Stephen Michael Plaza's Website

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Grade: A-)                    (Saturday August 14 2010)

Kungu Fu hustle meets Michael Cera in this action comedy romp.

Preview Forthcoming. 

Gamer (Grade: D)                               (Saturday September 5 2009)

The movie, not the dystopia portrayed in the movie, was the real horror

After a long day of watching college football, I decided to kill the few remaining stubborn braincells by seeing Gamer.  The movie soundly obliged.  In this movie, a futuristic society is depicted where death-row inmates can be mentally controlled (via a video game interface) to fight each other to the death.  I really don't want to spend much time reviewing this horrible picture.  The plot was bad.  The acting was worse.  The only reason this movie earns a 'D' is that I have sadly seen worse movies.  If I ever want to look brilliant, I will just force others to watch this movie beforehand.  Surely, anything I subsequently say will profoundly resonate in their now-emptied craniums. 

Julie and Julia (Grade: C+)               (Thursday September 3 2009)

Recipe for a long meandering movie: interleave two long meandering stories.

For the curious reader: no I did not watch this movie by myself.  This is the type of movie a guy sees only when a girl drags him along!  The movie interleaves the story of two women, famous cook Julia Childs and Julie who endeavors to cook all the recipes from Child's massive cook book in one year.  Far from Plutarch's Parallel Lives, this movie fails to emotionally connect the lives of the two main characters in any compelling way.

The movie was relatively enjoyable to watch until the director's lack of content editing overwhelmed the viewer with trivial and unnecessary details of the characters' lives.  A word of caution for would-be viewers: do not go in with an empty stomach.  Watching a movie that features so many good dishes will likely leave you restless.  At best this movie is a simple, light-hearted film with interesting insight into the life of a famous cook with occassional good performances by Meryl Streep.

Inglourious Basterds (Grade: A+)                                 (Friday August 21 2009)

From the bastardized title spelling, to the outrageous handling of traditionally delicate subject matter, Quentin Tarantino hits the mark.

This movie is not for the faint of heart.  Admittedly I am a big Tarantino fan and often forgive the director for his over-the-top violence and plot lines.  In 'Basterds', he manages to effectively combine the severity of World War II atrocities with light-hearted humor.  It is a brilliant interweaving of intense and silly dialogue.

Typically, I criticize a movie for its numerous plot holes.  But when evey other scene is completely outrageous, applying logic is illogical.  The acting was surprisingly rich; the movie previews do not give it justice.  The length of the movie and some of its scenes (in addition to the blood and lunacy) might deter viewers.  But the movie's off-beat nature is its strength like well-placed dissonance and syncopated rhythm in a classical symphony.

Moon (Grade: B-)                                  (Monday August 10th 2009)

It may have been over three decades since we last landed on the moon, but the plot line in the Moon has been often revisited.

In this futuristic movie, Sam Bell is an astronaut who works for an energy company on the dark side of the moon where he oversees the company's mining efforts.  Unfortunately, Sam's only companions are a computer named GERTY (voice by Kevin Spacey), sporadic recordings from Earth, and his own voice.  As Sam approaches the end of his 3-year stay, solitude wears on him emotionally.  He is involved in an accident and awakes to find another person...

Aside: Personally, 3 years of solitude on the moon does not seem that bad after spending 5 years in solitude as a PhD student in computer engineering.  At least his computer was very interactive.  He also seemed to go outside more often than I did, and his meal selection, though simple, was probably more diverse than what I consumed.

I will refrain from spoiling the plot.  Moon contains many of the same themes found in other science fiction movies.  However, the movie is very good at not over-reaching.  It is almost aware of the lack of novelty and does not try to surprise the audience ... or at least I was not surprised.  I am (almost) always a fan of Kevin Spacey and his dead-pan delivery as the computer is as convincing as any which impersonates a futuristic human-like computer that still must sound vaguely distant and machine-like.

As expected, any such movie about the future is filled with several points which seem to be illogical.  I am left wondering why any civilization that has a computer as sophisticated as GERTY must have an unfortunate soul work on the moon in solitude doing seemingly routine things.  The movie's strength of not over-reaching also is its major weakness.  There is nothing very compelling about the plot or the character's plight.  The success of a movie like this often hinges on the acting and dialogue.  In this domain, the movie fell short.  There were several instances where Sam Bell reacted in a subdued manner which seemed inconsistent to how one would normally act.  It is possible that this was the goal of the director.  If this was the case, then a more compelling plot would be necessary to compensate.