September 5, 2010: Adaptation I loved Adaptation (2002) when I first saw it, and I think I’ve been carefully trying to not watch it too much ever since then, so that I can avoid it deteriorating in my mind. I suspect I’m doing the same with Being John Malkovich (1999). Both films were written by […]
August 31, 2010: The Expendables I had been looking forward to The Expendables for months as a guilty pleasure, though I knew I couldn’t count on it being good. I didn’t exactly grow up on the action films of the 1980s but I certainly enjoyed my share of them, and when a retro production like […]
August 26, 2010: Following Every time I see a movie, as the Half-Assed Movie Reviews reader might have guessed, my brain goes off constructing a spiderweb of dozens of additional movies that I would like to see in order to understand the career stages and personal perspectives and influences of the parties involved in making […]
August 16, 2010: Inception I’m not getting out to see many movies this summer, partly because of quirks of scheduling, and partly because this is commonly accepted to be a fairly weak summer for movies. But I absolutely wasn’t going to let Inception disappear or have the plot spoiled for me, so I made sure […]
August 6, 2010: Taxi Driver I promised back in April that I would return to watching Martin Scorsese movies, having realized that in a year and a half of writing reviews, I hadn’t seen a single film from the man I sometimes proclaim to be my favourite director. I’m finally living up to that promise, […]
July 19, 2010: The Natural The Natural (1984) is one of those modern-day classic films that everyone is supposed to love. Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t. I was predisposed to not liking this, since I don’t generally like the era (1920s-1940s) and I’m not the world’s biggest Robert Redford fan. As far as I […]
July 18, 2010: About Schmidt I’ve been meaning to revisit About Schmidt (2002) for a while, but the timing was appropriate now, since my personal situation in certain ways mirrors that of the main protagonist. I may never get to say that about another Jack Nicholson movie, unless I’m institutionalized or become the Devil. Nicholson, […]
July 1, 2010: Grown Ups For the latest Adam Sandler entry, he’s rolled out the big guns by featuring a bunch of old buddies in leading roles. Grown Ups looks at a group of longtime friends eschewing their busy lives for a long weekend to get together and see each other, and the timing of […]
July 17, 2010: Contact Contact (1997) is, on its surface, about the struggle between science and faith, and how the two end up intertwined in the most intriguing ways. However, it ends up also being an effective examination of loneliness and the search for connection. Contact is fairly long, but there’s a lot packed in. […]
July 16, 2010: Despicable Me I had seen advertisements for Despicable Me in the weeks leading up to the film’s release, and hadn’t figured that I would see it. The little yellow guys appearing on the posters suggested a movie which would be very much for younger children. An opportunity came up for me to […]