Reviews

Is there even a "C" category for movies? After seeing the ratings and reading the reviews to date, curiosity got the best of me. I just had to see for myself how bad things could be. I was not disappointed.

It should be rebranded as a self-deprecating, kitsch comedy. It succeeds at trying to be horrible. In that context, it is a classic.

The narration is SO bad and SO annoying that I had to mute the sound every time he started talking. Were it not a visual masterpiece, I would have turned off the film within the first minute.

Upside Down also veers into Candyland many times where things get so sticky schmaltzy sweet that I had to fast-forward to avoid having to inject insulin. But even then, the visuals kept me watching.

Suggestion to the producers: Release a director's cut sans narration. That would bump it up from a 3 rating to a 6. It's actually not a bad premise. And except for a few mediocre moments by Jim Sturgess, all the performances are not only believable, they are quite good. Maybe some other editing work could improve it even more.

Dear Reader, The same people who gave "Coraline" the OK for 6 year old children in Switzerland were apparently in charge of "Where the Wild Things Are" as well. Just like Coraline, Wild Things is psychologically terrifying for young children. No blood. No guts. Not much physical violence. But explicit things are rarely the scariest. It's the implicit things that dig in and wreak havoc with your mind. Small children do not have the tools yet to deal with such psychological burdens. Loneliness. Abandonment. Despair. Angst. Sure these are all situations we all must deal with eventually. But do you want to expose a 10-year-old to this intentionally? If you do not, then do not inflict "Where the Wild Things Are" on your children.

This review is less about the episode itself and more about the music of Battlestar Galatica in general. One of the highlights of the new BSG is Bear McCreary's soundtrack. This music is nothing less that brilliant, certainly the best from any television series. I chose to insert these comments under this episode because the music in this one is particularly haunting. It is so haunting, in fact that I nearly lost a girlfriend because of it. I had a date just after seeing this episode I was so distracted that my date thought I was being rude and aloof. I have been searching for a recording of it ever since the episode aired. For some reason the studio chose not to include it on the Soundtrack CD of Season 2. (Or did I miss something?) Anyway, the music fits to the action and emotion of the episode (which I will not spoil here) perfectly. It's almost as if the story was written to fit the music, not the other way around.