Posts Tagged ‘American Dream’

Transformers: Dark of the Moon has quickly become a box office phenomenon, pretty much just like most of us thought it would. However, what has been surprising is the relatively positive word of mouth the film has earned. After the critical failure of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen expectations were exceedingly low for the third installment. But even with this being the case audiences have seemingly been walking away feeling very satisfied.

Critics have by and large panned Dark of the Moon, amassing only a 37% approval rating on RottenTomatoes.com. On that same site, however, 90% of over 60,000 people voted to say they enjoyed the film. So for those of you who got a charge out of the movie we here at Movie-Thoughts thought it would be interesting to talk about several aspects of it that we weren’t able to fit into our review. Below you can find the conversation that took place between our writers Cliff Bugle and Marisa Carpico. Be sure to send us your comments! We want to hear your thoughts as well.

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Short Take: Has everything an exploitation movie requires, including controversiality

Directors: Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror, Sin City), Ethan Maniquis

Screenwriters: Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror), Ãlvaro Rodri­guez (From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter)

Cast: Danny Trejo (Spy Kids, Heat), Jessica Alba (Good Luck Chuck), Robert De Niro (The Good Shepherd), Jeff Fahey (Grindhouse, The Lawnmower Man), Michelle Rodriguez (TV’s Lost, Avatar), Steven Seagal, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Lindsay Lohan

Length: 1h 45m

Synopsis: A widowed ex-Federale who relegates himself to being a day laborer on the border between Texas and Mexico gets offered an opportunity to earn $150,000 if he assassinates a senator hell bent on closing the border between the two nations. Double-crossed after taking the job, the man, known only as Machete (Trejo), must do what he can to stay alive and avoid capture. He receives help from an understanding Customs officer named Sartana (Alba) and an underground pro-immigration network headed by Luz (Rodriguez), a food truck worker. Together they will try to clear Machete’s name and uncover a conspiracy that aims to make voters sympathetic to the bigoted senator’s platform. It would appear that the bad guys just f****** with the wrong Mexican. Read the rest of this entry »

Short Take: Delivers nothing less than what you would expect from Pixar

Director: Lee Unkrich (co-director of Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc., Finding Nemo)

Screenwriters: Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine), John Lasseter (Toy Story, Toy Story 2), Andrew Stanton (Monster’s Inc., WALL-E), Lee Unkrich

Cast: Tom Hanks (The Da Vinci Code), Tim Allen (The Santa Clause 3), Joan Cusack (Kit Kittredge), Ned Beatty (Charlie Wilson’s War)

Length: 1h 43m

Synopsis: Woody (Hanks) and Buzz (Allen) and the gang are preparing themselves for the day that they knew would eventually come, and that day is when their owner Andy (now 17 years old) heads off to college and relegates his toys to either the attic or place of donation. All the toys are in a panic, and despite Woody’s efforts to calm them their hysteria is just too great. What ends up happening to them is that they are given away to a nearby daycare center where they are met with many other toys, but also some unruly toddlers. These hyperactive tots viciously mistreat their new toys, and on top of that not all of the daycare’s older toys are quite what they seem to be. All of Andy’s old toys decide they must somehow reunite with him, but figuring out how to do that will be their biggest challenge yet. Read the rest of this entry »