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 […]
This weekend I found myself with friends who wanted to see the new art house documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty. The film tells the story of the fall rise and—we’re not sure—of Disney‘s animation department during the 80’s and 90’s. The film picks up just as Walt Disney‘s son-in-law is about to be shown the door […]
This past weekend I saw the latest Ben Stiller movie; Greenberg. It’s a Noah Baumbach film which is a key point as Baumbach-written movies are a love-them/hate-them sort of affair. The story apparently came from wife Jennifer Jason Leigh who also has a role in the film (and who wears the most unattractive glasses I’ve […]
My best friend suggested we see something other than the big movie of the week and so we headed off to see The Ghost Writer. The reviews were all pretty glowing and it sounded like a curiously delicious film. The Ghost Writer stars Ewan McGregor as a successful (but unknown) ghost writer who’s given a […]
As the blizzard of 2010 approached us I decided to go check out the new movie Frozen. It’s a lower-budget independent film that reminded me at once of Open Water—a no-frills movie shot almost entirely in a single oddly claustrophobic set with people you’ve never seen before. Let me say that I’ve enjoyed similar films […]
This week found me stuffing in another 2009 film in Clint Eastwood‘s latest film Invictus. The movie focuses on a specific segment of Nelson Mandela‘s early Presidency in which he enlists the aid of the national rugby team to help cure the ills of his fragile country. Mandela, played exceptionally by Morgan Freeman (as if […]
I saw George Clooney‘s latest this past weekend—Up in the Air. The movie’s about a consultant who gets paid to fire people for companies that don’t want to do the dirty work themselves. It was a bittersweet experience to say the least. My job ended in July and I haven’t found anything myself yet so […]
This weekend found me catching the latest Philip Seymour Hoffman film — Pirate Radio. The story is very loosely based on actual events regarding a radio station broadcasting into England from a cargo ship out at sea during the mid-1960s. On-screen text tells us that the majority of England are fans except for British government officials […]
I saw Disney‘s A Christmas Carol this weekend and wondered if this was the earliest a Christmas movie has been out prior to Christmas. The movie takes the traditional Charles Dickens story (more or less) and augments it with every technological advantage we have today. It’s animated in much the same way 2004s The Polar […]
Later in the weekend I decided to check out the Korean vampire film that, in English, is called Thirst. The movie is a frustrating one that grabs your attention and then bores you once it has you. It tests your willpower by giving you a stunning visual and following it with another that’s entirely inconceivable […]
This weekend was another double-movie weekend in my sure-to-fail quest to get back into the swing of seeing nearly as many movies as I have the last two years. First up was Inglourious Basterds. It’s the latest movie from scatter-shot director Quentin Tarantino. I’ve enjoyed a few of his past efforts—most notably Kill Bill Vol. […]
This past week found me catching the well-received 500 Days of Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of 3rd Rock from the Sun) and the quirky Zooey Deschanel. From the moment the movie started, I had the feeling that it would be my kind of film. It had a narration that just hooked me from the first word. What’s […]