October 26, 2009: Where the Wild Things Are I started off this viewing on the wrong foot right from the start, somehow not having been able to find the time to re-read the source material, a 40-page picture book containing about 10 sentences of text. Wouldn’t you say that it’s kind of important to go […]
October 25, 2009: Extract It’s so hard to be excited to see a movie, and to severely lower expectations at the same time. For Extract, I tried to do both, and more or less succeeded. This resulted in a viewing which allowed me to accept and enjoy the high points, but not be completely devastated […]
October 23, 2009: The Invention of Lying The Invention of Lying had a moderately large advertising campaign, playing off the sometimes-elusive popularity of Ricky Gervais, and leveraging the faces and names of co-stars Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe. It was heartening for me as well to see Louis CK also featured on the posters, since […]
October 23, 2009: The Informant! I haven’t returned to Steven Soderbergh’s roots yet to see the film that started it all for him – sex, lies and videotape (I find myself a bit surprised that the IMDB doesn’t quote the title in all lowercase as I’ve always understood it to be). One day I’ll get […]
October 16, 2009: Couples Retreat Just what am I looking for? Stupid characters behaving stupidly? Smart characters behaving stupidly? Stupid people who somehow become smart? When I see a mindless comedy, I’m expecting an engaging and original story idea, characters who are relatable but not clichéd, jokes flying fast and furious but not so quickly […]
September 30, 2009: Bright Star This wasn’t a good movie night for me. I had planned to go out to the movies, but learned that Extract was already long gone, and the two films chosen, the previously reviewed The Boys are Back and the presently reviewed Bright Star, are tonally completely different and weren’t really […]
September 30, 2009: The Boys are Back It’s been a while since I saw The Boys are Back, and I can’t figure out whether my mood on that particular evening or the quality of the movie itself is leading to my diminishing opinion of the film in the weeks that have gone by. Clive Owen […]
September 19, 2009: Fanboys I came late to the Star Wars franchise. The first of the films that I saw in the theatre, and probably the first one I saw at all, was Return of the Jedi in 1983. I recall later videotaping the milestone first airing of Star Wars on TV and came to […]
September 17, 2009: The Unloved British access and two-time Oscar-nominee Samantha Morton hides suffering beneath the surface. As a child, she spent several years in foster homes and group homes for children, and perhaps that informs some of the intensity she brings to her roles. Now she’s using her clout as a celebrity to bring […]
September 14, 2009: Top Gun Top Gun (1986) really should be beyond reviewing by this point, despite my Half-Assed Movie Reviews policy of reviewing everything I see. What can be said about this film that hasn’t been said already, about the macho story, pounding 1980s soundtrack, unbelievable box office success, and young superstar Tom Cruise? […]