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 […]
Earlier this year I noticed a bit of buzz regarding an upcoming movie that sounded intriguing but also extremely risky. The film—The Artist—is quite novel in that it’s a silent movie. Yep, in 2011 a film studio decided to take a chance on a quirky, fairly perilous venture and shoot a complete silent film. It’s […]
I’ve had a bit of a love-hate relationship with director Martin Scorsese‘s films over the years. I tend to find lots of things I simply don’t like about many of the films he’s known for. Sometimes you just don’t connect with someone else’s vision. As a result I really have to be wowed by a Scorsese […]
There’s been a lot of Oscar talk surrounding George Clooney and his latest film, The Descendants. Clooney’s always been a solid actor and has tried again and again to break into the top tier of actors only to not quite make it. Frankly, I’ve always felt it’s been the sex symbol curse. Many other actors […]
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 […]
Take Shelter is the story of a seemingly plain Ohio husband and father who is suddenly beset by a serious of eerie hallucinations and dreams that drive him to worry about his own mental health. Should he heed the portentous signals or commit himself to psychological therapy or more? The acting here is spot-on. The lead […]
The term “The Ides of March” refers, in modern parlance, to an impending doom. It’s most common use is in the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar who recounts a seer warning Caesar in advance of his assassination to “beware the Ides of March.” In that case it was simply a reference to the middle of […]
I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t pause for a moment to ask, “Do I really want to see a movie that’s supposed to be a comedy about cancer?” It’s just something that—like bacon and ice cream—shouldn’t be mixed—or so one might think. 50/50 is a film written by Will Reiser, a young comedy writer who […]
Back in 1985, long before fantasy baseball had become popular, I got involved in one of its ancestral forms and that experience exposed me to the importance of seeing baseball as a statistical entity requiring a different type of analysis. It also exposed me to the wonders of Bill James and his approach called Sabermetrics. […]
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 […]