to a comedy. Also, I love Chelsea Handler, so it'll be cool to see her in this as well.



MARCH

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

There is not a poster or a trailer for this movie yet, but with a title like that, how could you not want to see it?

The Raven

I have never read anything by Edgar Allen Poe, with the exception of a few poems (including The Raven) but that is something that I plan to fix in the future. This movie stars John Cusack as the famous writer, and is about a series of murders that are inspired by his novels.



Mirror Mirror

I'm actually still debating whether or not I really want to see this movie because it looks corny as hell! I might still see it so that I can compare it to Snow White and the Huntsman which comes out later in the year.



21 Jump Street

This movie actually looks pretty funny. I think that Channing Tatum is much better in his comedic roles than his dramatic ones. Plus...I read somewhere that Johnny Depp is going to have a cameo!!



The Hunger Games

I'm really not a fan of YA novels, but from what I've read about this movie it seems like an interesting story. A part of me is curious and wants to read the books, but another part of me just wants to wait to see the movie so that I can be surprised.



Wrath of the Titans

While I am still irked that they replaced Alexa Davalos as Andromeda, I am curious to see this movie. It actually looks pretty cool, and I'm always up for seeing Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes!

Spotlight On: Tim Burton

This week the spotlight is on one of my other favorite directors, Tim Burton. I am always really excited when one of his movies is coming out because I know that it will be really different and interesting and have really cool visuals. His films are known to be very dark and sort of gothic, and that is what I love about them. You can always tell when a film is a Tim Burton film. Here are my favorites of his films (which is basically all of them...)

Vincent

This was a stop motion animation short film that he made in 1982. It is about a boy who likes to make believe that he is Vincent Price. What is really cool is that Vincent Price actually narrates it.

This movie was one of my absolute favorites when I was a kid, and to tell the truth, it still is. It has a great cast and is just a really cool movie. There really aren't any other movies like Beetlejuice.



<Batman

People don't seem to remember that there were pre-Nolan Batman movies that were actually good! The Batman series was just temporarily ruined by the shitstorm known as Batman and Robin. Tim Burton's Batman movies were fantastic, and this one is famous for having Jack Nicholson as the Joker. People often compare his performance to Heath Ledger, but one is not better than the other, they just have completely different approaches.



Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands was Tim Burtons first of many collaborations with Johnny Depp, and is probably my favorite of Burton's films. I just love how there is the contrast between Edward with his big scary castle and the townspeople with their pastel world. This is also the final film appearance of the great Vincent Price.



Batman Returns

This is my favorite Batman movie. I love the entire cast, especially Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle/ Catwoman and Danny DeVito as Oswald Cobblepot/ Penguin. This movie is definitely a lot darker than the first Batman movie, and there is more trademark Tim Burton visuals.





The Nightmare Before Christmas

While Tim Burton did not actually direct this film, he did come up with the story and create all of the characters, so it is still very much his film. This movie has some of the best stop motion animation I have ever seen, and is full of all of these great characters and songs. This is a movie that I have seen a million or so times and will see a million more times.



 Ed Wood

Such a good movie. This is Burtons second collaboration with Depp and is a film about the "world's worst director," Edward D. Wood Jr. It features great performances by Depp and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi. Apparently what attracted Burton to this project was that the relationship between Wood and Lugosi reminded him of his relationship with another horror great, Vincent Price.



Mars Attacks!

A tribute to 1950s/ 1960s sci fi films, Mars Attacks! is a hilarious sci fi spoof that has some of the coolest looking aliens on film. I hadn't seen this movie since I was a little kid, and then i rented it a little while ago and i completely forgot how much I used to love this movie. It has Jack Nicholson as the president, Sarah Jessica Parker's head on a dog's body, aliens heads exploding...this movie is just fantastic...



Sleepy Hollow

This is another movie that I absolutely loved as a kid and still love to this day. Despite his earlier films having horror elements, this is Burton's first actual horror film. The art direction in this movie is gorgeous. The whole city is very grey and dark along with all of the peoples clothes and all of the colors are very saturated, except of course for the red, red blood.



Planet of the Apes

Not the best of Burton's films, but I think that it is still worth mentioning. It features great gorilla makeup by Rick Baker, which is probably the greatest thing about the movie. I did like this movie, but it is nowhere near as good as the original.


Big Fish

I always thought that this movie was really cool. Like all Tim Burton films it features amazing visuals, and it has a really interesting storyline and a great cast including Ewan McGregor, Alison Lohman, Helena Bonham Carter, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Billy Crudup, and Marion Cotillard.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I am a big fan of the original movie with Gene Wilder, so by comparison this movie isn't my favorite. I still think that it is a fun movie though and does have some better visuals than the original. For example, the chocolate river actually looks like a chocolate river in this movie, instead of brown water. My favorite part of the movies is HERE

Corpse Bride

This movie has gorgeous stop motion animation, characters, songs, and voice acting by people such as Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.



Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I love horror and I love musicals, so if you combine the two then I am one happy camper. This movie is amazing! It has a similar look to Sleepy Hollow, with the desaturated colors and bright reds. It also has, in my opinion, Johnny Depp's greatest performances. Who knew he could sing too? I love all of the songs in this movie, and all of the gore is fantastic, and this movie is just one of my favorites.



Alice in Wonderland

I saw this movie in 3D, and it just looked so cool. My favorite characters in this movie are probably the Cheshire Cat, the March Hare, and I love Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen. My favorite part of this movie was when yelled, "IDIOT!" at Cripin Glover's character.