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Ordinarily, getting my wife to watch a film with me simply because I state: “it’s supposed to be really good, it’s up for an Oscar!” isn’t enough to get her keen on viewing it. She has good reason to doubt my judgement, and once you’ve done the house duties and put the kiddies to sleep, what precious time you have left in the evening should not be spent on a dud film. In the...
Christopher Nolan is best known for his Bat-films, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight; big, heavy, dark comic book movies that have captured the hearts and wallets of a generation of moviegoers. But once upon a time, before Christian Bale gargled gravel and donned the bat cowl, Christopher Nolan made a little film called Memento. It’s a mind-bending post-noir psychological thrillery affair, as well as a pretty...
Way back in the beginning of December, in our first week of existence, I posted a list of the five most anticipated films of the summer. Now that it is officially autumn (even if the weather obstinately refuses to accept this incontravertible truth), it’s the perfect time to look back over the past three months and put the summer releases in perspective. There were a few surprises, some hits and some misses,...
If you think Star Trek is ‘lame’ or ‘uncool’ then you are still manacled to the ball-and-chain of high-school mentality populararity contests, and should probably go back to listening to Green Day and reading Harry Potter and watching Avatar, you soulless humbug. Star Trek is a forty-year-old institution, a supporting pillar of modern pop culture, and beyond being a hideously outdated and...
[Writer's note: This review was originally written when Up was in theatrical release and my thoughts on it haven’t changed since then. I’m thrilled to see it nominated for both best animated feature and best picture at the Academy awards. When reading over this, I found it funny that I compared it to District 9 and Inglourious Basterds in quality, both of which have also been nominated for best picture...
From Paris With Love reeks of squandered potential. Charlie Wax could have been an iconic, entertaining character in his own right, and John Travolta’s performance is desperately trying to push the character in the direction of success, but something about the film’s script and direction really drags the otherwise entertaining character into the inescapable realm of mediocrity. How does this happen,...
Shutter Island is a strange movie, but not in the way it intends to be: it’s strange because it’s bad. Martin Scorsese isn’t the critical and commercial king he is today because he makes movies that suck. But he’s managed the impossible here — he’s made a bad film. ”But the trailer is awesome,” you say, tears running down your trembling face in denial. Well, the...
I can appreciate the extra-exhilaration an American citizen might experience when watching The Hurt Locker. While the film speaks for any human soul with a will to live, it remains incredibly patriotic and makes sure to put things like ‘the American way of life’ and ‘The American Dream’ in the spotlight. Without getting overly political about the actual situation in Iraq and why...
The teaser trailer for District 9 is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. You know the one, where the totally weird and alien thing sits in an interview room, with its face blurred, and clicks and pops and grunts in response to some questions asked by off-screen humans. It hooked my attention and piqued my anticipation more than any other trailer I can remember, that cold, chilling image of an...
The original Wolf Man was a noble tale of tragedy, fathers and sons, and fate, intertwined with some wacky gypsy woo-woo bullshit. Something about curses, pure hearts, and gypsies really didn’t bode well for our innocent protagonist Larry Talbot, and he ended up snuffing it by taking a silver cane to the face a few too many times. What was tragic about the film was that was that a) everything Larry goes...
THE BLIND SIDE: Hollywood’s default setting
MEMENTO review: holy short-term memory loss, Batman
Summer review round-up: the good, the bad and the ugly
TREKKIES review: celebrating geekiness
Posted by JonBoy on Feb 24th, 2010 in Featured, Reel Reviews, Reel Thoughts, Uncategorized | Comments
UP secures both Best Animated Film and Best Picture nominations and it totally deserves it.
FROM PARIS WITH LOVE review: return to sender
SHUTTER ISLAND review: let me off the island
THE HURT LOCKER review: Universal themes cloaked in the American flag
DISTRICT 9 review: brains, brawn and prawns
THE WOLF MAN review: all bite and no bark
SHUTTER ISLAND: Let me off the island
THE HURT LOCKER: Universal themes cloaked in the American flag
DISTRICT 9: Brains, brawn and prawns
State of the art: 3D and the "Avatar effect"
The Super Bowl TV spots of 2010
Limitations can help filmmakers and George Lucas is insane
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