As 2011 came to a close I found myself seriously behind on my yearly movie count (that is first-run movies I see each year at a theater). In a bid to get the number up to a respectable level I talked my friends into a movie marathon day on Sunday where we managed to stuff […]
The next film on my viewing list was The Adventures of Tintin. This is a film I really didn’t have much interest in as I knew nothing of the history of the character (it was a hugely popular European comic book during much of the 20th century). Much to my complete surprise the film grabbed hold […]
This weekend I managed to see two Steven Spielberg movies and that usually is a recipe for a great movie-going weekend. Sadly, that wasn’t the reality. First up was War Horse. This is a bit of a strange film in that the star of the film is the horse and in a way that’s unlike […]
There should be some sort of rule that movies with a cast like this have to be great. Sadly, there’s no such rule and no such luck. Tower Heist is a curious film with a few interesting moments, fewer laughs and a lot of misfires. Ben Stiller plays the lead and he’s terribly miscast here […]
Way back in China’s history judges were the investigators of the day and during the Tang Dynasty there lived a noteworthy magistrate by the name of Di Renji. In the 1940’s an international author wrote a series of mystery novels loosely based on the judge now re-christened Judge Dee. Today we have a new film based on […]
In what seems to amount to a rare situation this year I managed to catch two films this holiday weekend. I’ve had countless barriers this year to catching more films but the most striking one has been that I just haven’t felt very interested in much of what’s been put forth so far and with […]
A pure sense of hope against a world filled with callous motivations.
While on an industry event of my own I managed to find the time to check out Liam Neeson‘s newest film, Unknown. Neeson’s character is (ironically) on a trip with his wife as a guest speaker at an industry event in Berlin. After an accident he wakes up several days later in the hospital and, upon leaving, […]
I was looking for something a with a bit of a driving pulse and that brings me to Red. It boasts a cadre of capable stars in Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman. The opening credits included a logo for DC Comics suggesting this story is taken from an existing comic but if so I wasn’t aware of it […]
So, in what will amount to much surprise for my friend Luke, this weekend I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. What surprised me most about my participation is that the film stars Michael Cera. I’ve had a long-running grudge against the actor from his earliest roles, as he seems to always play the same […]
During the first 15 minutes or so of Inception I was completely lost. The film bounced around like a super-ball in a metal box. Finally, as it starts to unfold you begin to figure out what’s going on. The bottom line is that the story involves a leap of faith that I simply didn’t buy […]
This week I was a bit nonplussed to see Robin Hood. The reviews were lukewarm and it just all seemed to be getting very little buzz. Thankfully the movie deserves a better fate than that. The first thing to know is that the previews are entirely misleading. If you’re expecting a re-telling of the classic 1938 Errol […]