Archive for the 'Based on TV Series' Category

City of Men

Published
by
Chalupa
on January 8, 2009
in Based on TV Series, Brazil, Crime, Drama and Family
. 0 Comments

City of Men is a sequel of sorts, based off a TV show, to City of God.  It takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and shows a peak into the lives of some young men living there.  The city is wrought with strife and gang wars.  This film illustrates some of the problems these children and young adults face just because of the color the their skin, where they live, who they’re related to, and what gang they belong to.  It also speaks a lot to fatherhood, or the lack thereof.

This story mainly consists of the relationship between two friends, Ace and Wallace.  They’re turning 18 and have come to the point in life where they’re finally grown up.  Ace already has a son and Wallace is in search of his biological father.  In the middle of everything, a gang war erupts putting these lifelong friends at odds.

I don’t feel like there’s much more I can say without giving away too much.  It’s a really great film and if you saw City of God, you need to see the follow up to the TV Series sequel.  I think there’s less violence in this film, but it’s just as powerful as the first.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Reno 911!: Miami

Published
by
Chalupa
on November 6, 2008
in Based on TV Series, Comedy and Crime
. 0 Comments

If you’ve seen the TV show, Reno 911, you have a pretty good idea what this movie would be about.  Written and directed by Robert Ben Garant, otherwise known as Junior, this film seemed to just do everything they couldn’t do on television.

The story is a bit ludicrous, yet not that far from the truth.  If you’ve watched any of the COPS shows, you’ll know just how stupid some people can be.  Here we have the whole Miami police force locked down because they’ve all be contaminated with something biological.  Luckily the Reno Sheriff’s Department is there to save the day.

It was all fun and silly until they lost me with the gratuitous nudity and sex jokes.  I’m all for a raunchy film.  I love Kevin Smith’s work, however, there’s a time when stuff is just pointless and meaningless.  It’s hard to explain, but that’s the way I feel.  Definitely don’t want to watch this one again.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Stargate: The Ark of Truth

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 25, 2008
in Adventure, Based on TV Series, End of the world, Fantasy and Sci-fi
. 0 Comments

I’m most definiately biased when it comes to all things Stargate and The Ark of Truth is no exception.  Sometimes movie versions of TV shows go drastically wrong, but I’m happy to report this one came off as a good, long episode.  Much like the X-Files and Simpsons movies.

If you haven’t watched the TV series, I would suggest against watching.  Most of it probably wouldn’t make any sense because it’s based off continuing story lines through several seasons of TV.

Rating: ★★★★★

Get Smart

Published
by
nathanshorb
on July 5, 2008
in Action, Based on TV Series, Comedy and Crime
. 1 Comment

Let me preface by saying this: I am a huge Steve Carrell fan. He and Jack Black are tied for being able to make me giggle uncontrollably pretty much just by doing absolutely nothing. Just the other day, which shopping for a greeting card, I picked up one of those cards-with-sound that featured Steve Carrell mumbling something or other from The Office. In the middle of the card store, I laughed really really loudly and couldn’t stop. I love Steve Carrell.

And because of that love, I had relatively high hopes for Get Smart. I knew it wouldn’t be a great film or anything, but I expected to laugh quite a bit.

Well, it’s with great disappointment that I tell you: I wasn’t impressed. I really didn’t even laugh all that much.

It’s your typical summer comedy, a chuckle here and there and quite a bit of poor acting and cheesy delivery. But not even Mr. Carrell could redeem it. So much of the movie simply fell flat. You wanted to laugh, but it just wasn’t worth the effort.

Don’t get me wrong. Alan Arkin is decent as always, and Anne Hathaway is a lot of fun, too. The Rock is as bad as ever, and there are plenty of cameos to keep things interesting, too.

Speaking of cameos: I won’t mention who it is in case some of you are rushing out to see it after this stellar review, but one cameo features another one of my favorite actors, and I felt his 2 minute cameo was the best comedic delivery in the whole movie.

In the end, Steve Carrell just wasn’t allowed to shine enough in this film. While he was one of the main actors, the movie didn’t feature him. It also seemed like he wasn’t allowed to take his lines on as his own, and followed the script pretty closely, when we all know he’s at his best when he’s flying off the cuff.

It’s a fine fun summer movie, but don’t go spending nine dollars on it like I did.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Transformers

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 11, 2007
in Action, Adventure, Animation, Based on TV Series, Based on a comic, Sci-fi, Technology and Thriller
. 0 Comments

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Transformers. I used to watch the cartoon as a kid, but wasn’t fanatical about it. I’m also not opinionated enough about the cartoon to rip apart the movie for minuscule inconsistencies. Yeah, so Optimus Prime has some flames painted on the side and Megatron didn’t turn into a gun fired by Starscream. Big deal. The movie was still action packed and entertaining.

For me, I don’t know if this would have been absolutely necessary to see on the big screen. I’m sure some would heartily disagree with that, but this would have been the same experience for me on my television. I still suggest catching it sometime.

Borat

Published
by
Chalupa
on December 5, 2006
in Based on TV Series, Bears, Comedy, Documentary, Kidnapping, Mocumentary and Satire
. 1 Comment

Robby, Liz and I saw this over the weekend and we now know what everybody is raving about. This movie is hilarious! There are definitely some crazy parts, some offensive parts and maybe even some gross parts. I’m sure there are many who would not find this funny at all…but I did. Maybe this should be tossed into the same category as South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. The one thing I’m actually surprised with is how people are trying to sue Sasha Baron Cohen after finding out they’re in the movie. These people signed release forms and were interacting with a man and a camera crew. This guy also has a TV show where he plays the exact same character. I guess some people are just slow to catch on.

If you don’t know much about this movie, a man pretends to be a news reporter from Kazakhstan and travels all over the US gaining experiences along the way. He’s very anti-semitic and has many offensive ideas and ideologies that he shares with just the right people along the way. He also does a lot of things to put people in awkward situations and seems to get away with it because he’s “foreign”.

I can’t recommend this to most, but I found this one to be quite funny.

Serenity

Published
by
Chalupa
on October 1, 2005
in Action, Adventure, Based on TV Series, Future, Sci-fi, Space, Thriller, War and Western
. 2 Comments

If you’re a fan of the late TV show, Firefly then you’ll love this movie. If you haven’t heard, Joss Whedon, the writer/director, made this one for the fans. I thought it was a great movie but if you haven’t seen the series then there’s a lot of things that just don’t make too much sense. Mostly because you don’t have all the backstories and explanations.

The movie and TV series are based on a couple of old soldiers from a galactic war who fly around with their friends in an old firefly-class ship.  It’s even shaped like a firefly.  The story is heavily Western/cowboy based.  They are essentially outlaws because after the war was over, they ended up being on the wrong side.  As they travel from planet-to-planet picking jobs here and there, they run into their fair share of adventures while trying to keep a low profile and stay off the Alliance’s (the totalitarian government) radar.

Being futuristic, it’s interesting to see a mesh of American and Asian, specifically Chinese, culture.  They also talk about “the Earth that was.”  Nobody actually lives on Earth anymore.  Everybody had to populate new planets as resources became scarce.  Another interesting feature is that even though the story is futuristic, it’s very much realistic.  People wear “normal” clothes and there aren’t unrealistic technologies like tractor beams and laser guns.

If you like the movie or just need more of the story, I’d highly suggest renting/buying the first season of Firefly.

Rating: ★★★★½