June 21, 2009: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to resist Tony Scott’s new take on this New York City subway terrorist story, so I decided that I should at least have a refresher on the original. I’ve seen this once or twice before […]
June 16, 2009: Up This year’s Disney/Pixar entry and presumably soon to be Best Animated Feature Oscar winner for 2009 is Up, a tale of an old man finally pushed to live out his long-suppressed dream adventure when he has nothing left to lose. An emotionally breathtaking 15-minute sequence comes early in the film to […]
June 16, 2009: Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy was a short film presented in the theatre before the Disney/Pixar film Up. Sentient clouds are creating baby animals and people for storks to deliver, and one poor stork is stuck delivering the babies from a lower, darker cloud. This is where all the dangerous animals are made! […]
June 14, 2009: The Hangover I had seen the trailers for The Hangover, and they looked great. A ridiculous story idea (bachelor party in Las Vegas in which everyone ends up on a drug trip and they lose the groom), visual gags, and crude humour all suit me just fine. Unfortunately, The Hangover was a […]
June 10, 2009: Star Trek I had heard plenty of positive things about the new Star Trek film, the Rotten Tomatoes rating was in the 90s, and even Star Trek purists were pleased with the results. This is usually a recipe for disaster, with raised expectations going into a movie, but Star Trek really does […]
June 1, 2009: Dead Like Me: Life After Death Dead Like Me was an HBO series which ran for two seasons back in 2003-2004, about a young woman (Georgia, played by Ellen Muth) who dies at age 18 in a freak accident, but rather than completely dying she goes into an intermediate state where she […]
May 31, 2009: Angels and Demons The faithful Half-Assed Movie Reviews reader will know that at times in the past I’ve asked in frustration why I bother with all this, and I think we all know that I’ll ask again in the future. At present, the sentiment applies to Angels and Demons, an ostensible sequel […]
May 28, 2009: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Night at the Museum was a movie aimed at kids, which turned out to generate enough charm from both an intriguing idea and great performances from the all-star cast to propel it to big box-office returns in 2006, prompting an inevitable sequel. Night at […]
May 28, 2009: Terminator Salvation I find myself wondering how much time I should bother spending to tell you all how bad this movie is. Where do I even start? The Terminator (1984) was an instant sci-fi classic. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was more than just a worthy sequel, it was a top-notch action-adventure […]
May 23, 2009: Recount Recount is an HBO made-for-cable movie from 2008, which rehashes the controversy around the voting and recounts in Florida in the 2000 US presidential election, in which a US Supreme Court decision awarded the presidency to George W. Bush over Al Gore. Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, Laura Dern, Tom Wilkinson, John […]