Best to worst: The James Bond series

I’ve been a Bond fan ever since I was a kid; I love the movies, the books, the games and absolutely everything about the series. I just finished my yearly marathon of the 23 films and while I already had a ranking of best-to worse in my head, I decided to write it down because it constantly changes every time I watch the movies.

The movies are ranked in order of my personal best to my personal worst, divided in three groups:

• Green: The best of the best, perfect or near perfect movies. They are rated between 4 and a perfect 5 out of 5.
• Yellow: Not great, but not terrible. These are the average to mediocre films, have a lot of good things but a lot of flaws that keep them from being truly great. They are rated between 2.5 and 3.5 out of 5.
• Red: The bottom of the barrel, they’re the worst films in the franchise, rated between 1 and 2 out of 5.

 So without further ado, let's begin:

The Bride of Frankenstein review

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Dir: James Whale

Lately I’ve been re-watching the Universal horror classics and in thinking which was my favorite I came to an easy solution. Many of them have not aged too well. Bela Lugosi’s "Dracula" works better today as a sleep aid than as entertainment, "The Invisible Man" still impresses with its effects but it’s rather silly, "House of Dracula" is terrible and "The Wolfman" is too melodramatic to take seriously. The first three Frankenstein films, House of Frankenstein and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are still outstanding and out of these, Bride of Frankenstein is the best.

The film directly follows the first, starting just a few moments after the end of the original. But not before subjecting the viewer to a terrible prologue in which Mary Shelley herself tells us that the monster survived the burning of the mill. It’s a really stupid moment and sometimes it is better to simply skip it and go straight to the story.

The story begins with Henry Frankenstein, who has abandoned plans to create living beings composed of body parts, only to fall back into temptation and ultimately be forced by the monster itself, which is under control of Henry's old mentor, Dr. Pretorius, to build him a mate.

The monster hasn’t had it easy, he barely survived the attack of the townspeople and from the beginning we can see just how brutal it has become, killing a man (the father of the girl it drowned in the first film) and his wife. Seeing the monster wiping out an entire family and that the movie is not afraid to kill off young people is something of a surprise considering the time it was made, but it’s these moments that make the monster more menacing.

However, as the story develops, the monster is given a lot more personality than in the first film. Here the talents of Boris Karloff are not reduced to grunts and screams, the monster becomes a much more compassionate and likeable character.

After the monster is attacked, burned, tied up and imprisoned, it escapes into the woods and finds an old blind man living in a cabin. This part is important because the man teaches it to speak (or at least express himself better), these moments are both comic and tender, making us more attached to the monster, something that rarely happens in horror movies.

Ernest Thesiger gives an amazing and daunting performance as the mad scientist, Dr. Pretorious. He easily steals the show by being more evil and fascinating than any other mad scientist in the history of horror movies.  His and Karloff’s are the best performances of the film. The rest of the performances vary from mediocre to just plain terrible. There are a few characters that barely do anything but annoy the living hell out of the viewer and most of the secondary cast tends to overact a lot, which takes a bit of the seriousness away from the movie. But this is easy to ignore.   

The ending is just excellent, one of the best in film history. The only really disappointing is that the bride appears for only a few minutes and doesn’t really do much at all, which is rare since the second half of the film is based entirely on search for her creation. Yet her presence is still iconic.

The production values are top notch, with huge, menacing sets, stylish camera angles, incredibly detailed makeup for both the monster and the bride, amazing special effects for its time and a musical score that is memorable and haunting.

It's not a perfect film, there’s dialogue that is completely ridiculous, secondary actors tend to overact and they are really annoying and the pacing and editing is a bit rough. Still, the decision to give the monster dialogue and an emotional side makes it more interesting and it’s entertaining from beginning to end. Quite simply a masterpiece.

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Review

The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (2010)

Dir: Tatsuya Ishihara/Yasushiro Takemoto

Even though I haven’t read the light novels upon which the series and this movie are based on I’ve got to say that the world and characters of the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise are my favorites alongside Evangelion, they’re wonderfully developed, ingenious and open to interpretation. This movie, while not without flaws, is no exception. 

Disappearance is based on the fourth novel in the series of the same name and it involves a lot of what we’re already used to see in the series, there’s time travel, some action, paranormal mystery and so on; but the true focus here is the characters, that’s what the franchise is all about. In a lot of ways this is just a very long tv episode, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The story is not awfully original or unexpected but it plays with our perceptions of time and space quite a bit more than it was done in the series and it’s also enjoyable enough that the two and a half hour running time is barely felt once the story picks up, the real problem is that it takes its sweet time setting everything up which drags the story a bit and makes the first few minutes rather boring. There are also some plotholes, confusions and inconsistencies but they’re rather expected with any story that deals heavily with time travel so they’re forgivable.

There’s a lot of great moments in the film that stand side-by-side with the bests of the series, some character interactions are enhanced and there’s a lot more focus on secondary characters, which is really great for every fan of theirs, especially Nagato Yuki fans such as myself because we get to see a side of her that is rarely (if ever) shown; this is a film that’s rich in characterization. All of these moments are made better by the performances of the voice actors, who bring their best and add a lot of emotional depth to the characters and situations.  

That’s not to say everything is great though, some parts of the film are overly melodramatic and not only is there an overuse of slow motion but whenever it is used it lasts way too long, which causes it to lose any dramatic impact it could have, becoming just tiresome. These few problems bring down an otherwise great story.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a fantastic looking show, boasting some of the best animation of any modern anime series. This is the reason I was rather disappointed with Disappearance’s animation, not because it’s bad, quite the contrary, it’s pretty good, but because it does not improve much from the show which is something one would expect from a movie; it does have some added depth and some nice looking effects but that’s about all, it’s still great looking but it left me with the feeling that it could’ve looked much, much better.

This is a movie with a lot of flaws but in the end it is still Haruhi and it still gives us what we want and expect from it: great characters in absurd situations that are just fun to watch, that’s what makes it a great film, beyond all the faults it still delivers a good experience. It’s not innovative and it doesn’t take the series into new directions but it doesn’t need to, its aim is just to give us more of what we want: the world of Haruhi Suzumiya and it does a great job at that.   

Love Exposure Review

Love Exposure (2008)

Dir: Sion Sono

How can I even begin to describe Love Exposure? It’s a film that feels very unique yet familiar. This four-hour epic masterfully combines Quentin Tarantino’s and Takashii Mike’s appetite for the bizarre and violent, Shunji Iwai’s dark touch and Akira Kurosawa’s humanity and social commentary.  It may also be the best movie to ever come out of Japan.

Writer/director Sion Sono builds a story that is as bizarre as it is human. The movie deals with the life of three young individuals living in the modern day Japanese society who have been emotionally and physically abused by their parents and find themselves in a love triangle that begins during a fateful street fight: Yuu, a Catholic boy struggling with the passing of his mother and his father’s ridiculous choices that lead him to become a worse and worse person just for the sake of it. Yoko, a misfit who finds every man disgusting and falls in love with a mysterious woman who turns out to be Yuu in drag and Koike, the leader of a cult and who manipulates nearly all the events through the course of the movie.

Sion Sono is a visual poet, as he has proven so many times before with his other movies, and this one is no different. Within its running time he manages to tackle issues like teenage alienation, religion and its various effects on people, fetishism, marriage and obsession. This added to the fact that each of the three main characters are developed individually before they finally connect makes for a dense and complex plot, but it’s made in such a way that it doesn’t feel hard to get and it never tires, it’s not a minute too long.  And while Sono expresses his opinions on these subjects very clearly through the course of the movie, in the end he leaves it to the viewer to decide what’s right or wrong.

With its four hours running time, Sono manages to develop absolutely every character, allowing the audience to build a connection with them as the story progresses. Very rarely do characters evolve in movies the way they do in this one, that’s part of the magic of it, the viewer cares about the characters, we care about their decisions and we care about what’s going to be the result of their actions, these feelings are something very few movies are capable of building. The story takes all sorts of different paths along the way, ranging from ridiculous to touching, from dark to funny, all of this with an incredible emotional balance, it’s also never predictable and it stays with you long after you watch it, these are the reasons why the script is so fantastic.

Even though it’s a very long movie it never bores, this is thanks to the amazing script but also to the editing, which keeps things moving at a steady pace without allowing us to miss anything. It’s also a marvel to watch as the cinematography is absolutely beautiful and stylized, taking full advantage of every location, sometimes it’s very unconventional but still manages to be great, meeting all the requirements from its story.

 While the acting might be rough in some places I found it to be overall pleasing.  Nishijima does and effective job as the lead in a great debut, though his delivery sometimes lacks impact it still satisfies. Sakura Andoo stands out as Koike, transforming herself into a love-to hate villain that is depraved, decadent, obsessed and borderline crazy; it’s a truly astonishing performance. My favorite performance of the three leads is Hikari Mitsushima’s, who shows the most range with her character Yoko, which is probably the one who changes the most through the story; she can be strong, crazy, in love, weak and more and can do everything amazingly well, her monologue during the last act has got to be the best performed and one of the best moments of the movie.  It also helps that she’s eye-bogglingly cute.  The rest of the cast also does a great job and al have memorable moments.

Another thing that is absolutely fantastic is the soundtrack, which is complements the action really well. The main theme is the stand out as it’s one of the most memorable in recent history. I can honestly say that this is my favorite soundtrack of all time and would not be out of place next to other classics.

Love Exposure is a lot of things: touching, dark, satiric, exciting, unpredictable, funny, bizarre, action-packed and more, it’s truly incredible how it manages to balance all these aspects and deliver a movie experience like no other. It’s a unique film, a masterpiece that remains memorable long after it’s over. It’s one of the best films to come out of Japan and I can go as far as saying one of the best of all time, it’s truly deserving of that praise.         

 

Your Highness (2011) Review

Your Highness (2011)

Dir: David Gordon Green

Ever since I saw the trailers I’ve been interested in this film, they looked really funny and it had a great cast to boot; besides I really liked the Pineapple Express and this looked like a great follow up of sorts. Also Zooey Deschanel.

The concept of this film is actually pretty original and as far as I know hasn’t been done before: taking an R-rated stoner comedy to a medieval fantasy land, a concept which the writers never really take full advantage of, becoming a mostly tedious collection of “suck my dick” jokes.

That’s not to say there aren’t any funny bits in the movie, most of them brought by Danny McBride who once again plays an unlikable asshole who turns out to be useful in the end (which has sort of become his on-screen persona) and Justin Theroux. The problem is that most of the jokes are dated and have been done before in better, funnier movies. They also never use the setting to their advantage, this movie might as well have taken place in New York or something like that, and the difference wouldn’t have been noticeable.

The biggest fault however is that it’s not focused, the movie throws many subplots that come out of nowhere and feel unnecessary and most of them are not funny. One in particular is when the heroes are kidnapped and put into a gladiatorial battle against some hand-shaped monster and the result is not only unfunny but also stupid, (hahaha they cut every head but the middle one, it’s like it’s giving the middle finger, get it? ”. Scenes like these feel like they’re catering to 5-graders instead of a mature audience.

The actors all do a good job for the most part, the only notable exception being Natalie Portman who seemed to be taking it way too seriously, even in the scenes that are supposed to be funny; maybe she just thought she was in a different movie? Justin Theroux is the only one who excels in his villain role, providing a great balance between ridiculous and evil to work. The biggest disappointment from the cast however, comes from Zooey Deschanel, who despite doing a good job and being funny enough in her damsel in distress role is not given nearly enough screen time as she deserves .

To make matters worse, the movie isn’t even technically competent, the special effects are crappy, and there are really bad audio synch issues and worst of all some really noticeable and unforgivable continuity problems. All of this detracts from the experience.

To be fair the movie does have quite a bit of funny moments and is recommendable for anyone who enjoys the Apatow brand of comedy. However, it underutilizes both its concept and its cast and it never quite fulfills the promise that the first half-hour establishes, after that it just veers into the realms of predictability and stupidity. And that’s why it’s such a big disappointment.

Best and Worst movies of 2010

There’s not a moment in this excruciatingly painful, cliché-filled ridiculously tedious excuse for a film that is not horrible. A star-filled orgy that does not work for either the romance or comedy. Just…terrible.

Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Tim Burton seem like a match made in heaven so such a great combination seemed, at first, like a brilliant idea. But the execution? A total borefest that might look pretty but turned into what’s probably Burton’s worst film, even worse than the mediocre Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

And Burton’s direction wasn’t the only disappointing thing. The performances? Uninspired, the music? Derivative, the script (the third act in particular)? Terrible. In the end the only amazing thing about this movie is just how Tim Burton managed to screw it up so royally.

Remember Me is not a good movie because of its lead actors, who are terrible and lack any real chemistry. But everything surrounding them is actually pretty great. The story is surprisingly captivating and shocking and the performances by Chris Cooper and Pierce Brosnan are absolutely sublime. It’s not a great movie, it could’ve been so much better with better leads, but for what I was expecting, it turned out pretty good.

With competition such as Natalie Portman in Black Swan, Jeremy Renner in The Town and Stephen Dorff in Somewhere, it wasn’t easy to pick a “best” performance of the year. But my favorite and the most surprisingly amazing of them all is Jesse Eisenberg who has come a lot way since being “Michael Cera 2.0”. His Mark Zucerkberg is cold, manipulative, calculating and mesmerizing. He has proven to be one of the finest young actors and I hope we see more of this in the future.

Cliché as the choice might be, Inception is still the best movie of the year. There’s not a dull moment through the movie, and the whole film is a constant climax. Few directors are as good in combining exciting and well made action pieces with a well-crafted and interesting story as Christopher Nolan is. Not only that but every performance is incredible and the soundtrack is among the best of all time. Inception is proof that originality in blockbuster movies isn’t dead yet.

Runner-ups:

Black Swan started as one thing and ended as something completely different. It’s so well made that it works as a psychological drama, a thriller and even a horror movie and it’s all thanks to Darren Aronofsky’s bold direction and Natalie Portman’s incredible performance. Masterfully shot, visually compelling and superbly acted.

More than a movie, Enter the Void is an experience. It doesn’t bother with trivial things such as a plot, or dialogue, or even music. It’s all about showing death from another perspective. It’s an interesting way to see the afterlife and it won’t leave the viewer’s mind even after they finish watching it.

The ghost Writer is such a tight and well-crafted movie that is hard to leave it out the list. Roman Polanski (who I’ve always considered overrated) does a great job at setting up tension and gets the performance of a lifetime out of Pierce Brosnan.

The Kids Are Allright is a heartwarming story that takes us deep into the psyche of what to many might seem like an uncommon family. It’s beautifully told thanks to the great direction, fantastic script and emotionally charged performances by Annette Benning, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo.

Funny, action-packed, wonderfully edited and infinitely quotable. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is perfect in almost every imaginable way, from the casting to the music to the translation of the comics. It’s definitely the best video game movie, and it’s not even based on a videogame!

The Social Network is a lot like its main character: smart, funny, dark, sometimes cold, exciting and always unpredictable. A very well directed work with surprisingly fantastic performances by its three leads . Definitely one of the most memorable of the year.

The first 30 or so minutes of Somewhere are all about setting a mood, showing us the lonely, sometimes boring life of a big Hollywood star (played amazingly by Stephen Dorff). If this had been done by any other director it would’ve been just plain boring, but under the hands of Sofia Coppola it’s just great. She is a master at creating great characters who the viewer can relate to, and the story itself is a roller coaster of emotions. It’s not quite as awe-inspiring as Lost in Translation was, but this is an absolute masterpiece.

Going back some 4 years ago when I first watched Armageddon, one thing I couldn’t get off my mind besides “man, this movie sucks” was “Ben Affleck is a pretty terrible actor” and I confirmed this after watching Daredevil and Surviving Christmas. Who would’ve thought that only a few years later he would not only deliver an amazing performance, but also co-write and direct one of my favorite movies of the year? The Town owes a lot to Heat and though it’s not as great as that movie it feels more human. My only real criticism: Jon Hamm.

Probably the darkest, most complex and haunting movie of 2010 and Jennifer Lawrence’s star making performance is something that proves to be hard to forget, even month’s after watching it for the first time.

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Special thanks to Adriana Gómez for the designs.

Just Dance 2 review

Just Dance 2 had me from the moment I started playing the first song, which if I remember correctly was A-Punk by Vampire Weekend, one of my favorites. And that’s a lot to say considering I was expecting this to be complete garbage and something I got to keep my girlfriend and friends entertained during parties with its gimmicks. Who would’ve thought this would be one of the most fun rhythm games I’ve played and a must for parties.

The whole point of Just Dance 2 is to lose your inhibitions; it’s all about looking silly while recreating the moves seen on the screen. The Wiimote is held in the right hand and used to perform the moves. Why isn’t the balance board used is beyond me but that’s not a big deal considering I don’t have one and the motion controls are pretty accurate even without motion plus.

The most surprising thing of all is that performing the moves with just the remote doesn’t feel random at all, there’s always some level of technique required to nail the moves. Screwing up will result in no points and waving the control around randomly isn’t going to cut it, you have to do the exact moves or you’re just going to flat out fail. Another interesting thing is that real life dancing skills will translate into the game, for example I have a friend who is a pretty great dancer and was able to pretty much nail every move and perform from head to toe almost exactly like the dancers on the screen, the difference in the score was notable.

The song list is also fantastic and diverse. There are many genres and styles covered in this 40 song list. From 80s classics such as The Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian and Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go , international tunes from India and Africa, old school classics like Elvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas and Harry Belafonte’s Jump in the Line and more recent hits such as Outkast’s Hey Yah and Rihanna’s S.O.S. The variety of songs is impressive and while there are a few turn-offs, for the most part there are more hits than misses.

Graphically, Just Dance 2 is a great looking game. The neon-looking dancers and song specific outfits and backgrounds all look fantastic. It’s a nice touch that both the choreography and background match the style of the song, for example there’s a desert and pyramids in the Walk like an Egyptian stage, the dancers have mullets and short shorts in Wake Me up Before You Go-Go and Kris Kross’ Jump has a ghetto-looking background and the lyrics will appear in graffiti during the song. Though it’s lacking a bit on the menu presentation and design, Just Dance 2 is an overall great looking game.

The choreography is also excellent and more often than not, hilarious to perform and see your friend performs. Duets, which feature two dancers to follow, are probably the funniest part as both dancers have unique choreography and more often than not will have you striking hilarious poses. The only downside to the choreography is that it requires plenty of space to perform, especially duets as spins and crossovers are usually part of the routine.

The game itself lacks depth but that’s not really important and the lack of a single player career mode doesn’t hurt Just Dance 2 because playing alone is not the point of the game, it’s all about playing with friends and it works wonderfully well at providing a fun, accessible and hilarious experience. As far as “casual” Wii games go, Just Dance 2 is one of the best.

GoldenEye 007 Wii Review

The 007 videogame series has had a rough time since it hit its peak with Everything or Nothing back in 2004: GoldenEye: Rogue Agent was at best a mediocre FPS and at worst a tedious exercise in frustration, From Russia With Love was decent enough to play all the way through but utterly forgettable, Quantum of Solace was a step in the right direction but it was held back by glitches and a frustrating campaign and Blood Stone… well, Blood Stone just downright sucked. Thankfully, Activision has hit the jackpot with this remake of the classic N64 game, which comes closest to provide a superb 007 experience.

Now, let’s be honest for a second. Goldeneye 007 has aged poorly. Most people hold it in high regard because of nostalgia, but considering the advancements in the genre over the years, it stands as a nearly unplayable first person shooter today. That’s not to say it’s a terrible game. When it came out I was among those who went batshit over it. But truth is, nowadays it stands as nothing but a piece of videogame history.

The great thing about Activision’s Goldeneye remake for the Wii is that it doesn’t rely on nostalgia. It improves on absolutely every aspect of the original and it’s a fantastic game on its own right. In fact, it would’ve been just as good without the Goldeneye name backing it up.

The story pits Bond against the Janus organization, which has taken over the Goldeneye satellite and plans to use it to steal all the money from the bank of England. While this sounds awfully similar to the original game’s (and movie) storyline, the locations, characters and several scenes have been reworked to fit Daniel Craig’s version of Bond so it feels grittier and modern, which is a welcomed addition.

The single player portion provides an exciting globe-trotting experience and features a strong variety of gameplay elements and enemy types. While most of it consists of shooting levels, there are also vehicle and stealth missions, Quick-time Events and boss battles. The gameplay is pretty refined and borrows a lot from Infinity Ward’s and Trechyard’s Call of Duty series, especially from Trechyard’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex as the controls are for the most part the same, but tweaked to make them more fluid. While there’s a variety of control option including Gamecube and Classic Control support, I always felt at ease with the Wiimote + Nunchuck combo as they’re very fluid and consistently accurate. I’d go as far as saying that they are only second to Metroid Prime Trilogy as the best fps controls on the Wii.

One of the best things about the campaign is that it’s challenging. I died… a lot. Now that might have been because I suck at fps and videogames in general but it was mostly because the game’s difficulty is very balanced, it’s never too hard, but it’s never easy. The enemy AI in particular is really well made, they are smart and react accordingly to your actions, taking cover and running from place to place to find the best spot to take you down, among other things. The best thing about it is that the gameplay is so well designed that I can only remember a couple of occasions where I felt that my dead was the game’s fault and not because of a poor decision I made.

The multiplayer aspect was what people remember most fondly about the original Goldeneye and for the remake it comes back with all the gameplay refinements present in the single player campaign, as well as new modes, weapons and characters. While the offline is rather disappointing in that it doesn’t feature AI bots, it still is enjoyable. The online is among the best the Wii has to offer, there’s a highly competitive community so it’s never difficult to find a match in any of the modes and none of the games I’ve played so far suffered from any lag so it’s pretty smooth as far as I’m concerned. The variety of modes is also nice; Golden Gun mode in particular is amazingly fun. And the XP progression and unlockables make it really addictive too.

Graphically, Goldeneye stands shoulder to shoulder with first party Nintendo games as an excellent looking game. The levels are rich in detail and the character design and animation is also excellent. The game is also really colorful, which is a nice contrast to the grey-looking style of the Call of Duty series and most modern FPS. The voice acting, which sees Craig and Judi Dench reprising their roles from the movies, is also well done.

Goldeneye is not without its flaws. The frame rate tends to drop quite a bit when things get hectic, it suffers from long loading times and the original music is forgettable. But for everything it does wrong, it does twice as much right. Eurocom has made an excellent job at updating the venerable shooter and making this remake not only one of the best for the Wii, but also of this generation.