Planet 51 isn’t going to wow you, but as a first animated feature from Ilion Animated Studios it’s better than I expected.
The story is pretty simple: a peaceful world is invaded by an alien explorer, and with the help of a goodhearted youngster and his friends he eludes the government and attempts to get back […]

Posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 | No Comments »

“Pirate Radio” - the new film from writer/director Richard Curtis (”Love Actually”) - knows exactly what it’s doing.
It tells the story of Carl (Tom Sturridge), an 18-year-old recently expelled British student, who in 1966, is sent to stay with his godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy), on his boat in the North Sea. From this boat, Quentin […]

Posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

I didn’t expect much from director Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster flick other than a little dumb fun. “2012” couldn’t even deliver that.
What follows is a short, and hopefully concise, review for a long, and depressingly boring, film (158-minute running time) that is about as almost as much fun as spending three hours alone in a […]

Posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Even if you haven’t seen a movie about psychic Jedi warriors in the United States Army who kill goats with their mind, you may come out of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” thinking that you’ve seen a lot of it before.
George Clooney stars in this adaptation of Jon Ronson’s non-fiction book and Grant Heslov, […]

Posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 | No Comments »

Here’s a post about the validity of the film’s “documentary footage” and true story claim. Review below.
Milla Jovovich, bathed in white light, steps into the foreground. As the camera circles her and abruptly changes angles, the actress delivers a spiel about the film’s production, its authenticity, our freedom to draw our own conclusions, and she […]

Posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 | 21 Comments »

Robert Zemeckis has helmed his share of modern classics. “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” is not one of them.
There’s so much in the film rife with potential and I frequently caught glimpses of what it could have been. But, sadly, it just didn’t amount to much.
For one thing, it’s operating at cross-purposes. The contents of the […]

Posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 | 3 Comments »

From the minds of the Coen brothers comes this tale of a rather pathetic Jewish professor of physics in late 60s Minnesota. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is having all kinds of problems, from the serious to the mundane.
Larry is indeed A Serious Man, and one whose existence isn’t likely to be improved over the course […]

Posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Mira Nair’s biopic of groundbreaking aviator Amelia Earhart has many components working in its favor. It’s got Oscar-winner Hilary Swank in the title role, supporting performances from Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor, cinematography that ranges from elegant to breathtaking, and a really thorough sense of time and place. And yet it never quite pulls itself […]

Posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »

I’m pretty sure Ed Wood would have loved “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant“. Messy, flawed, riddled with odd choices and questionable casting, and stuck with a plot that make less sense as it progresses, The Vampire’s Assistant is in every way a B-movie. And, I’ll admit, I kinda liked it.
Based on a series of […]

Posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »

George saw the movie during Fantastic Fest last month. Read his take here. Mine follows below:
Rarely do movie critics talk about the actual experience of seeing a film in the theater in their actual review. It happens sometimes, but it’s usually presented as an aside (the film broke, the crowd responded this way, the sound […]

Posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 | 24 Comments »