Wall-e 9. While it's not the next animated Titanic that Disney would like you to think, this is a really good movie. I'm a sucker for cute robots and this movie gave me plenty to ...uh... suck. [cough] Yes, it hits you in the head with its anti-wasteful-republicans-ruining-our-world message, but if you know that going in (and how could you not, given all the press), you'd have been smart enough to wear a batting helmet. Seriously, ignore the preaching and enjoy the movie.  ¶ 3:46 PM 0 comments

  Wanted 6. Unlike 99% of this movie's audience, my expectations were precisely in place when going to see it: See smoking hot Angelina Jolie's smoking hot naked backside and smoking hot, attitude-inflated cleavage trotted around for 2 hours. I don't know what the rest of you people were expecting, but you got it wrong. Yes, the action was fun, though the writing took a back side ....er... back seat, but there's really only one reason to see this. Have that expectation and you won't be disappointed.  ¶ 3:40 PM 0 comments

  Untracable 2. Um.... what was this movie about again? I can't remember. That's not a good sign.  ¶ 3:38 PM 0 comments

  Rental: The Mist 1. What a fatalistic, bleak movie this is. While filled with some excellent horror moments, you will find zero hope or optimism here. The "surprise ending" will make you want to kill yourself. This is one of those movies that I would consider recommending you simply turn off when they begin to drive away, and imagine your own ending rather than witness what they have in store for you.  ¶ 3:31 PM 0 comments

  Get Smart 7. Unlike they typically-awful TV-shows-made-into-movies like Beverly Hillbillies or Charlie's Angels that mock the originals or think they can do better than them, Get Smart is a respectful, well-crafted movie that can still be clever and new while paying homage to its source. Steve Carell is perfect as Smart and brings an air of believability to the role. Ann Hathaway is less ideally cast, but not bad in the role of Agent 99. The Rock finds his groove in comedy though you know right from the start where he's headed by the end of the show. Only occasionally flat, I wouldn't need much convincing to watch this a second time.  ¶ 3:23 PM 0 comments

  The Incredible Hulk 5. Redemption, thy name is Louis Leterrier. Just when I thought Ang Lee had singlehandedly buried the franchise in a single movie, Leterrier salvages it. This isn't a great movie, and it bothers me that it's based more on the old (shitty) TV show than the comic, but it holds together well in comparison to the comic.  ¶ 2:52 PM 0 comments

  Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 0. or 2., depending. Holy Christ. Picture if you will, finally meeting a good friend who you haven't seen in many years and having them come up to you and kick you in the balls. That's exactly how this movie made me feel. Disappointing goes without saying, but this movie hurt my feelings. It opens hopefully enough... now-old Indiana in a classic action-romp through a warehouse facing the ...uh... Commies. (No Nazis?? Um, well... ok.) Then we freefall into nuclear explosions, bad James Dean wannabes, science fiction, and aliens. ......fucking ALIENS. If you'd like to preserve the warm, long-nurtured image of the Indy of old, this movie is a 0. (For the love of god, don't see it.) If you don't give a shit about your childhood memories and just want to watch a little ham-handed action, it's maybe a 2. ...Now I'm crying again. DAMNY YOU, SPIELBURG/FORD/LUCAS!  ¶ 2:40 PM 0 comments

  Speed Racer 8. I suspect I fall into the category of those who never watched the old TV show so didn't have any expectations, but I liked this movie more than most did.... almost enough to see more than once. It was a harmless romp filled with over-the-top silliness. ("Pops" John Goodman turns out to be a martial arts master. Who knew?) It was visually spectacular, perhaps distractingly so. The race scenes were crazy. Both the child and the monkey should have been excised from this movie surgically.... with little/no anesthesia. Best line, Christina Ricci: "Was that a ninja?"  ¶ 2:35 PM 0 comments

  Forgetting Sarah Marshall 5. I saw this while still in mourning over the cancellation of Veronica Mars, so my opinions may have been skewed. In my defense, Kristin Bell (while still eye-bleedingly cute and sporting a drum-tight little bikini-clad body) was in this less than expected, so I'm hoping I actually enjoyed it on its own merits. I want a Mila Kunis just like this one.  ¶ 2:29 PM 0 comments

  Zombie Strippers 8. It was everything I wanted a zombie stripper movie starring Jenna Jameson and Robert England to be. The earth moved.  ¶ 2:26 PM 0 comments

  The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 3. I enjoyed it but it suffers from terrible pacing. It was almost entirely flat throughout. An hour into the movie, and I was still feeling like they were setting it up. Suddenly comes the climactic scenes which still felt flat and anticlimactic. And even though I knew it would have heavy religious overtones ((like the first movie), for some reason I thought they'd have gotten it out of their system by now, so I felt slapped in the face by it.  ¶ 2:18 PM 0 comments

  Baby Momma 2. Not a bad movie, just not worth your time. Find the trailer for it on YouTube. It's got all the entertaining bits of the film, and it'll only take up 3 minutes of your life.  ¶ 2:14 PM 0 comments

  Iron Man 9. The first of the "Summer blockbuster season," and possible my favorite movie of the summer. I am so fucking grateful when a comic book movie remains true to its original material and doesn't fall victim to the "I can make it better" syndrome so prevalent in Hollywood (Superman, Hulk, X-Men, etc). While slightly updated for contemporary sensibilities (I believe in the comic, Tony Stark became Iron Man in the jungles of Vietnam, not the deserts of the middle east), the story remains essentially unmolested. And aside from the inexplicable pussifying of Jim Rhodes, the characters are very much their comic counterparts. Visually, the producers hit the mark precisely, and I enjoyed watching every CGI-spewed effect sequence. Probably too late to see it in the theaters, rent Iron Man at the earliest possible moment.  ¶ 5:45 PM 0 comments

  Rental: The Notorious Bettie Page 5. You really have to take off your rose colored, mindless-mainstream-film goggles to enjoy this, and if you're one of the people who can do that, you'll like TNBP. It's very much a story-driven "art film" ... the kind that win film festival awards. The shallow perverts of the world might not appreciate this movie, as it exposes what the legendary sex symbol, Bettie Page, was really like. Not some hot, horny, sex fiend, but a nice, normal, moral girl who simply saw nothing wrong with the photographing of the human body. The film spans her life from a few questionable events of her childhood (which almost seem out of place and obligatory in the film) to her decision to bring her "career" to an end. I feel enriched having seen this.  ¶ 5:35 PM 0 comments

  88 Minutes 3. Al Pachino is wasted in this. Little more has stuck in my memory, which is kind of a bad sign (though not all that unusual, considering my memory). It holds the suspense and mystery throughout, though the pacing, critical in this kind of movie, got weird in places. It also used a storytelling method which I hate in that it spends the entire film making you believe the villain is first one person, then the next, because unfolding the story as it probably should be would make it too easy to figure out the real antagonist. Not bad though for some latenight TV action.  ¶ 5:29 PM 0 comments

  10,000 BC 6. They spoke modern English 12,000 years ago! Who knew?? Seriously though, I know they use this patch with every english speaking movie about a non-english speaking subject, but for some reason it took me a lot longer to wrap my head around this one than usual. Once I did, I actually enjoyed this movie quite a bit... probably more than most other people. A nice tale and a quest in a world which has never been seen by its protagonist. Visually stunning... probably a little more visually stunning than ...er.... story-ally stunning. Hey, don't give me that look, you know what I mean.  ¶ 5:21 PM 0 comments

  Vantage Point Summer's almost over and it's time for me to play catch-up. It's not that I haven't been seeing any movies since freaking APRIL, it's that I've been too lazy to write reviews. (After all, no one's reading this, right?) Don't worry, I've kept a list. I'm probably going to buzz through as many of these as I can before the shortness of my attention span rears it's ugly..... Hey, look! A bunny with a pancake on its head! Oh yeah... movie reviews. First up, Vantage Point.

4. I like the concept of Vantage Point.... several people's perspectives of the same event with one person struggling to mesh them all into what actually happened. Vantage Point does a nice job of maintaining tension throughout the film, though I found it ultimately to be a little predictable. I think the mistake made by everyone who makes a movie like this is that the same directorial and cinematographical visions are used throughout the film. Every character's "perspective" looks like each others'. This kind of movie should be made as a group effort, different production teams each creating the experience of one character. That would be interesting to watch.  ¶ 4:50 PM 0 comments

  Cloverfield 7. Somewhere between Cloverfield and the awful U.S. Godzilla film from 1998 is a really good Godzilla movie. Cloverfield really brings to your face the awfulness and unbelievability of a giant monster attacking New York City. (It also brings to your throat anything you've had to eat in the past few hours. Seriously... one of it's most effective visual strategies is also its biggest problem, the hand-held, point-of-view camera angle of EVERYTHING. The unsteady jumping around is worse than in The Blair Witch Project.... way worse.)

Other than that complaint, Cloverfield is filled with "holy fuck!" moments, and even though it's shown from the perspective of people not directly involved in the action, really illustrates what would happen if a giant monster showed up that we couldn't handle conventionally. Seriously... We're screwed.

Being one of the people who wasn't effected by the sick-making camera work, I enjoyed Cloverfield. It's a pity that it's out of theaters now, as I think it'll lose some of its impact once the monster is shrank smaller than Googleplex screen size. I'll probably rent it for another look at the fast moving details. Take Dramamine, be scared.  ¶ 3:23 PM 0 comments

  2007: Playing Catch-Up In an attempt to catch up and get the site rolling again, I'm going to synopsize the rest of the movies I saw in 2007. No full reviews will be provided. Occasional commentary wherever the mood hits.

Click:
4. Harmless fun, if a little preachy. Christopher Walken = fun. Kate Beckinsale is one of the hottest, most desirable girls in film today. I want her very very badly.


Disturbia:
6. Really quite good. Suspenseful, Hitchcockian quality to it.


Fracture:

2. Anthony Hopkins, back at the creepiness he does so well. Slightly shakey plotline.


Hot Fuzz:

9. I can't begin to tell you how much fun this movie is. I bought the DVD.


The Invisible:

4. I remember thinking this wasn't bad.


Next:

1. Nice premise. This could have been so much more than it was.


Spider-Man 3:

1. What a crashing disappointment after the first two movies. I bought the DVDs of those, I didn't of this. It was like watching a train wreck. One of those movies that desperately needed someone whose sole job was to smack the writer/director/producer in the head every time they uttered the phrase, "wouldn't it be funny if....??"

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End:

8. Good. Better than PotC 2, which I maintain should have been edited into a 30 minute lead-in to this film.


Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer:

6. I maintain that they've still got the wrong people in this movie at all levels (with the exception of Chris Evans, who "gets" Johnny Storm). The Silver Surfer looks good. At least we're finally dealing on a more cosmic level of plotline, which the FF is all about. Galactus??... WTF??? As an aside, I've finally decided who would be better in the role of Dr. Doom than the sadly miscast Julian McMahon.... Gabriel Byrne. He can make sinister and over-the-top believable, which Doom needs.

Live Free or Die Hard:

7. Throw caution and anything resembling the original premise to the wind and just make a wild action film. Yeah, it's entertaining. I miss Die Hard.


Transformers:

6. Let's get a nice ensemble cast and then make a movie focused on giant robots. Every time Megan Fox was on camera, she did things with her mouth that made my pants uncomfortable. BTW, guys, inserting comedy into a supposedly serious movie about giant robots is like inserting dog poo into my hamburger.... Don't do that.

Harry Potter and Whatever Sequel We're Up To:

8. I liked it more than any other Potter film, probably because of the dark treatment.


The Bourne Ultimatum:

5. The Bourne Cookiecutter. Not that it's bad.


30 Days of Night:

2. Supposedly a really good graphic novel that didn't transition well to film.


Mr. Brooks:

1. The talentless black hole that is Kevin Costner as an intelligent homocidal maniac.


Hitman:

2. Entertaining action movie. I don't want to say it was miscast, but the lead always struck me as a friendly, Bill Paxton wannabe who just wanted to be nice.


I am Legend:

5. It's hard for one man to carry 3/4 of a movie all by himself. Will Smith does ok.


National Treasure: Book of Secrets:

5. National Treasure was good. NT: BoS is good.


That's it for 2007. Sorry for the cop-out reviews, but isn't it really better that I get things rolling again? I thought so too. I'll itemize what I've seen in 2008.  ¶ 2:22 PM 0 comments

  Rental: The Sentinel 3. Kiefer Sutherland has been type cast again. At least this time it isn't as the young, potentially supernatural, asshole. The success of Jack Baur (his role in 24) has gotten him pigeon-holed as the hardcore fed. And I think I'm ok with that. Kiefer's really grown into a decent actor. The Sentinel is a decent little political espionage movie. I like Kiefer and Michael Douglas, it's a pity their chemistry isn't better. I think the biggest complaint I have with this movie is that the writers come up with an excellent premise that they don't have the smarts to pull off. If you're going to claim that your main character is capable of outwitting the Secret Service, you'd better be able then make it happen. This character wasn't even capable of outwitting me. Still, aside from the middle, which dragged a little, this was a nice little action romp.  ¶ 10:52 AM 0 comments

  Rental: Stranger Than Fiction 8. This was one of those many movies that slipped past me in the theaters over the holiday season. It's ok... the ginormous screen at the faithful AMC googleplex wouldn't have added anything to it. This is a great movie... one of those films that will be called a "modern American classic" when TNT runs it 17 times over a weekend 10 years from now. Will Farrell plays his role completely straight, for which I'll thank him sincerely next time I see him before punching him in the head for the rest of his comedy tripe. Emma Thompson is so neurotic, she's almost painful to watch. And I'm now baffled that Dustin Hoffman wasn't nominated for a best supporting actor award for his role.

I don't think I'll spoil any surprises by mentioning the plot. Will's character is a somewhat obsessive/compulsive IRS auditor who leads a completely boring life. Then one day he begins to hear the voice of a female author narrating his life as if it were a novel. Will suspects he's cracking up and would probably just go through the rest of his life merely annoyed with the voice until it explains that he's going to die. Here begins his quest to figure out what's going on and why he's fated to die (something not even Emma has worked out yet) and to "live" a little in case his number is coming up. And finally he finds out if it is.

See this at your earliest opportunity.  ¶ 1:04 AM 0 comments

  Zodiac 5. I'm hesitant to give this movie a 5. I distinctly remember watching a decent movie, but it was apparently so forgetable that I can't remember much about it now, only a week later. I seem to remember it was nicely made. I seem to remember the plot holding my attention. I seem to remember getting caught up in the suspense. I seem to remember the acting was good. (I seem to remember it was kind of long.) And I distinctly remember that Robert Downey Jr., while type cast again, made more of his role than most actors could have. Bravo Robert. I'd like to see more of you... Stay clean. Of course, being based on a real life drama which had no real life conclusion, the ending of the movie was pretty flat. That's ok, I guess.... it was pre-doomed to flatness.

The worse thing I can say about Zodiac is that I won't remember it at all 6 months from now.  ¶ 12:44 AM 0 comments

  Ghost Rider 1. I was anxiously awaiting this movie since I first saw the teaser last year. I could tell it was going to be visually beautiful and, more importantly, true to the source material. Too, Nicholas Cage seemed like a decent choice to play Johnny Blaze. So.... decent actor, beautiful visuals...Should be a great movie, right? Oh..... Yeah..... Story. [sigh]

I can't say I hated this movie. Much the same as I can't say I hate cold Dominos Pizza. But, man, I don't like it very much. Cage decided to play the character like a hapless victim... almost bumbling. Sam Elliott brought the typical Sam Elliot to his role, which was ok, even suitable, and Eva Mendez is definitely easy to look at. But, man, the plot and directing were .... bad. And, for the love of god, how many burning/hot/flaming head jokes can you cram into two hours?? Jesus.

The best thing this movie did was make Daredevil look good.  ¶ 12:13 AM 0 comments

  Eragon 1. If the SciFi Channel had a bigger budget and the actual ability to produce a "good movie," it would look like this. How's that for a qualifier? While not a terrible movie, Eragon is a forgettable yawnfest. "I know Harry Potter and you, sir, are no Harry Potter." Jeremy Irons brings believability to a tough role in an unbelievable movie. Yay on him. And what the hell is John Malcovich doing in this thing?? I know, let's get an A-list actor for our movie, then give him a cumulative 3 minutes of air time. Brilliant.

Story-wise, this movie is the latest victim of the personally-infuriating Hollywood trend of dumbing down. Yes, I realize we don't want to force children (probably their target audience here, though you'd never know it from the marketing) to think too hard about what's going on, but come on. The sophistication of plot here is equivelent of most nursery rhymes and probably less complex than most Dr. Seuss. I think kids today are probably capable of grasping something a little more detailed. And how about hiring a CGI artist who's capable of creating a serious dragon? I mean really, this thing looks only slightly better than video game quality.

Not terrible. Far, far from good. Far too many words wasted on it at this point.  ¶ 1:00 PM 0 comments

  Casino Royale 9. Let's get this out of the way right up front. Daniel Craig makes a decent Bond. Unreservedly better than some Bonds from the past. [*coughDALTONcough*] That said, there was almost no scene in this movie that I wouldn't have rather seen Pierce Brosnan in. Yes, Craig is younger and is reminiscient of early Connery Bond, but he's just different enough to prevent him from settling into the image of Bond that resides in my head. If we're determined to stick with Craig for future Bond films (which in itself could be problematic, as I believe all Flemming novels have been brought to the screen now), I'd like to see the hair darkened slightly and a little more cultured sophistication forced on the character. This is James Bond after all, not some street thug.

There's a lot of things in this movie that I liked, but a number of decisions were made that kept this from being a personal blockbuster. I was excited to hear that this was going to be kind of a prequel... a "how James became Bond" kind of movie. But I think the decision to give the film a contemporary setting was disastrous. There was no reason ...none... that this film couldn't have been set in cold war-60s before the time of the first Connery Bonds. It would have fit seamlessly into the mythology and I think would have helped legitimize Craig as Bond. Similarly, while I have nothing against Judi Dench, the "M" of the 00's-Bond has no business playing the "M" of a 60's-Bond. Nothing in this movie couldn't have been retro-fitted to the 60's, and the few bits of technology that were necessary in this film would seem hi-tech (but not unbelievable) in a 60's setting. These choices made the movie feel like a fantasy to me, not part of a chronology. And, shallow and petty though it may be, I miss the "frolicking naked chicks" cavorting through the opening credits. ...another unnecessary change from what makes a Bond movie a Bond movie.

Core gripes aside, this is an enjoyable movie, with good action and a more-complex-than-the-usual-Bond storyline. While Bond films of recent years threw buckets of money at their effects people to created huge spectacles, in this movie it was surgically employed to create things that were instead spectacular. See the difference? You do in the movie. In the climactic scene (or rather, the 2nd climactic scene... a slight writing gaff) they actually destroy a real building in Venice in dramatic fashion. (Compare this to giant space lasers destroying hotels made of ice while an invisible BMW zips up and down its stairs, and I think you'll see what I mean.) This movie also contains the single most fantastic foot chase scene you will ever, ever see. Ever! During the opening credits, I saw some guy credited as "foot chase stuntman" or something like that. I thought briefly, "what the hell is this guy getting mentioned in the opening credits for?" Then I saw the chase scene in question. Holy shit. I've never seen anyone move like this. Not only does this guy deserve an opening credit, he'd better see a fucking Academy Award in February.

Almost out of the theaters now, find it if you can. It'll be a much better experience if it's 20 feet tall.  ¶ 12:05 PM 0 comments

  Horrorfest: Unrest 4. OK, here's a horror movie. While I'd liked to have seen the writers take one more pass to shore up the shaky back-end of the script, this movie delivers on the scares. Here we have an underpriveleged medical student forced to live in the creepy, disused section of the hospital while they find her late-arriving ass a real dorm room. During cadaver dissecting class, she's given the corpse of a woman who seems to have died horribly and under mysterious circumstances. Strange and terrible things begin to happen to people who disrespect the body, and the student fears she's next unless she can figure out what the body's disturbed spirit wants and put it to rest. Here begins some tried and true mainstays of classic horror, none of which breaks new ground, but most of which deliver the scares. I'm also told they used real cadavers for some parts of the film, which creeped the piss out of me personally. They portrayed dissections fairly graphically, and when the kids have to climb into the tank of chilled formadehide with the bodies ...well... it's creepsville for me.

Is it a good horror movie? Maybe. Is it an effective horror movie? Yeah ....[shudder].... yeah, it is.  ¶ 11:49 AM 0 comments

  Horrorfest: Wicked Little Things 0. This will be quick 'n dirty, as this movie is completely forgettable (and I have, in fact, mostly forgotten it since I saw it a month ago).

Long ago, back before America became civilized [cough], children used to be used in mines because they were small and could squeeze through smaller mine shafts than adults could. They were forced to work 18 hour days and exposed to terrible dangers. In this movie, a mining disaster back then killed a dozen little victims. Jump forward to today, when a widow and her 2 kids inherit her husband's crappy house in the inbred Kentucky hills. Rather than unloading the dump for $1.50 on eBay, she decides to move the kids there and start a new life only to learn the ghosts ...er.... zombies ...er... ghosts of these kids terrorize the countryside, killing people who don't splash blood on their doors. Cue the typical stupid slasher movie teens. Cue the greedy land developer taking everyone's land. Cue the crazy guy warning everyone about the kids. Blahblahblah. At least it makes an attempt to scare you. .....Yeah. Pass.  ¶ 11:36 AM 0 comments

  Horrorfest: Reincarnation It's Horrorfest! A marathon of 8 movies marketed as "toooo disturbing to get wiiiide releeeeaaaase." They lie. Yes, they didn't get wide release. No, most of the ones I saw weren't that disturbing. One was downright boring. We'll take them in the order I saw them.

0. I had big expectations for Reincarnation... A moody, subtitled, Japanese film by the creator of The Grudge (which actually scared me). Japanese horror is known for its subtlety, but this was either too subtle or that Japanese subtlety was lost on my blunt American taste. The plot itself isn't so bad, it just unfolds so slowly and with little "horrific" emphasis that I was doing a lot of "get to the point, already." The story involves the theatrically remaking of a horrible, historical mass murder in Japan. Along the way, one actress begins to think she may in fact be the reincarnation of one of the victims. Mystery and suspense ensue.

This movie isn't so much bad as it is a waste of your time. It's almost a 1 ..... almost. But I can't say with good conscience that this would be better than the Weather Channel. Perhaps if the Weather Channel wasn't available......  ¶ 11:20 AM 0 comments

  The Prestige It's 3 fucking days til Christmas and I don't have time for lengthy posts, but it's been months since I've posted and I'm way behind. I'm likely to forget what I've seen pretty soon, so something needs to go up here.

4. I liked The Prestige. The story of two stage magicians at the turn of the century (uh... that last one, not this one) who each have wronged the other. A tale of obsessive vengeance ensues, each magician trying to simultaneously ruin and one-up the other. One employs Nikola Tesla to build him a machine which essentially teleports a person from one place to the other. Tesla does indeed produce a machine, but with interesting results. In the meantime, an interesting story unfolds. Wives are killed, love is betrayed, and Michael Cane runs around delivering a lot of "I told you so"s.

Speaking of Cane, he's 1/3 of the new cast of the Batman franchise who produced this movie while Warner Brothers firms up plans for the next Batflick. Him, Christian Bale, and the new Batdirector were all involved here. And, sadly, this movie probably didn't generate enough buzz for David Bowie to get the Academy Award nomination he deserves for his portrayal of Nikola Tesla.

Catch The Prestige when it hits television. It's long and plodding, what I like to call a "good Sunday afternoon movie," ie, you've got nothing to do on a boring Sunday afternoon and this would fill it perfectly without making you feel like you've wasted your time.  ¶ 10:46 AM 0 comments