July 19, 2009: The Cooler Do I need to write a review for every movie that I happen to put on, and run in the background as I’m doing something else? According to my current rules, I do, although I suppose eventually I will have reviewed everything on my DVD shelf and can put on […]
July 19, 2009: Idiocracy I am a longtime fan of Office Space, the first live-action feature film from writer-director Mike Judge of Beavis and Butthead fame. Released in the summer of 1999, it perfectly captured both the drab life of the office-bound computer software professional in the late 1990s, and the desire to have the […]
July 14, 2009: The Hurt Locker The Hurt Locker is a critically well-received drama about a US military bomb squad in modern-day Iraq, taking a careful and in-depth look at the work of these specialized teams, the personalities required to do this type of work, and the tensions they deal with every day which make […]
July 14, 2009: Brüno Brüno, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s in-concept follow-up to 2006’s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, takes another of his characters from Da Ali G Show and expands the character’s universe to include a feature-length adventure. Again we have an opinionated, socially awkward and horribly […]
July 8, 2009: Super Size Me I’ve been looking forward to writing this review, because I want to bring the excitement of Super Size Me (2004) to people who haven’t yet encountered it. I struggle, as noted in past reviews, to figure out what I want out of a documentary, and it’s clear that some […]
July 4, 2009: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I had of course seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in the theatre upon its release in the summer of 2008, being a longtime fan of the series and having for the past two decades eagerly awaited this long-anticipated […]
July 4, 2009: The English Patient Ugh. This was my feeling: a) after I first saw The English Patient upon its original theatrical release; b) when it won Best Picture for 1996; c) any time I’ve since contemplated re-watching to see if I liked it any better. The time finally came. I sat and watched […]
June 29, 2009: Shadows I think of John Cassavetes as having lived a double life in Hollywood. He paid the bills with badass roles in movies like The Dirty Dozen, and poured his real time and passion into being one of the most honest and respected American writer-director auteurs ever to work in the industry. […]
June 24, 2009: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) Boy, am I glad I watched the inspiration for this, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), before seeing the remake. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) updates this story of terrorists taking over a subway train in New York City […]
June 24, 2009: Year One When I’m starting a review by pointing out that some dumb comedy wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, I like to imagine the reactions among the various Half-Assed Movie Reviews readers. Some may skip out as soon as it’s clear that I’m reviewing yet another ill-conceived comedy. […]