Holli Rausch

The Movie Club tried to use Video On Demand to watch The Other Boleyn Girl, but since it wasn’t a part of the list, we rented it on Blu-Ray. I was highly disappointed by this movie. I was expecting it to be comparable to The Tudors (of which, I’ve only seen the first few episodes). Miles thinks it was mostly the direction. He’s probably right.

There were so many times where I thought, “What? That doesn’t even make sense!” If you’re pulled out of the movie in this way, it’s never a good sign – and it happened multiple times. So many things unexplained and characters would do things that just didn’t make sense for the way they had set them up. Even though you probably know how it all ends, I don’t want to go into specifics of this because of spoilers.

I couldn’t hear anything that was said because everything was spoken in a whisper, no matter how loud the TV was.

Ever since this SNL digital short, (offensive language/suggestion used) I can’t help but thoroughly enjoy Natalie Portman – even though I didn’t enjoy the way her character was portrayed in certain parts of the movie (again, probably a reflection of the direction). Eric Bana and Scarlett Johansson did probably as best as they could. But the intensity of the passion and scandals weren’t as intense as I felt it should have been and when any of the characters were convicted wrongly at trial, or at even if convicted justly, I didn’t feel bad for them. The whole movie left me feeling … *blah*. Miles asked me, three hours later, what I thought of it and it took several moments to even remember what we had seen. It left no impression.

I *did* enjoy one thing from the movie. The exterior establishing shots. They were of buildings and villages in a style I tend to fall in love with – high contrast with a hint of a goldish hue. If the rest of the movie had been in this same style, I would have had something to be interested in.

It was a movie based on historical events and it could have been better. I have such a bland feeling toward it that I don’t know how to rate it, but just for the sake of rating, I give The Other Boleyn Girl a 2 out of 5 stars.

Watch The Tudors instead – it’s about most of the same characters.

Edit 07/11/08, 8:45PM: Miles has reminded me the reason why we didn’t continue watching The Tudors was because what we saw contained a surprising amount of partial nudity; it is rated Mature.  The Other Boleyn Girl did not have nudity; it is rated PG-13.

When we arrived at the Rausch Reunion on Thursday, about 18 cousins (and 2nd/3rd cousins) were set to go see Hancock, so we joined them. I enjoyed the first half of the movie. I hated the second half. And it seemed like pretty much all of the first half I’d already seen in previews. The second half had this odd twist that 1) I saw coming with the first very slight indication and 2) did not add depth to the movie, nor improved it.

I did enjoy the story and struggle of Hancock. I was also really pleased to find that Jason Bateman, playing Ray, has a much large role in this film than I thought. But of course, the story of Hancock and Ray trying to help his image, wasn’t the main plot in this movie and that left me highly disappointed.

The visual effects were less than satisfactory. The compositing of Hancock flying through a city was a wreck and the only way they could hide it was by shaking the camera and adding a motion blur to his image.

I’d like to get more in depth with this, but this is truly all I can say without spoiling it.

The first half of Hancock gets a 4 out of 5 stars. The second half gets a 2. So all together, Hancock gets a 3 out of 5 stars.

The Movie Club met for WALL•E tonight – saw it on DLP (so worth it). We have been looking forward to this movie for over a year – since we’d seen the preview last summer, I think for Pirates 3. So I was worried the anticipation would ruin it because expectations would have been high. I was glad to find out little was ruined.

The animation and modeling were the best I have seen from Pixar, yet. A lot of it looked almost photo realistic. Except for the animated humans…they looked like all Pixar humans look like, so sometimes it felt a little strange to be seeing such detail in the robots and such simplistic renderings together in the same movie. Pixar is known for their detail. And this movie is no exception. With every scene, I learned something new about how Wall•E works. And I actually craved to know more about the other robots we saw and all of their little characteristics, but there’s only so much you can do. I really enjoyed the future Earth (over 800 years from now) and the little history you find out from all the piles of junk Wall•E sorts through. For this paragraph alone, it is worth seeing.

The character interaction was more than I expected. Pixar does a great job with dialogue, but as you’ve probably guessed by any previews you may have seen, Wall•E doesn’t have much for vocabulary. And yet, somehow they were able to make me giggle, almost non-stop at times with his “dialogue” and interactions with things/people/robots.

There were a few disappointments.

One of the things I love about Pixar is how they make a whole new world in (most of) their movies. Like Monsters, Inc, Cars, Finding Nemo. And they always take it to that next step. I wanted to learn more about Wall•E’s life on Earth. I wanted to learn more about what was going on in space. But they make up for it in Wall•E’s and friends’ character development. Unfortunately, I sometimes felt like Wall•E’s character development was so advanced, that we missed jokes and quirks. And that makes me think the younger audience it’s bound attract will miss even more. Which brings me to my next disappointment.

I felt as though the plot was pushing some agendas. An environmental agenda and a “keep yourself healthy” agenda. While I don’t necessarily disagree with the agenda, I do disagree with pushing it in a children’s movie.

The last thing I was slightly disappointed by was how slow the movie felt. While I was always fascinated by Wall•E and some other characters, the plot *was* slow and simple and the lack of *real* dialogue would make it extremely hard for a younger audience to interpret or pay attention to. This movie is best for upper-elementary school aged and above.

I’ve got to leave you with a happy note. It was a great movie and not at all a disappointment, worth seeing in the theaters. I give Wall•E a 4 out of 5 stars. And for the Mac users, there’s a few surprises for you.

Oh yeah, also, I *love* Pixar animated shorts.

As kids, Dad would take us to Sioux Falls in August to go shopping for school supplies.  (He’s a teacher, so he had summers off too.) Then we’d get to eat out for supper and do something fun. It was called “Kids’ Day”, (since our parents each had their own parental day). More often than not, our Kids’ Day celebration was at Gigglebees. As my brother, Adam, and I got older, we ventured on to other things like Thunder Road or a movie, but since my sister, Marissa, was 5 years younger than me (8 years for my brother), we still went to Gigglebees every few years, and still enjoyed it. We all had birthdays in April, and we’d get a coupon in the mail from Wilbur, so many of our early birthdays were spent there as well.

I was fascinated by the robotic raccoon-like animal on the tricycle. I remember the day I figured out that the robot was controlled by the guy behind the mirror – and that was a sad day. I had grown up. I also remember all the useless trinkets I would get as prizes for games like skee ball. Like the chinese finger trap I accidentally broke many years after I forgot I had it.

Dad recalls memories of Gigglebees adventures: “I remember the tradition of going to Gigglebees on many birthdays. The video games and bumper cars were fun. And you kids either loved or were terrified of Wilbur!” Our feelings toward Wilbur are confusing for us too, Dad.

Adam remembers, fondly: “My Gigglebees memory is when dad was playing a racecar driving game and I needed money. So he gave me his wallet and I took out some money. Then I put his wallet on the floor next to him. Well, either he forgot this or he never knew I put it there, but anyway after we left Gigglebees he realized he didn’t have it, so we went back to that spot and the wallet was still there. Unfortunately, none of his cash was.” What a great place.

Marissa struggles: “I tried to think but I can’t remember any.” It’s OK, sister. Life’s tough.

I’m sure Mom would have something to share, but I’m too impatient for her to get home from work and reply to my email for memories. She’ll comment if she has any to share.

The last day Gigglebees is open is Thursday, July 3rd. According to local blogs I have been reading, the land is being redeveloped and so the building will be gone soon. They are looking for someone to purchase the entire business and those persons would need to find a new building to restart Gigglebees in. We ate there today for lunch. It wasn’t like I remembered it, and I probably shouldn’t have gone because of that.

I wonder what they’ll do with the games. And if they’ll be selling Wilbur.

Photo courtesy of Adam Bubolz.

On Tuesday we had friends Mike, Sonja, and Mike join us for The Movie Club meeting. We saw the new Futurama movie, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Miles had bought it on his way home from work the day it was released. It continues on the story from the last movie, Bender’s Big Score, so you’ll probably want to see that first, if possible. But at the same time, it adds very little depth to this movie, having seen the first. The movie was comparable to the last one – a little too long. While it had it’s funny parts, just like the TV shows, I was ready for it to be done before it was. Perhaps it’s because it’s been drilled into my mind that Futurama is a 30 minute show (with commercials) and my little mind couldn’t get past it. Though, it *did* seem to take about 45 minutes before the real plot unraveled. I had read the IMDB plot synopsis on it before watching it and for the first half of the movie I kept thinking, “Wow, that plot synopsis was way wrong”. And just when I was ready for it to be over, the plot started.

I give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.  Though it seemed a little long, it was still funny and still held up to typical Futurama expectations. And for an added bonus, David Cross (‘s voice) is in it, so you can’t wrong there, right?! For Futurama lovers, it’s not as good as the first movie, but it’s worth buying. For occasional Futurama watchers, rent it. Or pirate it. They don’t care.