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!