Posts Tagged → bad CG
Review: Super 8
![Super 8 [Paramount]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/super82.jpg "Super 8 [Paramount]")
Warning: The review below contains very minor spoilers for Super 8. If you’re so spoiler-averse you can’t stand to learn that ‘the good guys win’ and other relatively inconsequential things, beware!
Confession time: I’ve never seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I wasn’t even born when E.T. came out, and I think the last time I saw that I was like seven. I have no connection to this nostalgic Steven Spielberg people keep touting while hailing J.J. Abrams’ Super 8.
The Spielberg I nostalgia-bomb myself with is the guy in the 101st Airborne jacket, the guy behind Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Munich or Schindler’s List. Spielberg’s films fill the viewer with a certain sense of awe, wonder and adventure, and even Spielberg’s weaker entries fare far better than anything Super 8 can muster.
Super 8 is a mess. A mess that starts off promising but ends up falling apart under its own weight. This is unfortunate because there is a bevy of strong performances from the movie’s cast of kids and some interesting concepts but, like most summer schlock these days, the concept is the only aspect of the film that’s been fleshed out. Abrams had an idea for a movie and shot it before anyone finished writing the last act. READ MORE!
Review: Unstoppable
![Unstoppable [Twentieth Century Fox]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/unstoppable_xlg-690x1024.jpg "Unstoppable [Twentieth Century Fox]")
Tony Scott’s directorial output over the past decade has been rife with eye-bleedingly obnoxious symphonies of shakycam shenanigans and over-stylized mishmash. Among the most annoying offenders are his shots in which the camera dollies in a circle at ludicrous speed around something as innocuous as a character sitting at a computer or having a normal, irrelevant inside-voices conversation.
Suffice to say, I was not looking forward to Unstoppable. The last time Tony Scott played with a train set we ended up with the miserable The Taking of Pelham 123. Pelham 123’s opening scenes feature John Travolta in freeze-frame cosplaying as a member of the Village People and set against the dulcet tones of Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.” It is utterly ridiculous.
I braced myself against the seat, awaiting the inevitable wave of thumping bass, freeze frames and joyless camera-tossed-in-a-clothes-dryer action.
Jarringly, it didn’t come. READ MORE!
Apocalyptic Double Feature: Legion vs. Book of Eli
![Legion vs. The Book of Eli [Screen Gems + Warner Bros.]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/legion-vs-eli3.jpg "Legion vs. The Book of Eli [Screen Gems + Warner Bros.]")
Last week, an earthquake ravaged the greater Washington area (the ground shook a little bit and I think a mailbox may have fallen over) and the good citizens of Rockville, Maryland were aflutter the next morning, visions of Roland Emmerich’s latest apocalyptic masterpiece (prophecy???) fresh in their hearts and minds. While this unprecedented catastrophe (the earthquake, not the Emmerich movie) sent the uninformed masses running frantically to consult the nearest Mayan calendar, I was merely inspired to dust off my 2012 DVD. READ MORE!
Review: The Last Airbender
![M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender [Photo - Paramount]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/wallpap.jpg "M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender [Photo - Paramount]")
The experience of watching The Happening unfold on the silver screen to an unsuspecting audience is something that can never be replicated. The trailers hinted at something frightening, some new twist M. Night Shyamalan would pull on us. Watching that unfold and collapse under so much unintentional hilarity and wooden acting so unimaginably bad is something I never expected would happen again.
Enter The Last Airbender. READ MORE!
Review: Jonah Hex
![Jonah Hex [Photo - Warner Bros.]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/jonah_hex.jpg "Jonah Hex [Photo - Warner Bros.]")
Just about the only thing Jonah Hex has going for it is its running time: discounting the credits sequence, the movie’s really only about 75 minutes long. Please don’t take this as a recommendation. Standing outside in the sun’s harsh ultraviolet rays for the same amount of time is much more entertaining, and you save a few bucks to boot. Nothing in Jonah Hex works, from the characters to the action to the writing and the special effects: it’s all a boring, stilted mess. READ MORE!
Triweekly Podcast: Of Biker Boyz and Men
What’s this, again? Has it been three weeks already? IT HAS BEEN LIKE FIVE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU
![Not pictured - DEADLY BARBS [Photo - Bjork.com]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/bjorkcom-desktop05-1024.jpg "Not pictured - DEADLY BARBS [Photo - Bjork.com]")
Woogmoog Triweekly Podcast 06-17-2010
Click, click, click above to listen! (Click only once)
YOU AIN’T GOT NO PANCAKE MIX:
- The A-Team
- Torque
- Timothy Olyphant, the star of Torque
- Biker Boyz
- Piranha 3D, savior of Summer 2010
- Example #514 of someone from The Wire whose name isn’t Idris Elba and is stuck in a horrible movie (not counting Prom Night because that movie is suck, redefined)
- More people should like Neil Marshall and Doomsday
- Punisher: War Zone is Season 6 of The Wire
- Josh Brolin is apparently in Men in Black 3
- Have you ever seen Sphere? Explain.
- Splice and Björk
- WHAT IF you could somehow make Mortal Kombat dumber?
- E3!
MUSIC
Intro: Pat and Mike
Outro: Pat
Hate mail? RIGHT THIS WAY, BUCKO
We’ve pared down the length because apparently folks who have lives can’t stand to listen to us prattle on and on for hours and hours. We live to serve, condensed or no. Enjoy!
Review: The A-Team
![The A-Team [Photo - 20th Century Fox]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ateam_wallpaper3_1024X7681.jpg "The A-Team [Photo - 20th Century Fox]")
The A-Team looked like crap. It looked like the worst kind of excessive, remake-happy Hollywood tripe. The trailer, in all of its CG-idiocy, coasted on nostalgia-bombing the audience with Mr. T references and playing the original theme song.
So it came as an enormous surprise when I walked out of the theater completely stoked. The movie is an incredibly satisfying blast. The trailers made this seem much more serious than any summer movie ought to be, which is a shame because the movie’s playful tone is pretty great. Much of this is due to director/writer Joe Carnahan’s electrifying script and sharp pacing; just as much praise needs to be heaped upon the delightful work done by the entire cast. There’s not a flat note in the entire enterprise. READ MORE!
Review: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
![Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time [Photo: Disney]](http://www.woogmoog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/PrinceOfPersia_Poster1-692x1024.jpg "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time [Photo: Disney]")
Here’s the main problem with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – it’s already been done about as impeccably as can be done in its 2003 video game incarnation. The movie never comes close to achieving the greatness that that game achieved; then again, Sands of Time is quite literally one of the ten greatest gaming experiences ever, so failing to reach so high a bar isn’t so bad for this movie.
What Sands of Time the film is, however, is a serviceable action-adventure that lasts too long and relies too heavily on very ugly CG and up-close camera angles. READ MORE!