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canisminor_'s rating
I wanted to like this film in more ways then one. For starters it's a film starring two 13 year- old girls and a mermaid and to praise it would be to trump my objectivity as a critic, because, being a 27 year-old male, I may not be its target market. Also, it's directed by first-timer Elizabeth Allen whose previous credit was a dark comedic short addressing the volatile relationship between an insecure boy and his glass eye!
Sold.
Yes, I had high hopes that morning as I strolled into a theater teeming with pre-pubescent teens (my "peeps" I called them) and as the lights dimmed on their spastic chatter I thought to myself, "Is it possible that Aquamarine could be to Elizabeth Allen what Big was to Penny Marshall!?". If so, my peeps were in for a treat! They too could come of age to the modest charm of a whimsical tale of adolescent obsessions; they too would laugh, love and learn from intelligently, understated insights on experience.
Yeah, well, it wasn't and they didn't; but I'm not bitter. To make it up to them I even smacked a few of the brats on the head as we were leaving the theater and whispered "that's life, deal with it!" into their ear.
Allen's film follows two best friends, Clair and Hailey, trying to make the most of the last days of their summer vacation and, in many respects, their innocents. You see Hailey's moving to Australia and the two must now confront life without each other's mutual support. But this is a mermaid film so cue Sarah Paxton sporting strategically placed long blond hair (who also happens to be in great duress) to offer a solution to all their problems: hook her up with the toothy lifeguard and she'll grant them one wish.
Bold.
While there are a couple genuine laughs, both tone and humour are inconsistent throughout as Allen struggles to find an identity for her film. Like when the girls find empowerment from receiving a makeover that destroys their individuality and leaves them looking like clones of the popular girls they hate so much? It also doesn't help that the script appears to be torn from the pages of teen magazines, with forced ideals lacking any sense of grace or charm. The result is a heavy-handed film that tries hard but stumbles all they way.
And though they may tell you different, my peeps deserve better then that.
Sold.
Yes, I had high hopes that morning as I strolled into a theater teeming with pre-pubescent teens (my "peeps" I called them) and as the lights dimmed on their spastic chatter I thought to myself, "Is it possible that Aquamarine could be to Elizabeth Allen what Big was to Penny Marshall!?". If so, my peeps were in for a treat! They too could come of age to the modest charm of a whimsical tale of adolescent obsessions; they too would laugh, love and learn from intelligently, understated insights on experience.
Yeah, well, it wasn't and they didn't; but I'm not bitter. To make it up to them I even smacked a few of the brats on the head as we were leaving the theater and whispered "that's life, deal with it!" into their ear.
Allen's film follows two best friends, Clair and Hailey, trying to make the most of the last days of their summer vacation and, in many respects, their innocents. You see Hailey's moving to Australia and the two must now confront life without each other's mutual support. But this is a mermaid film so cue Sarah Paxton sporting strategically placed long blond hair (who also happens to be in great duress) to offer a solution to all their problems: hook her up with the toothy lifeguard and she'll grant them one wish.
Bold.
While there are a couple genuine laughs, both tone and humour are inconsistent throughout as Allen struggles to find an identity for her film. Like when the girls find empowerment from receiving a makeover that destroys their individuality and leaves them looking like clones of the popular girls they hate so much? It also doesn't help that the script appears to be torn from the pages of teen magazines, with forced ideals lacking any sense of grace or charm. The result is a heavy-handed film that tries hard but stumbles all they way.
And though they may tell you different, my peeps deserve better then that.
On June 12, 2000 Sandro de Nascimento stepped onto a bus in Rio de Jeneiro, brandished a handgun and demanded money from its patrons. It was just another day in Rio. Well, it was, until an unnecessarily prompt response time by police turned the simple robbery into a complex hostage situation destined to be botched through incompetence. Toss in virtually unrestricted media coverage throughout the five-hour ordeal and what followed was a sequence of dramatized misfortunes to rival the wet dreams of any reality TV producer.
Bus 174, is a documentary by Jose Padilha, focusing on the "how's" and "why's" of the avoidable tragedy that was this day-long fiasco. Relying heavily on in-your-face news footage that was broadcast live to Brazilians around the country; as well as in-depth interviews with hostages, police officers and friends and family of Sandro, Padilha inter-cuts the events of June 12 with the story of Sandro's life as a doomed street kid shunned from society. In so doing, Padilha addresses that age-old ideological argument of nurture vs nature. Did Sandro instigate the events leading to this tragedy of police incompetence simply because it was bread into him? Or might there be more to the story? Had he believed the former, Padihla would have had a much shorter film on his hands. Fortunately for us though, he chose to go against the teachings from the "school of Bush", painting the scenario, not in black and white, but in a muddled gray.
And so we are told the story of a child who, after witnessing the brutal murder of his mother at the age of 5, was destined for a life on the streets where crime is simply a means of survival. We are told of the socio-economical issues in Brazil, where its class system has divided the nation to a point where rich ignore the poor (unless it's to drop slabs of rock on their heads while they sleep). We are told of a government whose brutal attitude towards street kids helped instigate the Candelaria massacres (where Sandro again got to witness the slaying of the people he called family). And we are told of a penal system so inhumane and violent, people would rather die then go to jail. What we are told is that violence begets violence.
As manipulative and subjective as some documentary film-making can be, it is often easy for critics to discredit a film like this as being socialist propaganda (just ask Michael Moore). But it is to Padihla's credit that he is able to avoid this by simply presenting us with the information he has acquired. We are not force-fed opinions and told what to believe, nor is Sandro portrayed as some sort of martyr for equal-rights, we are simply given the full story and are then left to draw our own conclusions.
Because what some may see as black and white, the rest of us see as shades of gray -Shaun English
Bus 174, is a documentary by Jose Padilha, focusing on the "how's" and "why's" of the avoidable tragedy that was this day-long fiasco. Relying heavily on in-your-face news footage that was broadcast live to Brazilians around the country; as well as in-depth interviews with hostages, police officers and friends and family of Sandro, Padilha inter-cuts the events of June 12 with the story of Sandro's life as a doomed street kid shunned from society. In so doing, Padilha addresses that age-old ideological argument of nurture vs nature. Did Sandro instigate the events leading to this tragedy of police incompetence simply because it was bread into him? Or might there be more to the story? Had he believed the former, Padihla would have had a much shorter film on his hands. Fortunately for us though, he chose to go against the teachings from the "school of Bush", painting the scenario, not in black and white, but in a muddled gray.
And so we are told the story of a child who, after witnessing the brutal murder of his mother at the age of 5, was destined for a life on the streets where crime is simply a means of survival. We are told of the socio-economical issues in Brazil, where its class system has divided the nation to a point where rich ignore the poor (unless it's to drop slabs of rock on their heads while they sleep). We are told of a government whose brutal attitude towards street kids helped instigate the Candelaria massacres (where Sandro again got to witness the slaying of the people he called family). And we are told of a penal system so inhumane and violent, people would rather die then go to jail. What we are told is that violence begets violence.
As manipulative and subjective as some documentary film-making can be, it is often easy for critics to discredit a film like this as being socialist propaganda (just ask Michael Moore). But it is to Padihla's credit that he is able to avoid this by simply presenting us with the information he has acquired. We are not force-fed opinions and told what to believe, nor is Sandro portrayed as some sort of martyr for equal-rights, we are simply given the full story and are then left to draw our own conclusions.
Because what some may see as black and white, the rest of us see as shades of gray -Shaun English
Sometimes people irk me. More specifically are those people who, when in reference to some of the recent animated features, say things like "Oh it's such a great film, because, not only do the kids love it, it's funny for adults as well! (yay for us!)" This irks me because adults and kids alike have always been able to appreciate a well-made animated feature. So while I do hate this growing trend -one that has seen studios offering "condolences" to parents who drag concession-hungry children to see their movies by using two-tiered, age-discriminating humor (I guess so parents can nod knowingly to each other over the heads of their kids, while receiving these studio "winks", as if to say " They didn't get that one, but we sure did -it's because we're OLDER.")- I do feel the need to point out that Nemo is not the first fish to reference popular culture to adults.
Enter Teacher's Pet, Disney's hand-animated feature (released on the heels of the announcement that it is shutting down its Florida animation studio) based on the popular kids series about a dog named Spot (Nathan Lane) who wants nothing more then to become a boy. With its skewed color pallet, course lines and surrealistic characters and environments, creator Gary Baseman offers us a visually stimulating experience one that provides a refreshing (if not nostalgic) breather to a genre on the verge of becoming sterilized by computers.
However, it takes a lot more then just strong visuals to form a well-crafted animated feature and Teacher's Pet is a prime example of why. Written by former Cheers scribers Bill and Cheri Steinkellner and directed by first-timer Timothy Bjorklund, the humor in Teacher's Pet falls almost completely flat. By attempting to appeal simultaneously to adults and kids alike, they have taken a potentially strong premise for either audience and turned it into a convoluted mess that succeeds only in its ability to bring generations together through boredom. This is supposed to be a kids film -I don't need to explain to my four-year old niece why Spot is now a middleaged man hitting on moms and shacked up in some sleazy motel- if they wanted "edgy" then they should have pitched it to Matt Stone. Sh*t or get off the pot I say.
Reviewed by Shaun English
Enter Teacher's Pet, Disney's hand-animated feature (released on the heels of the announcement that it is shutting down its Florida animation studio) based on the popular kids series about a dog named Spot (Nathan Lane) who wants nothing more then to become a boy. With its skewed color pallet, course lines and surrealistic characters and environments, creator Gary Baseman offers us a visually stimulating experience one that provides a refreshing (if not nostalgic) breather to a genre on the verge of becoming sterilized by computers.
However, it takes a lot more then just strong visuals to form a well-crafted animated feature and Teacher's Pet is a prime example of why. Written by former Cheers scribers Bill and Cheri Steinkellner and directed by first-timer Timothy Bjorklund, the humor in Teacher's Pet falls almost completely flat. By attempting to appeal simultaneously to adults and kids alike, they have taken a potentially strong premise for either audience and turned it into a convoluted mess that succeeds only in its ability to bring generations together through boredom. This is supposed to be a kids film -I don't need to explain to my four-year old niece why Spot is now a middleaged man hitting on moms and shacked up in some sleazy motel- if they wanted "edgy" then they should have pitched it to Matt Stone. Sh*t or get off the pot I say.
Reviewed by Shaun English