....... "Brave" and I think each movie would be worthwhile and entertaining for the right audience.
Slight spoilers:
I, myself, decided to forego the availability of 3-D for "Brave," but it would probably have been pretty cool.
Abe was also in 2-D only.
I saw his vampire flick all by myself and enjoyed it as an avid history buff and a long time horror movie fan.
The Link
It was much, much better than OK, especially given what it might have been.
I only hope the movie they'll surely make of Bill O'Reilly's best selling book, "Killing Lincoln," turns out to be as interesting.
An adequate movie adaptation of "Killing Lincoln" can certainly be hoped for, but all too often flicks made from such popular books fall short.
O'Reilly's book is researched and written with so much detail in its prose that any visual cinematic treatment, IMHO, will be hard pressed to convey so much history, character development and plot involvement using moving pictures.
Any potential movie will require a very well-conceived and nicely executed screenplay of "Killing Lincoln" to mold the action and words sufficiently to do this already well-told print and audio story any real movie justice.
I hope it's good.
But it could fall as short as "The Da Vinci Code" did as a movie.
For a flick about a "code" that one just wasn't very cryptic, was it?
But, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is a good, gory, action-filled horror fest utilizing an interesting re-imagining or, perhaps, a hatcheting of history.
Anyway, suspension of belief came easily to me and Abe kicked axe.
I hope my Aggie football team is as ready for the SEC.
This movie reminded me of the deliciously rambunctious vibe of TV's "True Blood" and I had fond flashbacks of Fess Parker in "The Great Locomotive Chase" or as Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, meeting Mike Fink, King of the River, and it was so, so, so much better and so much more inventive than the disappointing "The Wolfman," starring Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro.
So go and suck it up, if you dig vampire stuff and/or alternate history.
"Brave" took a fairly complex story and, I thought, told it pretty darned well.
The Link
Merida, the main character, deservedly joins the pantheon of well-drawn Disney movie heroines.
Snow White, Pocohontas, Mulan, Beauty, Ariel, Esmeralda, Lady, the Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Wendy, Tinkerbelle.....
I took two of my grandsons, aged 4 and 6, to see her exciting story and we were all entertained.
I think kids younger than 10 to 12 will find some parts of this movie maybe a little too mature in theme to fully understand and too frightening in some parts to comfortably watch unless they can sit beside an adult.
Together, you and they should be fine.
One of mine sat happily in my lap and along with my other brave, older soldier (who at times also snuggled up close), each grandkid had plenty of intelligent questions and sudden scares.
It was all in good storytelling fun, but occasionally the make believe is quite intense.
However, lots of high and low brow humor, understood and appreciated by viewers young and old alike, frequently leavened the "historical" detail and the "actual" suspense and conflict.
I remember that in "Toy Story" and even in "Cars" the on screen animated characters seemed mostly lovable, yet always cartoonish.
Their lack of humanity was, in fact, a big building block of the story.
While the sentiment, heartbreak and danger shown in those Pixar films was endearing or troubling, as the case might be, and while often fraught with human-like emotions, those were always and forever cartoon characters that you were watching in those movies.
"The Lion King," "Snow White," "Pinocchio," "Bambi" and "Fantasia" all had really good cartoon characters.
That was always clear to me, even as a kid.
It was just a cartoon.
However, very often, the people, the beasts and the purposes so well drawn for us by the Pixar animators of "Brave" seemed very human and/or very real.
Of course, that's exactly what they were trying to accomplish and this was, indeed, cartooning at a exceptionally high level of human involvement, both by the artists and for those of us watching.
When the storyline suddenly galloped from cartoon reality into cartoon fantasy about halfway in, that quick change made everything seem a bit uneven and strange for a while, but the overall pace, the action and the individual personae of all the characters were constant throughout and the storytelling was always well-nuanced, completely realized and quite good.
And by the time that flight of cartoon fantasy finally returned back to cartoon reality at the end, everyone on screen and all those watching in my theater were smiling, cinematically fulfilled, freshly optimistic, satisfied and happy.
And the story makes you think.
This certainly is a Pixar offering with all the story depth and movie production excellence we've come to expect from that studio.
But this time, there was definitely more ferocity than sentiment portrayed and on on display and the danger actually seemed really dangerous, probably especially so for younger kids.
I suppose that's why they called it "Brave."
Go with the kids, you'll all enjoy it.
Your thoughts????
Slight spoilers:
I, myself, decided to forego the availability of 3-D for "Brave," but it would probably have been pretty cool.
Abe was also in 2-D only.
I saw his vampire flick all by myself and enjoyed it as an avid history buff and a long time horror movie fan.
The Link
It was much, much better than OK, especially given what it might have been.
I only hope the movie they'll surely make of Bill O'Reilly's best selling book, "Killing Lincoln," turns out to be as interesting.
An adequate movie adaptation of "Killing Lincoln" can certainly be hoped for, but all too often flicks made from such popular books fall short.
O'Reilly's book is researched and written with so much detail in its prose that any visual cinematic treatment, IMHO, will be hard pressed to convey so much history, character development and plot involvement using moving pictures.
Any potential movie will require a very well-conceived and nicely executed screenplay of "Killing Lincoln" to mold the action and words sufficiently to do this already well-told print and audio story any real movie justice.
I hope it's good.
But it could fall as short as "The Da Vinci Code" did as a movie.
For a flick about a "code" that one just wasn't very cryptic, was it?
But, "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" is a good, gory, action-filled horror fest utilizing an interesting re-imagining or, perhaps, a hatcheting of history.
Anyway, suspension of belief came easily to me and Abe kicked axe.
I hope my Aggie football team is as ready for the SEC.
This movie reminded me of the deliciously rambunctious vibe of TV's "True Blood" and I had fond flashbacks of Fess Parker in "The Great Locomotive Chase" or as Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, meeting Mike Fink, King of the River, and it was so, so, so much better and so much more inventive than the disappointing "The Wolfman," starring Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro.
So go and suck it up, if you dig vampire stuff and/or alternate history.
"Brave" took a fairly complex story and, I thought, told it pretty darned well.
The Link
Merida, the main character, deservedly joins the pantheon of well-drawn Disney movie heroines.
Snow White, Pocohontas, Mulan, Beauty, Ariel, Esmeralda, Lady, the Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Wendy, Tinkerbelle.....
I took two of my grandsons, aged 4 and 6, to see her exciting story and we were all entertained.
I think kids younger than 10 to 12 will find some parts of this movie maybe a little too mature in theme to fully understand and too frightening in some parts to comfortably watch unless they can sit beside an adult.
Together, you and they should be fine.
One of mine sat happily in my lap and along with my other brave, older soldier (who at times also snuggled up close), each grandkid had plenty of intelligent questions and sudden scares.
It was all in good storytelling fun, but occasionally the make believe is quite intense.
However, lots of high and low brow humor, understood and appreciated by viewers young and old alike, frequently leavened the "historical" detail and the "actual" suspense and conflict.
I remember that in "Toy Story" and even in "Cars" the on screen animated characters seemed mostly lovable, yet always cartoonish.
Their lack of humanity was, in fact, a big building block of the story.
While the sentiment, heartbreak and danger shown in those Pixar films was endearing or troubling, as the case might be, and while often fraught with human-like emotions, those were always and forever cartoon characters that you were watching in those movies.
"The Lion King," "Snow White," "Pinocchio," "Bambi" and "Fantasia" all had really good cartoon characters.
That was always clear to me, even as a kid.
It was just a cartoon.
However, very often, the people, the beasts and the purposes so well drawn for us by the Pixar animators of "Brave" seemed very human and/or very real.
Of course, that's exactly what they were trying to accomplish and this was, indeed, cartooning at a exceptionally high level of human involvement, both by the artists and for those of us watching.
When the storyline suddenly galloped from cartoon reality into cartoon fantasy about halfway in, that quick change made everything seem a bit uneven and strange for a while, but the overall pace, the action and the individual personae of all the characters were constant throughout and the storytelling was always well-nuanced, completely realized and quite good.
And by the time that flight of cartoon fantasy finally returned back to cartoon reality at the end, everyone on screen and all those watching in my theater were smiling, cinematically fulfilled, freshly optimistic, satisfied and happy.
And the story makes you think.
This certainly is a Pixar offering with all the story depth and movie production excellence we've come to expect from that studio.
But this time, there was definitely more ferocity than sentiment portrayed and on on display and the danger actually seemed really dangerous, probably especially so for younger kids.
I suppose that's why they called it "Brave."
Go with the kids, you'll all enjoy it.
Your thoughts????
