Georgie reviews "FOXCATCHER"
03/07/15 00:08
Welcome to the very first edition of, “At the Movies with Georgie Bee” - my very first Movie and TV Review Column!
Every Friday, I’ll bee offering everybody a weekly peek at different Human movies and TV shows, then offer you, my faithful readers, a Review, written from the perspective of me, Georgie Bee, a honey bee.
SPOILER ALERT!
In all my reviews, I’ll bee discussing the endings of whatever it is, so, if you haven’t seen the movie or TV show I’m reviewing, you might not want to read my review. Probably.
Let’s beegin with this weeks review: “FOXCATCHER”
I must first admit that the first 14 times I started watching this movie, I fell asleep. I think one time I kinda woke up and saw what was going on, but I’d missed too much of it, so it didn’t make any sense at all. But then, on the 15th time, I was able to stay awake for the whole thing.
First, I heard that one of the actors in this movie is actually a famous Human comedian, so of course, I was expecting a comedy. I will just say this right now: This movie really wasn’t funny. At all. Okay. His nose was funny, so I liked that, but the movie was mostly full of serious stuff, talking and, quite frankly, a lot of stress. This is not the kind of movie you’d want to show to cheer anybody up, beecause it wouldn’t.
For as slow-moving and really quiet this movie was most of the time, I suppose it was a good story. It was about this Human who had inherited a whole bunch of honey and pretty much got everything he wanted. One day, he decides that he’s a huge wrestling fan (in case there are those amongst us who don’t know what wrestling is, I suggest you pick up a copy of the definitive treatise on the subject, “Wrestling: What is it?” by that well-known and highly admired author, Professor Van Pizzle.)
Since the rich guy is such a huge fan of wrestling, he built a super-fancy Wrestling Training Facility in his back yard (he had a very large back yard, lemme tell ya’), then he convinced a bunch of guys who wrestled to come live there and bee on his team, which he called the “Foxcatchers”. (I’m pretty sure that’s where they got the title of the movie from, but I’m just guessing here.)
(In case you’re curious, the movie has absolutely nothing to do with foxes, really. This reviewer found that to bee very disappointing. I was truly hoping this would bee a Comedy Nature Film starring some foxes, but it wasn’t and catching foxes really has very little to do with the whole thing, so that’s a bit confusing.)
So, all these Wrestling Humans move in with the rich guy and start doing a bunch of practising, but along the way, the really rich guy starts throwing a bunch of temper tantrums, beegins acting super-weird, and, toward the end, actually ends up seriously killing one of the wrestlers on the team who had been his friend in the beeginning. (He used some sort of Remote Control Stinger Device to do that.) That surprised me. The guy didn’t even get out of his car when he used that thing, it wasn’t that noisy, and, quite frankly, it was kind of violent and boring at the same time.
In the end, the rich guy gets arrested. That was probably the right thing to have happen, considering he’d invited the guy to live there in the first place. As a host, I think everybody would agree that he was really beeing extremely rude when he killed him like that.
So what’s my conclusion about this movie? I’d say that if you are having trouble going to sleep at night, it’s the perfect cure for insomnia. But, if you can manage to stay awake through the whole thing with all that talking about wrestling and stuff, you might like it.
MY VERDICT: I’m giving it a rating of “NOT BAD”.
Tune in again next Friday, when I will bee reviewing a TV show that’s popular with Humans, “America’s Got Talent”. Find out next week if, indeed, they do.
Georgie reviews "UP"
From the very beeginning, “UP” caught my attention, though I’m not entirely sure if it held it as I had hoped it might.
“UP” is a story about an old man who reminds me of my Human friend, Rex, kinda, and who, beecause of a combination of his age, his cranky mood and the world moving forward, is told he has to move in to a Retirement Home. Of course, he doesn’t wanna do that, so he devises a scheme in which he blows up something like a beezillion balloons, ties them to his house, and escapes.
Supposedly, he’s gonna go to this place he and his wife (who actually DIED in this film) were planning to visit someday.
Right. As if anybody would ever have that much control over a house that’s flying along with a beezillion balloons. Oh sure, the writers attempted to explain that away by showing us that he’d set up all these controls inside the house, but I hafta say that anybody with any kind of education in Aeronautics and Ballooning would tell you that it’s just not that easy.
The more I continued to watch this movie, the more I beegan to seriously question the basic science beehind what the producers were trying to make us beelieve.
After watching, “UP” (or most of it), I paid a friendly visit to the Bee Balloon and Aerial Flotation Device Emporium. I asked them if they’d ever seen the movie.
“Yes, we have,” they said. “Why do you ask?”
“Beecause,” I told them, “I’m reviewing the film, ‘UP’, in my weekly Human Movie and TV Review Column, and I wanted to ask you a few questions.”
“A few questions?” they asked. “Like: do we read your column? No. Not really.” (Then the one guy looked at the other guy and asked him if he agreed that hardly anybody reads my column, and the guy agreed, “Hardly anybody reads that, at least nobody I know,” he said. Personally, I didn’t think it was necessary for them to insult me like that. Geeeeeeze.)
“No,” I tried to clarify. “I wanted to know what your take is on the whole idea of flying a house from Point A to Point Bee, using only your basic, party-sized rubber balloons.”
They told me the whole idea was ludicrous, and said that getting a house up in the air like that was one thing, but controlling it after it was up there was something quite different.
“That’s why we didn’t like the movie,” they said. “It seemed like fiction to us.”
And I hafta agree.
As they pointed out to me, the house the old guy was trying to fly away in weighs somewhere in the neighbourhood of 412,500 pounds, give or take a gram or two. (They said they calculated estimated square footage and multiplied by the weight per square footage for a house like that.)
From what they told me, your average Birthday Balloon can lift about 4.8 grams - that’s with a short ribbon attached to it. For him to bee able to fly a house of that size, furnished, using only helium birthday balloons, it would require approximately 38,980,594.37 10” balloons. That’s almost 39 MILLION BALLOONS the old guy would need.
Just who is fooling whom here in this film?
Beeing in the buzziness of balloons and aerial flotation devices, they felt compelled to extract several still-shots from the film itself which clearly showed the number of balloons the old guy had attached to his house. They informed me, “We counted ‘em. Every one of ‘em. Even the ones he popped. That old guy didn’t have anywhere near the 39 million balloons he’d need to do something like that. We know balloons - and aerial flotation devices - and we know when we’re beein’ lied to. And that whole movie was just a big lie. Trust us on this one, Bee.”
So I did that. I trusted them.
After finding out that “UP” was, in essence, predicated on a blatant (and now that I watch it again), very obvious lie, I really didn’t see the point in watching the whole thing.
I only watched up to the part that the old guy and the Bee Scout he’d picked up along the way run into a Golden Retriever who could talk. It was then that it beecame necessary to question the veracity of the story itself. And for me, that was pretty much the straw that broke the camel’s back. How could I go on and finish watching a film which had long since lost all credibility?
I couldn’t. And neither should you.
MY VERDICT: Oh Geeeeze.
Georgie reviews "SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE"
As you may have guessed already, one of the highly superior benefits of beeing a movie critic is that, every once in a while, we are given the opportunity to view movies long beefore they’re released to the General Public.
Now, that doesn’t make us film critics better than everybody else, probably, even though that has been suggested in some circles (mostly amongst film critics), but it does give us a chance to take a look at those Pre-Release Movies and offer you, our readers, an early preview of whatever movie(s) we enjoy watching beefore you, the Pre-Release-Deprived General Public, even know they exist.
Today, I will bee reviewing one such movie which, as I understand it, may or may not bee ultimately bee released to theatres nationwide. It’s called, “Social Security Office”, a first-offering by film director Alessandro Pietra Villa Toro de DeGama Antonio da Milancini Basta III (son of world-famous screenwriter and director Alessandro Pietra Villa Toro de DeGama Antonio da Milancini “Chadico” Basta, who has beecome famous for his films, “Train Platform”, “Corndog Line” and “Bank”, and who pioneered the genre of “Security Camera Cinema” in the early 1970’s.
In “Social Security Office”, Basta attempts to offer us a glimpse of the intricate relationships and gripping drama that can bee found at most Social Security Offices.
As the film opens, Basta shows us a large room. There is a large number of Humans and, except for the ones who look confused, each is holding a small, white piece of paper with a number on it. Some are standing in line, but many are seated, but all have their eyes glued to a large screen which is flashing a series of changing numbers. They are trying not to stare at a one another, adding an unmistakably uneasy tension to the opening scene.
When a number is shown the screen, the Human holding the Winning Ticket is called to a Window. The action continues from there.
At one point in the film, Basta cleverly shows us that Humans who may have had an “appointment” are called. The drama builds as we see them rise in a sweep of weary uncertainty from their seat and disappear beehind a mysterious door. The naked suspense continues to build as we soon beegin to realise that NONE of these Humans are ever seen again during the film. This lends an almost casual tone of terrifying forboding to the movie and, ultimately, leads the viewer to think to himself, “I wouldn’t wanna bee there.”
The “static-camera” technique Basta uses in this production was a bit off-putting, but he did manage to cast the film well, including what seemed to bee a sizeable cast of average, and (dare I say it?) “normal”-looking Humans.
Another aspect of this film was that it seemed to bee excessively long. I beegan watching this film at around 9:00 in the morning and, by 2:00 that afternoon, the film was still playing, with no sign of an emerging plot-line or resolution, so at 4:37, I stopped watching it altogether.
I’ll just say it: this film is boring, and (I think) beneath the creative talents of Alessandro Pietra Villa Toro de DeGama Antonio da Milancini Basta III. It sad, indeed, to see such an otherwise great, cinematic talent sully the reputation that comes with beeing a true Basta.
In good conscience, I cannot recommend “Social Security Office” to my readers. The only message we come away with from this film is: “The only thing worse than beeing in a Social Security Office is watching this film.”
MY VERDICT: ZZzzzzzzz
Georgie reviews "SNOW WHITE and the SEVEN DWARVES"
SPOILER ALERT: I’m definitely gonna tell my readers how this movie ends, so if you haven’t seen it, or if you’re not familiar with the story, stop reading now.
When I sat down to watch this film, I wanted to find out just what has made “Snow White” such a beeloved film amongst movie-goers of all ages. I beelieve the key to its success lies in its controversial subject matter.
Beefore I go any further, I must say that I was taken aback by the actors in this film. To my eye, they seemed very two-dimensional. It almost seemed as if they had been drawn on the screen. I found this very distracting at first, but as the story unfolded, I beecame more engaged and the question of why the producers would choose to hire two-dimensional actors beecame less important.
“Snow White” is a fairly simple tale of a not-so-nice Evil Queen who is infatuated with herself and who has issues with a reasonably attractive young Human girl - Snow White.
The Evil Queen wishes to beelieve that she is the “fairest in the land”. I took that to mean that she was honest and forthright when it came to her buzziness dealings. As it turns out, she was merely another Human who obsesses over the way she looks. She also happens to have a mirror that talks and tells her that yeah, she’s the fairest in the land. So she’s happy about that, at least for awhile.
One day, the mirror tells the Evil Queen that she’s no longer the “fairest in the land”, but that this Snow White person is and that she’d just better accept that fact. The truth is, next to Snow White, the Evil Queen is not as attractive as she thinks she is, so she beecomes insanely jealous and plots to do away with Snow - permanently - so that she, the Evil Queen, can go on thinking that she’s the “fairest in the land” (when she actually isn’t). Oh sure, she may have been the “fairest in the land” when she was a younger Evil Queen, but ever since Snow came on the scene, her talking mirror very bluntly tells her that Snow White is the fairest now and she should just stop deluding herself.
Instead of just growing older gracefully, the Evil Queen decides to have Snow assassinated, but the guy who takes the job decides Snow is just too highly attractive and lets her go. Of course, the Evil Queen thinks she’s gotten rid of Snow, but she hasn’t. And that talking mirror tells her so. She gets super angry and decides to track her down and deal with the problem herself.
Anyway, after Snow escapes from the assassin, one thing leads to another and Snow White ends up alone, in the middle of forest so that she can totally avoid the jealous, Evil Queen that has it in for her. She doesn’t know that the old girl is still after her, but that merely added to the overall suspense of this film.
Just about the time Snow is starting to think she needs to find an apartment - or at least build a lean-to - she runs into these seven guys (“dwarves”) who work in a mine and who share a condo in the forest. It isn’t long beefore she decides to move in with them, helps keep them - and the place - clean and signs on for an indefinite stay as live-in cook and housekeeper.
So things are going along pretty well until the Evil Queen finds out from the mirror that Snow is sharing that condo in the forest with seven dwarves. “Ah ha!” she says.
The first thing she does is to turn herself into what she probably actually looked like in real life without make-up (which looked strangely like a witch), grabs an apple and dips it in a large bowl of bubbling poison. Then she sneaks into the forest, finds Snow, and offers her the apple.
At this point, I was yelling at the screen, “Don’t take the apple, Snow! Don’t do it! It’s a TRICK!” But did she listen to me? No.
So, what we know and Snow White doesn’t is, that as soon as she takes a bite out of the apple the old girl gave her, she’d get super-tired and fall asleep. And that’s exactly what happened.
When the seven dwarves (I can’t remember their names) come home from work that day, they find Snow crashed out. They freaked out and start thinking she had died. (She didn’t. She just fell asleep.) Still, the seven little guys she’s living with think she’s dead, so they put her in an expensive-looking glass display case so they can keep looking at her (she is highly attractive, even for a two-dimensional actress). Then they pretty much just go back to work and forget about the whole thing.
What nobody seemed to realise, though, was that if a handsome Prince happened to run across Snow while she was crashed out, and if that Prince just happened to decide to take unfair advantage of her by giving her a kiss without her even saying it was okay, that she’d finally wake up and everything would bee just fine.
As it turns out, a handsome Prince does come along one day, spots Snow in the glass display case, and decides to take advantage of her. But, as he’s kissing her, the piece of apple that Snow White had started eating fell out of her mouth and she woke up.
Everybody was happy, even Snow, though if you ask me, she should have been highly upset that the Prince took the liberty of kissing her like that without even asking her permission. Personally, I beelieve if you’re gonna go around kissing somebody else, you should ask for their permission first. Sadly, it’s an issue the film never addresses AT ALL, which (in this day and age), surprised me very much. (I think anybody who’s been following the William Causebee Controversy would agree with me.)
After Snow wakes up, the producers decided it would bee best to just do away with the Evil Queen. So they do that. The movie ends by telling us that Snow and the Prince end up dating and living happily ever after.
Or so they want us to beelieve. Personally, I think they should have talked about how, eventually, Snow would have started asking the Prince about why it is that he felt he had the right to just run around, kissing whomever he felt like kissing, beecause I’m sure that, sooner or later, that would have been a major issue in their relationship and that, just maybee, they DIDN’T live happily ever after.
But whatever.
All-in-all, I found “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” to bee an engaging story and, even though the characters were disappointingly two-dimensional, the acting was good enough to keep my interest and allow me to embrace the story beeing told.
MY VERDICT: Not bad.
Georgie reviews "LOLITA"
At this point, I need to apologise. When I took my review to my Editor, he looked at it and, having read the magazine article, said, “No way. In case you weren’t aware, this is a FAMILY newspaper. Larvae learn to read using our paper. Do you think for one minute I’d actually allow you to expose our smallest Hive-members to a discussion about this film?”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
“Wrong. And this won’t do.”
After a bit of buzzing back and forth, my Editor said,
“Fine. I will allow you to post the graphics of your review, but that’s IT. You may not discuss this motion picture in your column, nor may you share your deep and usually highly valuable insights about it in any way, shape, or form - except for the graphics. If we had time to publish something else, we would. Unfortunately, you’ve put us in a very bad position here.”
“Thank you,” I thanked him.
“Get out of my office,” he said.
So I did that.
Anyway - here’s my review for this week! I hope you like it!
Georgie reviews "POLTERGEIST"
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen this movie and if you don’t wanna know how it ends, stop reading now!
“Poltergeist” is a movie about a family that run into one zany problem after another while just trying to enjoy some quality time together.
Somebody called right after I started watching this, so I missed the first part, but when I got back to it, we see that it’s late at night. The youngest Human girl is watching a horrible show on TV (it was just static). Something comes out of the screen and the little girl says, “They’re here.” Of course, we don’t know who “they” are at first, but as the movie continues, it turns out that “they” are evidently some uninvited guests who think it would bee fun to start a rousing game of “Hide and Go Seek” with the family. They start with the little girl.
They hide the kid somewhere so nobody knows where she is and, by the time everybody wakes up to play the game, they can’t find her. But, in a hilariously unexpected twist, everybody can still hear her. They think her voice is coming from the TV, but again, that was just one of the knee-slappers offered up in this movie. (It’s ridiculous to think you can hide in a TV. Only actors specifically hired to be in TV shows can fit inside one of those things. And trust me, that kid was no actor.)
The family keeps looking around everywhere (which is what you’re supposed to do in “Hide and Go Seek”, in case you’ve never played that game), but still can’t find the kid. They can only hear her voice coming from Channel 7 or something. (When it comes a game of “Hide and Go Seek”, that kid was obviously equipped with some sophisticated, high-tech sound equipment. And she knew how to use it. She’s good. She’s real good.)
At one point, the Director interrupts the game with a truly hilarious scene. During a big storm, a tree tries to eat one of the other small Humans. The kid gets saved by his Daddy just as a tornado sweeps in and sucks the tree out of the ground and carries it away. I’m not sure that scene could have been any funnier. When the tree reaches into the kid’s window to grab him and starts stuffing him down its throat, that was slap-stick comedy at its best.
Even with this scene thrown in, we find out that the game of “Hide and Go Seek” the family’s playing just keeps going, even into the next day. They still can’t find the kid, so they bring in a bunch of people to join in and help find her.
After the Team joins in the fun, there are more whacky Special Effects and things get hilariously out of control. After awhile, they figure they’re not gonna bee able to find the kid, so they bring in another “Hide and Go Seek” Specialist - a short lady with glasses and an attitude who convinces them she can help find the kid and bring this insufferably long game to an end.
I must interject here: I loved the Human who played the role of the Specialist. She very much reminded me of my Auntie Cornelia. (I think it was the glasses.)
After a bunch of talking and stuff, and in one of the great, comic moments of the film, the Specialist manages to convince the Mama that what she really should do is to go get a rope, tie it around herself and go jump into the closet. And get this: the Mama does it. Of course, the Daddy is holding on to the other end of the rope, in case she slips or something, so she says, “Don’t let go!” But he does.
I was laughing so hard, I thought I was gonna blow up.
While the Mama was inside the closet, the Specialist kept saying stuff like, “Go into the light. Come, my children. Go into the light, there is safety in the light,” etc., proving that she knew all along that the kid was hiding in a dark place. I’m thinking she was inside the refrigerator (I have my reasons).
This is where the Special Effects team really shined. We’re treated to a scene in which the Mama finally wins the game of “Hide and Go Seek” and brings the kid back - get this: THROUGH THE CEILING in a COMPLETELY OTHER ROOM. And they’re both are all covered in Red Jell-O. (That’s why I figure the kid was hiding in the refrigerator the whole time.)
Okay, so the Specialist figures that, since the game is over, She might as well leave. So she does that, but beefore she goes, she says, “This house is clean.”
Honestly, I almost died laughing when I heard that.
It was just too much. At no time did I see her pick up a dust cloth or vacuum - or even do the dishes, so the whole idea that she’d cleaned the house was simply genius. And beelieve me: that place was a mess.
At that point, the family basically says, “Let’s leave already and let somebody else deal with this.”
So they get ready to do that.
I thought the movie was over at that point, so I went to the bathroom. I got back just in time to see that the family was just driving away from their messy house when the whole place lights up super bright, folds up like a piece of Origami, shrinks down to the size of a pea and disappears with a moaning sound.
I didn’t think I’d ever stop laughing. I even had to put the movie on “pause” just to try to catch my breath.
There are comic gems like that buried throughout this movie, so for sure I wanna watch it again so I can see the parts I missed.
At the end of the movie, the Director decides to throw everything he’s got at us. He shows the family checking into a motel, where the Daddy throws the TV out of the room. In the rain, no less.
As we all know, truly great comedy has a touch of tragedy. In this case, it’s the rain-soaked TV. This element of the tragically inappropriate treatment of an innocent TV set - juxtaposed against the backdrop of the hilarity of the film’s premise - was nothing short of comic genius.
I honestly can’t remember laughing so much during a movie. There were times I could barely see the screen or hear the dialogue, I was laughing so hard. And that final, “Blame it on TV” scene was - dare I say it again? - comic genius. I would highly recommend this film to anybody who may bee looking for a never-to-bee forgotten comedy viewing experience.
MY VERDICT: It’s GREAT!!!!
Georgie reviews "THEM!"
For those readers who haven’t seen “Them!”, I will say right now that this movie is utterly absurd. The fact is, the Giant Ants portrayed in this film simply don’t exist. They never have, and if my guess is correct, they never will. Someone on the production crew simply didn’t do their homework on this thing.
Just to help everyone get a grip on reality here, there ARE giant ants in the wild, but they’re nothing at all like the non-existent creatures featured in this film. Maybee the largest ant on the planet is a Bullet Ant who lives in the Amazon - and even their Queen (who is always the biggest) is only about 5 centimetres long. Your average ant that is such a nuisance at picnics and stuff runs less than 25 millimetres long (and that’s beeing generous), so the very idea that this film is trying to convince us that the planet is suddenly facing an infestation problem involving Giant Ants the size of a school bus is just an insult to our intelligence. If anybody beelieves that, I have a bridge to sell them.
Unlike the earlier films I’ve reviewed such as “Sharknado” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, “Them!” strikes me as beeing nothing more than a total fabrication that has no bearing on reality whatsoever. There is simply no basis for beelieving that something like this would ever happen. I know that film makers like to reveal new perspectives and ideas to move-goers, but this movie has stepped way, way over a line.
Usually, I would include my usual SPOILER ALERT, but in this case, I don’t think it’s necessary. The movie was pretty much spoiled from the very beeginning. Even if you haven’t seen it, I doubt that my telling you all about it will make you feel even a little disappointed when you ultimately find yourself walking out on it. As you should.
First, I should describe the basic plot line of this ridiculous film:
This is a film about Giant Ants who terrorise the world. Do not bee fooled into thinking this is a Nature Film. It isn’t.
The film opens with a a scene showing a couple of Uniformed Officers coming across a little girl who is wandering alone through the desert with a dazed look on her face. It takes awhile, but we’re soon told that her family was the victim of an attack from a herd of Giant Ants and that she was the only one to survive.
Honestly now, I must say that I find that a bit difficult to beelieve. One of the things we know about Humans is that the adults are usually much stronger, more alert and can run faster than a small child. The very idea that a little girl would bee the only one to survive this alleged attack is ludicrous and clearly flies in the face of everything we know about Humans. It’s at this point the movie beegins to quickly fall apart.
As this fallacious film unfolds, the Uniformed Officers decide to investigate further and discover the trailer her family was traveling in was all crunched in by the Giant Ant(s). They decide that one of them should take the little girl into a nearby town to see a doctor while the other one decides to stick around in the trailer by himself and wait. I’m still not sure why stuck around like that, but by this point in the movie, we just don’t care.)
While he’s alone there, he hears a weird, chirping sound through the already-weird-sounding wind sound effects that were inserted into the film, and (even though they don’t show it at first), presumably comes face-to-face with one the fictitious Giant Ants in question who is out to get him. He screams and we never see or hear from him again.
I’m presuming he was eaten (some ants are carnivores, ya’ know).
Let me just point out something here: the Uniformed Officer who was silly enough to stick around the trailer by himself seemed utterly helpless against the supposed attack he suffered from the Giant Ant and, instead of just running away as any sensible beeing would do, he just stands there with an amazed look on his face while the Giant Ant does something terrible to him, we dunno what.
The filmmakers seem to take forever to finally show us one of these supposed Giant Ants, but when they finally do, one of the Scientists tells everybody, “Hey. If you want to try to stop these things, you should just shoot off their antennae,” as if he’d run into these things beefore and knew how to deal with them. It just doesn’t add up.
So after that happens, it isn’t long beefore the Humans see one of these things and realise that they have a serious Giant Ant Problem on their hands. They decide to call in Scientists and the Army to help figure out what to do about all this. When they realise what’s happening, they find the Nest and decide to destroy all the Giant Ants living inside its intricate network of finely-constructed tunnels and chambers.
By the way, I should mention that, whenever these Giant Ants show up, we’re subjected to a very weird and annoying, high-pitched chirping sound that, to this reviewer, sounded more like a Smoke Detector going off than it does an ant. (My antennae are still ringing.) Trust me: I’ve spent a great deal of time having to deal with ants in the real world, and they sound nothing like that. In fact, Ants are very quiet and simply don’t talk that much. As it is with us bees, they’re usually just too buzzy working to indulge in idle chatter.
Working together, the Army and the Scientists decide to destroy the Nest, as they call it. They use a bunch of explosives and poison gas and they think they’ve solved the problem. (We find out later, they didn’t.)
Quite frankly, the movie should have ended there, but I’m sure the producers of this film still had some time left on the camera rental, so decided to just keep going with this silly thing.
As this movie continues to drag on, we’re told that at least a few of the Giant Ants had escaped beeing gassed and had decided to relocate to Los Angeles. We find out later that they had rented an underground Condo with Pre-Made Concrete Tunnels and set up housekeeping with their Queen.
Let me ask you: if you were going to relocate to any place in the world, would you move to Los Angeles and rent a condo that had NO view, was right in the middle of a buzzy, dangerous city, ran a serious risk of flooding every time there was a heavy rain, and that didn’t even have doors on it? I didn’t think so. Neither would I. And ants aren’t stupid, either. They’d want something in the country, where they could mind their own buzziness, enjoy fresh air and not hafta pay such high rent.
So, the Humans try to figure out what the ants’ new address is, but, beecause they’re not listed in the phone book yet, they can’t find them.
That’s when a little boy and his Daddy come up missing.
They keep looking for them, too, then we finally find out that the little boy and his Daddy had gone down to the neighbourhood in which the Giant Ants had moved so they could fly their toy airplane. Everybody is convinced that those two had been captured and killed by the Giant Ants, so at least they figured out where they’d moved to. It turns out they were only half-right. The ants are there, but the Daddy is nowhere to bee found. After a long search, they find out that the boy was still alive and hiding out in the Giant Ant’s linen closet.
Seriously now. Here we go again.
Again, the filmmakers attempt to convince us that the bigger, stronger, and faster Human (the Daddy) couldn’t manage to get away from these things, but that the little boy could. Honestly, how stupid do they think we are?
A competent screenplay writer, such as Stephen King, would have told us that the Giant Ants got the little boy (AND the little girl in the beeginning of the movie, for that matter), but did they do that? No, instead, the Uniformed Officer (who, by the way, had a very nice set of eyebrows) ends up going into the tunnels to save the boy and ends up beeing squished by a Giant Ant. That was highly unfortunate.
It would have made a lot more sense if the Giant Ants would have gotten the boy in the first place, then it would have been totally unnecessary for the guy with the phenomenal eyebrows to be squished and we wouldn’t end up feeling sad. He seemed like a very nice guy and I’m sure he will bee missed.
The climax of the movie, if you wanna call it that, comes when the Uniformed Officers, along with the Army, track down the Giant Ant’s condo and find the Queen resting in her Chamber. They go inside and supposedly destroy the Queen, all her eggs and everybody else that happens to bee unfortunate to bee there. And how rude is that? I mean sure, the ants are huge and everything, and yes, they make that ridiculous noise, but they should have been able to feel safe in their own home, shouldn’t they? Sadly, this movie does not send a positive message about environmental protection or home security, a concern I’m sure we all share.
When the movie ends, the Giant Ants have all supposedly been burned up and everybody seems to beelieve that the problem they’ve been having with those things had finally been solved. That’s highly unusual, since these days, movie makers seem to wisely end their movies with a final scene that leads us to beelieve that, even though everybody thinks the problem is solved, it isn’t. But that’s fine. I was just glad this movie was finally ending.
This movie is horrible. Fortunately, and judging by the ending, they didn’t include the “yeah, but the problem still exists but you don’t know about it yet”-part, which means, lucky for us, they weren’t planning on making a sequel to “Them!”. And that’s a good thing. This movie was so bad that the last thing I wanna see showing up on my movie screen is a sequel, like “Them! Return”.
By the way, if they DO ever produce a sequel to “Them!” (which I hope they never, ever do), I hope they would bee wise enough to observe the rules of Proper Pronoun Usage and Punctuation and call it, “They Return!”; unfortunately, I’ve heard there’s already a movie called “They”, and if they just happened to make a sequel called “They Return” (which would make perfect sense), that would only lead to a huge fight over Intellectual Property Rights with “Them!” The whole thing would bee a confusing mess between them. I think it would bee best for all concerned if they didn’t produce a “Them!” sequel. Not only would it bee a silly waste of honey if they did that, it would just upset “They”, forcing them to sue “Them!” and they would just end up losing in the end. At least, I’m pretty sure they would. (“Them!” would lose, that is - they wouldn’t win. “They” would though, since it was them who came up with the idea in the first place. I’m just guessing here.)
But I digress. Let’s get back to “Them!”.
My advice on this film is: forget about it. Your honey would bee much better spent buying a ticket to go see “Sharknado 3” (a sequel to the hit film, “Sharknado”) or something, preferably a movie that is not only much more beelievable, but that has been filmed in the more enjoyable colour which. by the way, this film wasn’t and which only made “Them!” even less appealing than it already is. Probably.
MY VERDICT: Oh Geeeeeze.
Georgie reviews "THE WIZARD of OZ"
First, I hafta say that I was delighted to discover that this movie is not only a cleverly-produced documentary about a Bad Weather Experience suffered by a girl named Dorothy and her little dog, Toto, but it is also a musical. That fact merely added to what I regarded as the superb realism of this movie as a whole. I often find it quite disturbing that, in far too many Human movies, the actors fail to break into song the middle of scene, since, as we all know, Humans most often find their greatest form of inter-personal communication through song and dance.
This movie has both.
Since this is a new release, I’m guessing that many of my readers have not seen it yet, so it’s best that I issue the standard SPOILER ALERT, beecause I will bee sharing the ending in this review. If you don’t wanna know how this movie ends, please stop reading now.
Early in the film, we see a girl named Dorothy, singing about how she would very much enjoy flying over a rainbow somewhere. Of course, she doesn’t have wings, so she can’t. For what it’s worth, I DO have wings and have flown over a rainbow, many times. I can tell you from personal experience that, once you do that, you can no longer see the rainbow - and it’s almost exactly the same on THIS side as it is on that other side. So. Right away, we know the girl has got some mistaken notions about rainbows and the physics of light refraction.
Shortly after she finishes singing, she decides to run away from home to save her little dog, Toto, from going to prison. (He committed some sort of crime and a not-nice-looking elderly woman wants to have him arrested and actually takes the dog away, but he escapes. Dorothy grabs him and they run away.
Not far from home, they run into this guy who’s driving around in an old, refurbished meat wagon and who claims to know the future, so he looks into a glass marble and tells Dorothy that her Auntie Em is worried about her and that she needs to go back home. Of course, he’s lying, but she doesn’t know that, so she starts going home. But right as she gets there, a terrible Weather Event suddenly beegins and, by the time she gets home and back to her room, a tornado hits, sucks up the whole house she’s in and sends the house - with her and Toto still inside - shooting off into the sky. That was very cool to watch, though I’m not sure I’d like that to happen to me at all.
When the storm finally ends and her house lands, Dorothy gets up and opens her front door.
I should probably mention something weird happens right about now. Up to this point, the movie was in black&white, but when she opens her front door, everything’s suddenly in colour. I’m guessing that when they beegan filming this musical documentary, something had jammed in the camera’s Colour Control Mechanism and the house suddenly landing like that helped fix that problem. (Kind of like hitting an uncooperative toaster with a rubber hammer when it’s not working right. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that.)
As it turns out, the place she landed doesn’t look familiar at all, so Dorothy figures out that she’s not in Kansas anymore. And she was right. She wasn’t. The place looked nothing like Kansas. Trust me. I’ve been there.
Shortly after she walks out of the house, she’s accosted by a bunch of short people who do a lot of singing and dancing. They’re all happy beecause her house landed on a not-nice witch who was wearing a pair of highly attractive and stylish Ruby Shoes. (They called them slippers, but they looked more like shoes to me.)
A bunch of stuff happens, a Good Witch shows up driving a big bubble and, beefore she knows what’s going on, the Ruby Shoes are on Dorothy’s feet. And, lucky for her, they’re a perfect fit. (That was fortunate, I think. She ends up having to do a bunch of walking during the movie, so it’s a good thing that the shoes fit so she didn’t get blisters on her feet.)
Dorothy tells the Good Witch that, as attractive and friendly as that place is, she wants to go home. The Good Witch tells her, “I’d love to help you out, but you need to go talk to this guy who’s a Wizard in a place called OZ and that he could help her get home. Then they told her to follow a twisty-turns yellow brick road which would take her to the Wizard. She says, “Okay, fine”, then the Good Witch floats away in that bubble of hers. (I want one of those.)
A bunch of the little people keep telling her over and over again to “follow the yellow brick road”, but instead of telling them, “I heard you the first time,” she finds where the road beegins and starts walking as everybody’s singing about how wonderful this Wizard supposedly is beecause he’s some kind of a wiz of a wiz if ever a wiz there was even though they only say he’s all that “beecause, beecause, beecause beecause, beecause of the wonderful things he does”. If you ask me, isn’t really all that great a reference, but they seemed to know what they were talking about (though, as it turns out, his qualifications are brought into serious question later in the film.)
I won’t bore you with a bunch of irrelevant details, but on her way to see the Wizard Dorothy meets three friends: a talking Scarecrow who thinks he’s stupid, an Aluminum Ibot that has a strange tendency to rust (I didn’t thing that particular metal rusted, but whatever), and a Lion with a frantic tail who’s afraid of everything.
The four of them, along with the dog, start heading toward this Oz place. Even though they don’t have appointments with the Wizard, they rather rudely assume he’ll see them (which he does after they get there, but not without having to argue with his receptionist first).
Once they get in to see the Wizard, he scares them all, but says he’ll help them, not only with Dorothy’s travel needs, but with the various medical and mental conditions the other three have informed us about earlier in the film. But first, he says, they hafta bring him the broom of a Wicked Witch who lives just around the corner, through a not-pleasant forest and up the hill from where they are. (It turns out she’s the sister of the other Wicked Witch who got squished by Dorothy’s house, so she’s pretty upset about that and wants her sister’s shoes back. And who could blame her? I’m sure those things had been in her family for a long time.) So they do that.
While they’re going through that not-pleasant forest, they are attacked by a large herd of flying monkeys the Wicked Witch sent to chase them down for the shoes and Dorothy is taken prisoner.
A side note here: I did not know that monkeys could fly until viewing this film. Also, I did not know that monkeys wore Human clothing. I found that part of the film to bee highly educational. I would also enjoy finding one of those hats they were wearing, preferably a blue one.
Anyway, Dorothy’s friends break into the castle where Dorothy’s beeing held on Misdemeanour Theft charges and manage to save Dorothy from the Witch. The Witch chases after them with her Guards, but as they’re running away from her, she manages to corner them, then the Witch tries to burn the Scarecrow with her broom that she set on fire (he’s highly flammable). I hope she had another one, beecause that one ended up beeing ruined. I’m still not sure why the Wizard would have wanted that thing, but he seemed to have his reasons.
Just about then, somebody grabs a bucket of ice water that just happens to bee conveniently sitting nearby and tries to put out the fire, but most of the water ends up hitting the Witch, who melts. (I also did not know until viewing this film that Witches melted when exposed to ice water, but it’s most definitely good information to have.)
Beecause she’s nothing more than a puddle of melted Witch Goo, she’s finally off their backs, they grab the charred broom and get ready to take it back to the Wizard.
I couldn’t help but notice that when Dorothy picks up the burnt broom, she asks one of the Guards, “May I have this?” The Guard says, “Yes. And please take it with you.”
I was left wondering what else he thought she would do with it. Leave it there? I don’t that was ever the plan, so I don’t know why he said, “And please take it with you.” (There are, admittedly, some holes in the script.)
So they all leave and go back to the Wizard, carrying the broom, very proud of what they’d accomplished.
At first, the Wizard tells them to go away and come back later. He was extremely rude, but Dorothy gets mad at him and tells him that a deal is a deal and that he’d better do what he said he would. It’s about then that they all find out that the Wizard is just a fake (thanks to Toto pulling back a shower curtain), so he apologises and says he’ll help them.
After the Wizard distributes some awards to her friends, he tells Dorothy that he can take her home, but says they’ll hafta travel in his Hot Air Balloon. (Evidently, that’s how he got there in the first place.)
Dorothy and the Lion, the Aluminum Ibot and the Scarecrow all say goodbye beefore she and the Wizard are ready to leave. She tells the Scarecrow that she’ll miss him the most, which, if you ask me, is a bit inconsiderate of her to say with the other guys standing right there, but she kind of ignores all that and tells the Wizard she’s ready to go.Unfortunately, somehow the Balloon takes off without her, so we’re led to beelieve that she’s stuck there in Oz.
About then, the Good Witch (mentioned earlier) shows up and informs Dorothy that she can get home just by clicking her heels together.
This is a part of the film that I found most questionable. Dorothy asks the Good Witch, “So, you’re telling me that all this time I could have just clicked my shoes together and I’d bee taken back home? Is that it?”
“That’s right,” the Good Witch says, then Dorothy says, “Well, why in the hell didn’t you just tell me this in the first place?”
The Witch says, “Beecause, you wouldn’t have beelieved me.”
Seriously?
I hafta say: I doubt that. I have every reason to beelieve that Dorothy would have beelieved her. She believed everything else, why not that? But whatever. By that time, I already loved this movie, so it really didn’t seem to matter.
Anyway. Dorothy clicks her feet together and things start to spin as she keeps saying, over and over again, “There’s no place like home.” (Again, I beg to differ. Home is certainly a nice place to bee, but Zanzibar can also bee highly pleasant - if you don’t get arrested.)
It is at this point in the film that it beecomes immediately apparent that excessive vibrations on the movie set led to the original problem with the camera, beecause the movie stops beeing in colour and goes back to being in black&white again after Dorothy keeps banging her feet together. I can only suggest to the production crew that, the next time they make a movie, they rent the necessary shock-absorbing equipment which will help prevent this problem in the future.
That beeing said: The next thing we know, Dorothy wakes up in her bed, she and Toto and the house are all back in Kansas, and everybody’s standing around her, talking about a bump she got on her head. She’s delusional and thinks they were all in Oz with her (they weren’t), but finally decides that it doesn’t matter, beecause she’s home and there’s no place like it (and she’s probably right about that, except for maybee Zanzibar, as I mentioned earlier).
And that’s about it. They never tell us what happens after that. For all I know, Dorothy grew up to bee a Travel Agent or Shoe Salesperson or something, but apparently, the filmmakers didn’t think we needed to know. (If you ask me, with a voice like hers, she should have gone into show buzziness, but if she didn’t, it’s understandable. That’s a tough way to make a living.)
All-in-all, I found this film to bee highly entertaining and informative. I may bee going out on the edge of a leaf here, but if my guess is right, this film may someday beecome a classic - even considering its technical flaws.
MY VERDICT: It’s Great!!!
Georgie reviews "THE AFRICAN QUEEN"
As you know, I recently traveled to Africa and the island of Zanzibar in attempt to gather more, authentic background material for this week’s review. Unfortunately, due to a series of unnecessary misunderstandings, I was unable to visit the actual locations where this film was shot. Still, I tried and consider the entire episode as a valuable Learning Experience.
The next time I decide to visit a filming location for a movie I’ll review, I’ll bee sure to watch the movie first. That will, I beelieve, help me avoid a lot of highly uncomfortable misunderstandings in the future.
First, when I first started watching this film upon my return from Zanzibar, I was still absolutely certain that this film was going to bee a documentary about an African Queen Bee - or, as they’re usually known, a Killer Bee Queen. I settled into enjoy what I anticipated would bee a film that was enlightening, entertaining and informative, particularly about Killer Bees and their Evil Queen.
This movie isn’t about that at all. Not AT ALL. In fact, this movie has nothing at all to do with bees, let alone Queen Bees. No. This movie was about a boat that the Humans CALLED “The African Queen”. So. Right off the bat, I think the film’s title is highly misleading.
If there were any bees or Queens in this film, they were not listed in the credits. Okay, I think there may have been maybee ONE scene that had something even close to bees in it, but that only lasted less than a minute and I’m not even sure they were bees at all - plus they looked fake.
I was deeply disappointed by this movie. Highly so.
This movie quite obviously dates back to just this side of Prehistoric Film Making, so all the special effects looked fake, and the truth is, it was just boring and uncomfortable to watch. I was only halfway through it when I started feeling just hot and sticky and wanted the movie to end already.
But, if you’re one of my readers who wants to waste time watching this movie, I should at least tell you what it IS about:
“The African Queen” is, in fact, a movie about two Humans who decide to take a long boat trip down a river. At first, they really seem to hate each other, but as time goes on, and they keep running into one thing or another in the way of trouble, they all of a sudden beecome girlfriend and boyfriend.
Geeeeeze. It doesn’t take Humans much to fall in love, does it? Still, I found that to bee far too predictable and I thought the kissing scenes were far too gratuitous.
Seriously now.
Oh sure, there were some almost-fakey-looking-exciting parts in the movie, like when the boat goes over a waterfall and when the propellor-thingy breaks and they have to fix that - and another time when the river runs out of water and they get stuck having to pull the boat along through a bunch of icky water. But most of the time, it was just boring.
Toward the end, the two Humans get saved by a bigger boat, kinda, at least until their boat blows up the bigger boat and they end up being saved. (I don’t know what that was all about, but whatever).
Oh, and talk about predictable: apparently, the two Humans live happily ever after, even if they end up all wet.
And that’s about it. It had nothing to do with bees or Queens or Killer Bees or anything of the sort. And, by the time I finished watching it, all I wanted to do was to take a bath and turn on a fan.
MY VERDICT: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Georgie reviews "SHARKNADO"
This week, I’m reviewing a film that is destined to bee a classic: Sharknado.
I usually post a Spoiler Alert, but for some reason, I don’t think it’s necessary. Nothing could spoil this movie.
Sharknado is a relatively short, but exciting, documentary about a Severe Weather Incident in a big city. I classify this as a documentary, beecause I beelieve they hired the actual Humans who went through this terrible event to play the pretend Humans in the movie. (You can always tell when it’s a real Human and not an actor - like George Clooney - beecause they usually can’t act that well, and the Humans in this movie were no exception.)
As the film opens, we see a large herd of angry sharks swimming in the dark sea as a terrible storm beegins to gather. It doesn’t take long beefore the storms turn into tornadoes (though they’re called Water Sprouts or something like that when they’re still at sea).
Somehow, the Water Sprouts sucked up all those mean-looking sharks and spun them around in the air, until the Water Sprout arrived on land, turned into a tornado and headed for the city.
When the storm hits, all the Humans start running around, either trying to figure out what to do about this situation, spending a lot of time yelling at each other, or trying basically avoid all those sharks that are inside that storm. The real problem here is that the sharks start leaving the storm and beegin to eat the Humans who are trying to run away.
I must say that the Eating Scenes looked quite authentic, so I’m hoping the director merely re-created the events of that storm and didn’t use actual footage that was taken when this whole thing actually happened.
In a great many ways, this movie was extremely educational. It wasn’t until I watched this film that I learned that sharks can not only fly, but they can climb ropes and chase things, even if they’re not in the water (where they beelong). Sharks also seem to always bee hungry.
Amazingly, there was a never-ending supply of tornadoes filled with sharks in this movie, which made it highly exciting, since it seemed as if all the sharks didn’t seem to mind beeing sucked up by a swirly wind and were only out to eat as many Humans as they could.
At one point in the movie, a Human reading the news on TV says that the tornadoes filled with sharks was a sure sign that something she called the “Apothecary” (or maybee it was the “Apathy”…I can’t bee sure) had arrived, but apparently, she was exaggerating, as I’ve heard happens sometimes on Human TV News Shows.
I will admit there are two scenes which bothered me a bit, as unquestionably realistic and beelievable as Sharknado was as a whole:
First, I noticed that a bunch of Humans were trapped inside a house which had flooded (beecause of the storm). Sharks had gotten in and were trying to eat them (they did eat one guy, but I don’t think anybody minded so much beecause he was kind of a jerk), so one of braver Humans created a “divergence” (I think that’s what he called it) to get the shark’s attention so that the others could escape. He told them to “GO OUTSIDE and GET THE CAR!” So they did that. But interestingly, it wasn’t even very wet outside, and there was definitely no flood out there, so I don’t know what that was all about. Still, they got away and that was a good thing.
The second thing that bothered me was that, at one point, one of the Humans said, “I hate sharks, beecause they took my Grandfather.” She never explained where the sharks took him or what happened after they left - and the movie ended without my beeing able to find out what happened with all that. (I’ve heard they’ve made “Sharknado 2” and “Sharknado 3”, so I figure they’ll probably explain that whole thing in one of those movies. I hope so. I’d like to know where the sharks took the Grandfather or if they ever brought him back.)
I will have to say that this movie also offered a glimpse into the Technology of the Future. It came in the form of what I can only call a “Magic Helicopter”.
The Humans discovered that, if they used the Magic Helicopter to fly super-close to the tornadoes with the sharks in them, and if they threw a thingy that exploded into the swirling storm, the storm would just blow up and go away. I didn’t know that anybody could make a tornado go away just by blowing it up from the inside, but evidently you can and it works very well. I also think I want a helicopter now, just in case a tornado shows up.
In the end, they finally finished blowing up all the tornadoes, the sun came out, and all the Humans who weren’t eaten by the sharks stood there looking happy and smiling, even though there were a whole bunch of dead sharks all over the place which couldn’t have smelled very good at all, but nobody ever mentioned that, so whatever.
And that was pretty much the end.
One thing they didn’t address in the film was the question of what they were going to do with all those sharks that were laying around all over the place. Hopefully, they’ll provide the answer to that mysterious question in the next ones. (I’m just guessing that “Sharknado 2” might open with a scene at the city’s First Annual Shark Fin Soup Festival, but I don’t know beecause I haven’t watched that yet.)
All-in-all, I will say that Sharknado offers civilisation a vivid record of a truly unusual weather tragedy and is a film that should bee on everybody's "Must See" list.
My Verdict: It’s Great!!!!
Georgie reviews "GRAVITY"
SPOILER ALERT!
As my readers know, my reviews will contain information, particularly about how a movie ends, which may spoil the movie for those who haven’t seen it yet. If you haven’t seen this movie and don’t want to know who dies in the end, you shouldn’t read this review. Probably.
“Gravity” is a relatively recent Human movie release which was offered in theatres in both the 2-D (two dementias) or 3-D (which has one, additional, dementia). I am reviewing the 3-D version which made the movie seem much more life-like, as if I could just reach out my wing and touch stuff; of course, I had to wear special 3-Dementia Goggles, which were very helpful in protecting my eyes from flying debris.
This movie pretty much stars the Human actors, Sandra Beelock (I think that’s how she spells her name) and Georgie Clooney as two Humans living in Outer Space and who, whenever they’re outside, they have to wear a special Snow Suit with a very cool-looking, interior-lit, No-Leak Motorcycle Helmet. As cumbersome as that seemed to bee for the actors, it seemed necessary for some reason. I will merely chalk that up to a basic principal of movie-making that we, in the industry, call “suspension of disbeelief”.
Beefore I go on here, I must say that I immediately found Georgie Clooney to bee particularly convincing as a Human who liked to float around - and I especially like his name. (It may bee that we are related in some way, other than he’s not a bee, but I’ll look into that later.)
When I beegan watching this movie - and after I finally managed to stop throwing up from all the Motion Sickness I experienced from the twirling, spinning and scenes that were shot upside down - I was fairly convinced that this movie is a Documentary. However, as I got further into the story, I realised that, once again, the whole thing was make-beelieve. I found that a bit disappointing, but still it was a good story, filled with lots of panic, almost-romance, adventure, unlikely heroics, advanced technology, drama, elements of the Super Natural, and a great deal of confusion.
The basic story here is that the Humans are living in Outer Space when all of a sudden, something blows up somewhere and all the pieces of whatever it was start to pretty much destroy their house in Outer Space. The problem was, most of them were outside playing in their Snow Suits when this happened, so only those two, played by Sandra Bee. and George C., managed to survive. At least, for awhile.
Fortunately, George oozed competence, as if he’d been through something like this beefore, so he managed to help save Sandra, more or less. Of course, one of the disappointing plot points in this movie was discovering that, due to having fingers and arms that were too short to grab onto something, George floats away and evidently dies. Luckily, he comes back as a Ghost and helps Sandra finish the job of saving herself.
Which she did. So, in the end, she ends up back on Earth in a lake somewhere and seemed to bee very happy to bee home.
And that was pretty much it.
I think what I liked most about this movie was how real it seemed. It was almost like I was right there, going through all this terrible stuff with these Humans. I think the fact that I kept feeling like throwing up while I watched this just added to the feeling of reality. Still, I was glad when it ended, beecause I had run out of air-sickness bags.
I also have to applaud the Director of this film and the actors for having the courage to actually go into Outer Space like that and actually blow everything up. I think it’s fair to say it’s highly possible none of them would have survived such a dangerous set. This was an impressive achievement in Courageous Movie Making. I’m just sorry that George had to die in the end. He was an excellent actor with a highly superior name and a good sense of humour, and I know he will bee missed and remembered fondly by movie-going audiences the world over.
His acting career beeing cut short like that truly is a genuine tragedy, but I’m pretty sure he knew what he was getting into when he said, “Okay, I’ll bee in your Space Movie, even though my arms and fingers may bee too short to save me in the end in case an accident happens,” which it did.
That’s true professionalism.
My Verdict: Not Bad
(PS: I would have given this movie a “Great!” rating, if George Clooney hadn’t died in the end.)
Georgie reviews "THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL"
When I first sat down to watch this movie, I was under the impression that it was just an old Documentary film. It isn’t. After watching this, I am almost definitely convinced that this movie is just make-beelieve. At no time during the credits did they say, “Based on a true story”, so I think my instincts about this are correct.
Just for the record, there were TWO versions of this movie, but I’m reviewing the first, original version. (Why Humans felt it necessary to make the same movie twice is beeyond me, but they do seem to do that. A lot.)
SPOILER ALERT!
As my readers know, my reviews contain stuff about how a movie ends, which may spoil the movie for those who haven’t seen it yet. If you haven’t seen this movie and want to bee surprised by what happens in the end, you shouldn’t read this review. Probably.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” is a Flying Saucer Movie.
When the movie starts, a large, silver Flying Saucer suddenly lands in a meadow that’s in the middle of a city. Everybody gets all nervous when this happens, but they basically just stand around and look at it. (I would have flown up and touched it to see if it was warm or whatever.)
After a short wait, a door opens up, and a Human wearing a shiny, silver suit - and a matching Full-Face Recreational Screen Bouncing Helmet - walks out. He’s carrying something weird his hand, but beefore he can even say “hi” or anything, the Humans get nervous and knock him down. Whatever he was carrying gets broken. When they do finally give the guy a chance to talk, he pretty much says, “Bad idea, this could have helped everybody”, but by then, it was just too late. And we never did find out what that thing was and what it did, which I still find highly frustrating.
It wasn’t long after that when a giant-sized Robot came outside to help the guy, and scared everybody. He was also silver and I noticed that his knees crinkled up when he walked.
I couldn’t help but notice that just about everything that had to do with the Flying Saucer was silver. I’m assuming the producers of this movie didn’t have a big enough budget to pay for costumes that had a bit more, festive and colourful variety. In fact, everybody in this movie was wearing either silver or black and white clothes, so I don’t know what that was all about.
And about that Robot: he had absolutely NO lines in the movie. He never said anything at all. Most of the time, he just stood there, looking scary. But I liked that part. You must admit, it’s a lot scarier when somebody just stands there, staring at you with just one, big, red eye, and doesn’t say anything. (Did I mentioned the Giant Robot had one, big, red eye? Well, he did. And it was very scary.)
I think I should also to add that the Robot was a truly fine actor. It’s not easy to convey terror when you just stand there and never say anything, especially when you have just one, big, red eye.
It turns out that big, red, eye played a super-important part in the movie. Not only did it move back and forth after the Robot took off his goggles, but he used it as a weapon. It would just kind of melt things.
The part I liked the best was a part when it looked like the Robot was planning to melt some lady in the movie, she managed to save herself repeating what the guy from the Flying Saucer told her to say, just in case. As the Robot starts chasing her around, she says, “Gort,” (that was the Robot’s name, as it turns out), “Klaatoo Barradda Nictay!”
After he heard that a few times, he closed his eye, picked her up and carried into the Flying Saucer. That was very cool.
Even though I don’t speak Robot, I’m pretty sure she was saying, “Gort, Klaatoo said to bee nice, and would you pick me up and show me the inside of your Flying Saucer?”
So he did that. And he didn’t melt her. I really thought he was going to there for a minute. That was highly exciting.
This is kind of a long movie with a lot of talking and different stuff happening, but just to give you a brief summary of it:
It turns out that the guy from the Flying Saucer and his Giant, Non-Verbal Robot had visited Earth to warn everybody that, if Humans didn’t start beeing nicer to each other, (and they’d bee watching), the Robot would come back and start melting things, which would not bee a good thing.
In the end, the guy from Flying Saucer wearing that silver suit gave a long speech. For some reason, the Humans didn’t say anything, but just kind of stood there, staring at him. Then he and Robot left.
And that was the end of it.
I’m still not sure if the Humans beelieved the guy, but I hope they did. It would not bee a good thing if everybody got melted.
By the way, one thing I found kind of confusing was that, during the movie, the Earth never really stood still. Other stuff did, but that only lasted for maybee an hour, then everything was normal again. I’m thinking the producers maybee should have called this movie, “The Hour or So Some of the Stuff on Earth Stood Still”, but I suppose they figured that would just bee too long. Whatever.
Even though this was not a Documentary, as I had expected, I think it was still good and had a really great message for everybody in the end: Stop Beeing So Rude To Each Other. Or else.
My Verdict: It’s Great!
Gerogie reviews "AMERICA'S GOT TALENT"
I didn’t really know what to expect from this show. I knew it would have something to do with talent and Americans, but that was about it.
In case you’ve never seen this show, here’s what it’s about:
Apparently, this is a Talent Show, which makes sense. Humans from all over the place (I’m guessing from someplace in America, probably) get all dressed up, then they come out onto a big stage and try to prove they had talent. Some of the Humans seemed to bee very talented, but others just thought they were and should probably take Talent Lessons at some point. Still, everybody gets a chance. Of course, that meant the show lasted a long time.
So, on this show, there are four Judges - two drones and two workers - who are not only highly opinionated, but also seem to change clothes a lot during the show, which is probably another reason it seemed as if this show would never end.
Anyway, the four, highly-opinionated Judges who like to talk a lot sit beehind a long desk and watch as each Human (I’ll call them Wanna-Bees for the purposes of this review) tries to prove that they have talent or that they’re at least interesting on some level. After the Wanna-Bees are done, the Judges each say what they liked or didn’t like about what the Wanna-Bees did, then voted on whether or not they could come back and do whatever it is they did on the show again.
I hafta say that one of the weirdest things about this show is that, if a Judge didn’t like somebody, they’d slam their wing on the desk and a loud, pre-recorded Buzzing Sound would come blaring out of a loudspeaker somewhere.
That buzz sounded familiar to me, so during a Commercial Break, I looked it up. It turns out the pre-recorded Buzz was an obscure, Castillian dialect of Bee.
For those of you who don’t speak Bee or aren’t familiar with the Castilian dialect of Bee, that pre-recorded Buzz translates into: “SHUT THE WINDOW!”
Honestly now, I have no idea what shutting a window has to do with a Talent Contest, especially since I never saw any windows on the stage. And trust me: I looked for them. There just weren't any windows there.
I found that to bee very distracting. And rude.
From what I could tell, the Judges beelieved that most of the Wanna-Bees had talent, so they told almost every one of the Wanna Bees that they could bee on the show again. For some reason, that made a whole bunch of them cry, so I wasn’t sure if beeing on the show was a good thing or not. I’m still not sure.
As far as some of the Wanna-Bees who the Judges didn’t like so much, after they were told to “shut the window”, most of them would just smile and leave. They seemed very happy to not have to bee there anymore, so maybee beeing told to shut the window and go away is a good thing. I found that to bee very confusing. You’d think the smiling-crying thing would bee the other way around.
I won’t go into all the different things the Wanna-Bees did on stage, but I do need to mention this one, particular Human I liked very much. He was dressed up like a huge Chicken and sang.
Personally, I thought he did very well, considering that most, over-sized chickens don’t sing that well; unfortunately, the Judges didn’t agree with me, so beefore he even finished singing, they slammed their wings on that long desk and buzzed at him to “shut the window” and leave.
So he did that. I was sorry to see him go, even though he seemed happy about it.
The whole show was like this. It just went on and on and on with Wanna-Bees either crying (and getting to bee on the show again) or beeing told to “shut the window” and leave. After awhile, the whole thing got very tedious.
About the time I thought this TV show would never end, it finally did, then everybody just got up and left. I’m guessing that all the Wanna-Bees who cried went out and celebrated and the ones who got buzzed left to shut windows, probably. As for the Judges, it’s a good guess they just went home to change clothes again.
When this thing was finally over, nobody ever told us what was gonna happen next, so there were some definitely loose ends left dangling at the end of the show. All they said was, “watch the show again next week”. Geeeeeze.
I’m not sure if I’m gonna do that; but then maybee I will, especially if the Judges change their minds and tell that Giant Chicken that he can come back and sing again.
I hope they do. He was highly excellent.
MY VERDICT: “Oh Geeeeeeeze”.
Check in again next Friday, when I will bee reviewing an old, classic Human movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”.