I chose to watch A BUG’S LIFE tonight to complete my viewing of Pixar’s films.  Pixar’s second feature film is not a masterpiece as many of its others have been, it is indeed barely above average, but has just enough imagination and creativeness to make it solid viewing for an adult.

The story was so obviously taken from SEVEN SAMURAI that even I picked up on that right away.  Any movie that organizes a group of protectors for a village or group of seemingly helpless individuals being attacked by outsiders owes the screenwriter of 7S royalties.

The lead ant, Flik, is a typical misunderstood genius-outsider goofball character who has no self-confidence in himself.  I find these types hard to watch.  Then A BUG’S LIFE sometimes to showcase an insect’s natural abilities, and other times not.  This inconsistency annoyed me, especially since one character was a black widow, perhaps the deadliest bug (arachnid) on the planet, yet no one pointed out, “hey, you could kill all the bad guys with EASE, why are we concocting this super elaborate plan when everyone should be petrified of YOU.”

Aside from that, I really liked the worlds created, such as the “circus” and the “city.”  Also the teamwork and friendship shown between the characters was very well done and would be a good message for kids to see.

I would rank A BUG’S LIFE near the bottom of Pixar’s films, but above the hard to watch CARS.

OTHER PIXAR REVIEWS:

RATATOUILLE

CARS

TOY STORY 3

UP

WALL*E

I have few weaknesses.  One of them are movies about (wild) animals and Freedom.  BORN FREE is perhaps the most famous movie of the genre.  Although the movie started out with actions I do not agree on the ethics of, and had other such moments as well, BORN FREE was overall very effective and a very strong message that animals belong in the wild, and belong to be Free.

(OLD MEDIUM SPOILERS)

The ethics I did not agree on in the beginning were the shooting of a lion for being a maneater, then also a lioness.  For sure the latter was absolutely wrongly killed, as she was just defending her cubs, unbeknownst to the humans.  So the whole plot of the movie is based on a serious mistake by one of the main characters.  For a while I had to stop and think why some lions could be shot so easily, but another lion has the greatest of efforts made on its behalf to be saved.

Nevertheless, those feelings passed and I could empathize with the large ethical decision yet to be made, the real crux of the story.  One of the the three lions cubs was not shipped off to a zoo.  Joy Adamson’s favorite, Elsa, stayed on with her and her husband (the shooter of the above two lions).

As someone who has rescued an animal and cared for it and come to love it, I can understand the strong and unique bond that is made between human and non-human animal.  A number of circumstances were developing simultaneously that would not allow Elsa to remain in the care of Joy for much longer.

Yet it was not a matter of simply taking Elsa out in the deep African plain and setting her free.  Elsa had no hunting skills, no social skills, and every previous attempt at returning a lion that was long in human custody to the wild had failed.

The movie very dramatically setup a choice for Elsa’s fate:  be in a zoo, but live; be set free in the wild, but die free.  Or, be the very first to successfully reintroduce a lion into the wild.  To me there is no more powerful choice to make in the Universe than to live in a cage, or die for Freedom.  To me it is the fundamental choice all living creatures have to make in their existences.

The playing out of Elsa’s fate was powerfully emotional and punctuated by a very famous and Oscar winning song, of eponymous title.  I got a bit roughed up at the end, this type of thing being one of my few weaknesses.

BORN FREE is a very satisfying movie experience from 1966, a time when movies were free of gimmick.

It takes patience to let MOON start to reveal its very interesting plot and ethical discussions.  The first half of the movie’s story is as spartan as the moon station it takes place on.  We learn a little of the daily routine of Sam Bell, the conspicuously lone operator of an entire moon mining operation.  He has a track cruising computer buddy named GERTY (no explanation given) that shows different smiley face icons to display mood, I liked seeing the different ones.  If you can stay awake through the first half, you will be rewarded in the second half.

I liked the tech used on the moon base.  The special effects were well done despite the relatively small budget for the movie.  DISTRICT 9 showed us last year this was entirely possible.  There is a mystery going on throughout the entire movie, only you do not even realized it for a long time.  Random things that are just in the background, will come to be a piece to a revealed puzzle later.

Sam Bell’s 3-year contract is about up and he is getting excited to return home to his wife and daughter.  As there would be no movie if his final two weeks were just riding the time out, mishaps happen first in his mind and then out on the moon’s surface.  What happens after that requires putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

Despite having my all-time favorite car, the Ford Mustang (also the first car I ever owned), as a prominent “character” in the movie, BULLITT if not for its preceding fame would have been completely dismissed by me as a movie of no notoriety.  The problem is singular — there is absolutely no story.  Things that may have been fresh in 1968, like a not-by-the-book cop getting in trouble with his captain are all too cliche now.  That is not fair, but even without that, BULLITT is an extremely slow movie based on the loosest of plots.

Steve McQueen portrays his character, Bullitt, as bad ass enough, though perhaps too reserved and not developed enough.  Yet right away in the film, after being established as the best detective around, he is assigned to babysit a state’s witness.  He has two colleagues with him.  What does he do?  Tell one of them to take the first shift then goes home and sleeps in his own bed!  I thought why on earth would he do that?

The chase scene in the movie is famous, and the lack of a soundtrack during it made it a visceral experience allowing the roar of the powerful Mustang engine to provide all the music needed.  However, it was again a bit underwhelming to me, just a series of screeching turns combined with an ending that totally did not make sense.

A movie strictly for McQueen and Mustang fans only, others will probably fall asleep.