Where the Wild Things Are - $9

Where the Wild Things Are is a book I loved as a kid, it's not a complex book, in fact I believe it's only 10 sentences long, so the movie had to get creative and inventive and in my opinion they pulled it off.

Where the Wild Things Are, the movie, is about a young boy named Max. Max doesn't have a lot of friends and like a typical child he gets a little carried away with his childish wild side from time to time. One night after an arguement with his mom Max runs away and sails to a far away island where he meets a group of strange monsters that make him their king. Max's rule of the island starts out very well but he begins to see the ugly side of the monsters after a long time there and he heads back home to his relieved mom.

The monsters each seemed to represent a different kind of childish behavior and you'd expect that to lead into some overt moral to the story, but it doesn't. Max seems to have learned a bit about himself by the end but not in any kind of neatly wrapped up way. This was a story that was simply about childish behaviour without a lot of judgement attached and to frankly, it was refreshing in that it didn't spoon feed it's audience with an obvious message. This is an understated and rich story that reminded me of being a child the entire time I watched it.

This movie captivated me with the visuals and the dialogue. The pre-monster portion of the story is told well but it's really the time in the land of the wild things that makes this movie great.

I've heard critics saying this is too dark and subtle for kids but I think they underestimate kids. I recommend this one no matter what your age.

$9 and a 'Watch It' for sure.

District 9 - $7

I hesitated at first to review District 9 until I see it again because I was forced to watch it in the 3rd row in one of those theaters where the first 4 rows are below the screen. This made for a hindered experience of the visuals of the movie, but I still liked it.

This movie is unique, not because it's doing anything that's never been done before, but because it's combining things that have never been combined before. This is part drama, part action, part comedy, part mockumentary and it's all wrapped in a metaphor for apartheid. Because of this it would be hard to pull off an effective plot summary for District 9 so I'll give you an ineffective one.

This is a movie set in South Africa where aliens who arrived without warning or purpose are put into an internment camp, called District 9, to be kept away from the general population for more than 2 decades. An attempt to evict and move the aliens to a new camp further away does not go well and District 9 becomes an action movie that needs to be seen rather than explained.

District 9 has a plot that is hard to believe at times but overall it worked for me, and it was certainly never boring. There is sure to be a sequel and I'll be sure to see it.

I give District 9 a value of $7 and put it on my 'Watch It' list. We'll see if that rating changes when I see this again and can view the whole screen without having to move my head side to side.

Funny People - $8

After a long hiatus I've been inspired to write a recommendation for Funny People, the latest Judd Apatow movie. Why this movie; it's simple really, it surprised the heck out of me.

I'm not a big Apatow fan, I laughed in 40 year old virgin and not as much in Knocked Up and I've found every movie he has his hands on to rely almost completely on pretty simple and vulgar humour. I'm also not a huge Seth Rogan fan, he's funny at times but he's been playing the same guy in all these movies and it wasn't amazing the first time.

Funny People was a pleasant surprise because it had all the things I didn't expect it to have, it was smart, mature, interesting and even had well developed characters. There was still a good dose of vulgarity but it was a side show at most and it fit the story more naturally since this is a movie about stand up comedians and lets face it, most of them make a living with vulgarity.

Funny People is long, really the first comedy epic I've ever seen, but it doesn't drag at all. It tells a story that needed time to be told.

Seth Rogan is good playing pretty much the guy he always does. Adam Sandler stole the show though. Sandler is hit and miss for me but once again in Funny People he proved he can actually act if given the chance.

It's also worth mentioning that Jason Schwartzman and Jonah Hill have a surprisingly great chemistry as the roommates of the main character. Also, the biggest surprise of all, Eric Bana is funny. Who knew.

I'm putting Funny People on my 'Watch It' list and giving it a $8 value. I laughed a lot in this movie which is not a normal Apatow reaction for me. I hope we see more of this type of movie making from Apatow in the future.

The X Files: I Want to Believe - $1

I'll make this short, this movie sucked.

I used to love the X Files TV show and it's previous movie incarnation was quite good too. This movie just felt like the most boring X Files episode I've ever seen. The plot was simple, the characters were flat and had no chemistry, there was nothing frightening or creepy, no aliens, no conspiracies... what the heck was this piece of crap?

This should have gone straight to video.

I put The X Files: I Want to Believe on my 'Please Don't Ever Watch It' list and give it a value of $1. The dollar is for Amanda Peet, no movie with her will ever get a 0 from me.

The Incredible Hulk - $6

I didn't mind Ang Lee's Hulk (2003), it was interesting and worth watching if only for the unique way it was made. For all the comic book movies out there these days, Lee's version was the closest any movie has come to the feel of a comic.

This new incarnation of The Incredible Hulk is a much more typical comic adaptation movie. Lots of action, explosions and CGI. Interestingly neither Hulk movie has made much money at the box office and I have some theories there. Ang Lee's Hulk was too different for your typical comic movie fan and this one, while a continuation of the first, was not really a sequel either so the interest level wasn't there. There was some confusion when it came out as to whether it was another remake of the first one from only a few years earlier or if it was a sequel. It really wasn't either. Rest assured, both Hulk movies are far superior to Spider Man 3.

The Incredible Hulk begins with Bruce Banner living in a very poor area in South America and working at a drink factory. He is of course hiding out from the military that created his alter ego, the Hulk, as he attempts to find a cure. Once day in an innocent factory accident a drop of Banner's blood falls into one of the drinks. Weeks later a man dies from the same kind of radiation poisoning that created the Hulk and the military finally knows where to look for Banner.

The rest of the story revolves around Banner finding Betty Ross, the woman he loved and left behind when he went into hiding. When he finds her she helps him hide and look for answers and a cure to his condition. There is also a member of the special forces team trying to capture the Hulk who voluntarily undergoes procedures to give him similar powers as the Hulk, that being the ability to transform into a monstrous like thing with super strength. His procedure goes wrong of course and he turns in the Abomination. In an ironic twist the very military trying to capture Banner/Hulk have to turn to him in the end to help stop Abomination.

Though it's predictable and somewhat formulaic, I'm recommending The Incredible Hulk. Ed Norton turns out to be a very good Bruce Banner and Liv Tyler is actually pretty convincing as Betty Ross. William Hurt is, as usual, fantastic playing Gen. Thaddeus Ross, the man in charge of the experimental program which made Banner become the Hulk. He also happens to be Betty Ross' Father, insert drama here.

The Incredible Hulk manages to be intriguing and finds a way to further the Hulk story without truly being a sequel to the 2003 movie. The CGI is good, as it always is when more than 100 million dollars is spent, but more importantly there is actually some character development and a bit of a story told here.

I'm putting The Incredible Hulk on my 'Watch It' list and giving it a value of $6.