Ego! Ego! Ego!: Movies Archives
June 16, 2008
RIP Stan WinstonHollywood has lost an FX titan. Stan Winston, a genius of special effects, is dead.
I am really saddened. I know his shop will probably endure and the folks he's worked with will continue to produce beautiful effects, but to lose the man at the heart of it all is so sad. He created effects for some of my favorite films over the years, and just kept getting better.
He will be missed.
What is remembered, lives.
January 14, 2008
Bucket ListWow. Roger Ebert savaged The Bucket List. I rather enjoyed the film, but I suspect that is largely because I am neither 70 nor a (current or former) cancer patient. Ebert is not the former, but he is the latter. Saccharine films like "The Bucket List" are perfectly charming unless you have personal experience with the things they are manhandling in pursuit of A Sweet And Illuminating Plotline.
January 09, 2008
Charlie Wilson's WarThis piece about the new film Charlie Wilson's War is a solid one, and I strongly suggest that anybody who has seen or is thinking about seeing the film read it. I also suggest that anybody interested in modern politics check it out. Good stuff. Author Chalmers Johnson calls the filmmakers out on glossing over the fact that they are lionizing a man who essentially armed al Quaeda.
September 17, 2007
The Brave OneI just posted my review of The Brave One. As usual, just before sending it off, I read Roger Ebert's review of the same movie.
As usual, it made me kind of sad. I really hope I'll be as good a writer as he is someday.
July 23, 2007
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and LarryMy review of "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" is now up. Yay. Not an easy one to write.
June 18, 2007
Review of Ocean's 13 upOcean's 13 is good. Not as good as the first one, but a damn sight better than the second.
June 11, 2007
New review up.I really ought to remember to post when I put reviews up, nu? So: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End!
January 29, 2007
Thank goodness.I was not impressed with Blood & Chocolate, the movie I saw this week. As much as I love sharpening my proverbial pen and laying into a bad movie, it's annoying to have to sit through a piece of crap. It's even worse when I have to wedge said piece of crap into my schedule with much inconvenience. If I'm going to be inconvenienced, dammit, I don't think it's too much to ask that the movie be good. Sheesh. No wonder so many movie reviewers get so embittered against bad movies.
At least I have some fun stuff to look forward to!
2/2: The Messengers: William B. Davis acting, Sam Raimi producing, nuff said. Even if it sucks, I want to see it.
2/9: Hannibal Rising: I adore Hannibal. Again, even if it sucks, I want to see it. I hear the actor is pretty damn good as Hannibal, so I'm game.
2/16: Ghost Rider: Nicholas Cage in a cheesy supernatural superhero movie? I'm there. At least he can actually be campy in a crap movie (See also: Con Air)
3/2: Zodiac: a movie about SF's own never-caught, uber-mysterious serial killer? Sure. I'm game. Besides, the previews are good.
3/23: TMNT: TMNT = Ealasaid Is There. This is the first Turtles movie in FREAKIN AGES.
Yay!
November 21, 2006
RIPHe will be missed.
September 18, 2006
The LibertineI have finally seen "The Libertine" - It certainly nailed Rochester's self-destructive tendencies, but it ultimately pushes him too far over the edge into a charicature of himself, if such a thing is possible. It's an odd movie, which seems to become more Hollywood even as it pushes Hollywoodisms away. Why else would Rochester, dying of syphilis, pry himself from his deathbed to make a fantastic speech in favor of Charles II, the king who earlier in the film sentenced him to that most horrible of fates, being ignored?
Admittedly I am a fangirl of the Earl and a firm believer in both his talent and his tragedy. But I don't believe he was the angry, despairing fellow of this film.
Much of the film is good. Seeing some of "Sodom" staged was fantastic (though of course there is no proof it ever was staged, let alone in front of the King and a French ambassador). I do wish they'd kept the bit where he overturned Charles' expensive, fancy sundial -- as soon as they showed it in the film I remembered that anecdote. Ah, well. We can't have everything. Taken as a whole I don't much care for it, but I'm glad it's getting him more exposure - maybe they'll do another take on his life that won't be quite so frustrating to scholars like me.
I'm such an optimist. :)
July 07, 2006
ArrrrrrrrI am powerfully tempted to ditch work this afternoon and go see the new Pirates of the Carribbean movie so as to avoid the hordes that will be going tonight.
POWERFULLY TEMPTED
Sadly, I was so out of it over the weekend that I didn't even rememeber it was opening today until like, two seconds ago. Dammit. Now my afternoon is too busy to cut out and go.
Tomorrow's busy. Unless I go to a way late show, which would rawk but require sitting in line for ages and ages.
Sunday Matinees will be full of screaming children.
DAMMIT!!!
I will figure something out. I will. I will.
April 10, 2006
Take the Lead\A slightly cheerier post: My review of Take the Lead is up.
March 22, 2006
HoorayMy faith in the world is restored. There is an official trailer for Sam Jackson's next movie, and it's still going to be called Snakes on a Plane. YAY! Best movie title ever.
Watch the trailer. This movie is going to kick amazing ass. It has absolutely zero pretension. It knows it is a stupid action/adventure movie. I respect that.
March 14, 2006
FinallyMan, I am tired.
But I survived another Cinequest. Go me. I saw 20 films (if you count the short programs as single films), which is less than last year by a fair whack, but I was also working full time this year. Last year I didn't work full time during Cinequest. I also kept up with Aikido this year, unlike last year when I stopped training for two weeks. So go me.
I am so ready for a vacation now. Wheeee!
In other news, I have officially survived another year outside the womb. Happy birthday to me. :D
February 12, 2006
New review up!My review of Firewall is up.
January 30, 2006
The MatadorMy review of The Matador is up. Rawk.
January 24, 2006
Review upMy review of Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is up, yay!
This was a hard one to write. Brooks' comedy is so subtle that the fact the film is a satire is going right over most people's heads, if the IMDb boards are anything to go by. *sigh* Oh, well. I liked it, anyway.
January 02, 2006
2005 movies2005 Retrospective, complete with links, now up in my reviews section.
December 19, 2005
Review of Brokeback Mountain upDecember 12, 2005
The Lion, The Witch, and the WardrobeDecember 05, 2005
Review of Aeon Flux upMy review of Aeon Flux is up. Hooray.
November 21, 2005
Holy Schlamoly, I did it!I have finally finished moving all my movie reviews over to the new archive.
Hooray!
So if you've ever wondered what I thought of your favorite film, head on over and use the search box to see if I've reviewed it. I've got 212 reviews over there, according to my stats. Yikes.
September 27, 2005
SerenityWell, I saw Serenity tonight.
Joss Whedon, it appears, must join Peter Jackson in my list of "Directors I Love But Also Really Hate." If I ever meet him, I will be severely tempted to slap him. Repeatedly.
That said, I loved the movie for the most part. As with Jackson's work, it was mostly very good but the bits I hate, I really fucking hate. He shows his immaturity as a storyteller, which is pretty pathetic, considering how long he's been telling stories. He also sets it up so it will be very difficult to make sequels, which is insulting to the fans who have worked so hard to make the film possible. The least he could do is make it so their hard work and likely repeat viewings of this film might be rewarded with more stories about the characters they love.
I am looking forward to being able to discuss it with more people. I am curious about what the hardcore fans will think of it.
I want to sleep on it before I get into the stuff I didn't like, so y'all are safe from spoilers for the time being.
July 26, 2005
O Frabjus Day!Love at First Bite is out on DVD!
My life is now complete.
(Duh, of course I bought it on the spot)
July 14, 2005
Napoleon DynamiteOne of the things I forgot to blog about is the film Napoleon Dynamite. I watched it over the weekend with the bf and was sorely disappointed.
It wasn't bad. It wasn't good. It just... was.
I wasn't even expecting a whole lot, really -- I'd heard both "OMGITSSOGOODYAY!" and "Wow, how lame" reactions from people, so I did my best to go in with no real expectations other than to be mildly amused.
And I did chuckle occasionally. But it didn't blow my mind or make my week or anything. Napoleon is a mouthbreather and not quite weird enough to be interesting to me (I, as they say, get weirder things in my breakfast cereal). His brother was painfully lame. His uncle was annoying. His grandma was kinda cool, but we never get to really meet her. The girls in the film are disinteresting. Pedro is boring.
Ultimately, to me, it seemed like a bunch of actors moving through a script as though they expected the script to make the scenes funny or interesting or poignant rather than their own performances.
And that's a drag, because all the LJ Icons I keep seeing of Napoleon dancing are actually pretty cool.
July 13, 2005
Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryAs promised to various and sundry folk, here is my opinion on the new "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," which I saw last night.
This is NOT a formal review because I am still trying to get my head around the flick. This is just a seat-of-pants gut-reaction kind of thing.
That's all I've got off the top of my head. Time to get back to work.
- This movie is totally awesome
- If you are a Tim Burton fan, you will almost certainly love it
- ditto if you're a Johnny Depp fan, although he is totally off his rocker in this one, so if you just like him 'cos he's pretty but thought "Sleepy Hollow" was weird and gross, give this a skip
- I love that Willy Wonka reacts to children much the way I do: they clearly give him the creeps and he blatantly loathes the spoiled/annoying/bratty ones (ie, about 80%-90% of all children), but he is capable of liking individual kids like Charlie
- Christopher Lee is OMGSOCOOL in this
- There is a shot of Lee and Depp together that I have GOT to get a photograph of. It is really awesome but I will not discuss it with anybody who hasn't seen the movie (spoilers, you know).
- The look of the film is AMAZING, although I could have lived without all the digital removal of peoples pores. Seriously, Depp looked plastic in some scenes. He is FORTY YEARS OLD, HE HAS PORES AND WRINKLES, PEOPLE! OMG!
- The music rocks
- There are plenty of jokes for grownups to get (including a hilarious reference to both "2001" and KISS, in the SAME SCENE)
June 17, 2005
EbertRoger Ebert, in his review of The Longest Yard (which is a fantastic review and a great look at why movie reviewing is so freakin' hard to do well) says something which really resonates with me:
There is a sense in which attacking this movie is like kicking a dog for not being better at calculus.I really think that this is true of many films, and I think it is a great failing of our profession that most reviewers really don't get that. For pete's sake, if it's a good dog, pat it on the head and give it a cookie.June 07, 2005
OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!1111eleventyone11!bang!I saw "Batman Begins" last night.
It was unbelievably cool and awesome and fantastic. I totally fangirled out afterwards.
Seriously.
It is really super-cool.
I don't know the comics well enough to say how it ranks in terms of the canon, but OH MY GOD IT WAS SO COOL!!
And the script didn't make me groan or roll my eyes even once, which is really saying something. Even the Spider-Man movies, which rock my world, make me gag in spots (MaryJane, I am looking at you!). But not BB. It rocked my world.
Also: Gary Oldman as a good guy! Not a slimeball! Wow!
June 06, 2005
Cinderella ManMan.
This is a hard movie to review. And, aggravatingly enough, my hero Roger Ebert has let me down: he has apparently been taken in completely by the schmaltz of this movie. He is getting soft in his old age! There's no criticism of the film for turning a good guy into a horrible trash-talking bad guy! He doesn't take Howard to task for pushing the violins and including such incredibly sappy dialog as "you're the champion of my heart." Ebert's just all "ooh, Crowe played a nice guy! Wow!"
Feh.
I didn't hate Cinderella Man, but I didn't think it was terriffic either. I enjoyed it but found the melodrama a little over the top. But it's hard to explain that clearly in a brief review.
May 18, 2005
ManifestI have been working on a manifesto in the back of my mind for a couple of years now. It's my Movie Reviewer's Manifesto.
Today I read something over at Nomen est Numen that piqued my interest:
I believe that the job of a critic is to help people get as much as they can out of whatever it is that is being reviewed. A critic's role ought not be to point out flaws or shortcomings, but to create and instill appreciation. There is richness to be found in even the most banal of films. There is something to be learned from even the shoddiest of dining experiences. It is not Polly-Anna I revere, but the fact that life is painfully brief, and is much better spent in enjoyment than condemnation.Now, this was a digression in a post abut something else entirely, but it still intrigued me. I have long thought the difference between a reviewer and a critic, but had trouble explaining exactly how I see it. I used to say (and indeed, did say in my masters' project) that reviewers help you pick a film while critics help you understand a film.
I think Siona's point about critics helping you appreciate a film is a better way to put it, and that does change my evaluation of where I am on the reviewer/critic spectrum. In some of my reviews (like The Merchant of Venice, for example), I do try to help my readers appreciate the film a bit more. But my goal is always to help them decide whether or not to see it in the first place.
It's an interesting subject, and I'm sure that my musings on it have been tweaked by Siona's. This is yet another reason that I love blogging and read numerous blogs by interesting people: they feed my own intellectual meanderings.
May 16, 2005
Star Wars III review upWell, my review of Episode III is up. Go read it if you want a slightly more detailed (but still largely spoiler-free) version of what I think.
May 09, 2005
I saw Star Wars Ep III today.I saw it at a screening this morning and will say only this:
WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY better than expected. WAY. Seriously. The romantic stuff still sucks but there was way less of it. The action RULED. This reviewer's thumb is up. I can't wait for y'all to see it so I have someone to talk to about it other than my Mom.
Now if only Lucas will LEAVE THE FRANCHISE THE HELL ALONE and go make something else...
March 04, 2005
Holy MolyCinequest is rocking my socks. Last year I saw a ton of movies, but this year I am actually running into a lot of filmmakers. I've hung out and chatted with actors, screenwriters, and directors both in the hospitality suite and at the awesome party after the opening night screening. THis is just a blast for a fangirl like me.
I'm trying to be all professional, but I find myself using words like "awesome!" and "cool" all the time and being really bubbly between run-ins. I mean, dood. I interviewed Harold Lloyd's granddaughter today. Wow.
Cinequest is just schweet.
February 24, 2005
Cinequest GridFor those who are interested, I have constructed a time/location grid for Cinequest 15.
February 07, 2005
Review upWell, my review of The Wedding Date is up. Whee!
January 31, 2005
Review upMy review of Hide and Seek is up. Yay!
January 24, 2005
Merch review upI have no idea if my review of "The Merchant of Venice" will run in its entirety in the paper. It's frickin' long, mostly because I couldn't figure out a way to include everything I wanted to say in fewer words.
Anyway, it's up.
January 10, 2005
*yawn*Gah. I'm home sick tonight - was supposed to go to Aikido and then tutor, but had to cancel both. So unfair. I'm used to my stomach being tetchy when I'm stressed, but I'm in pain here! So unfair. I feel like I'm going to hurl, even though I had my classic stomach-easing dinner of plain white rice with a glass of 7up. Stupid stomach. It's never recovered from all the anti-inflammatories my docs crammed down me trying to control the pain in my knees.
Figured I'd take the opportunity to post my latest review so my editor is at least moderately happy with me - I was going to wrap it up and send it in tomorrow (24 hrs past deadline) but figured I might as well earn brownie points with someone tonight and did the proofread, post, and email thing tonight.
Now I am going to go to bed. Gah.
January 04, 2005
Now I know how telemarketers feel.I've essentially given up on sending out carefully crafted cover letters to small papers, asking them to look over my clips and give me a shot.
I am now cold-calling editors. I got a list of weekly papers in California, and am working my way down in alphabetical order.
So far, I have called four. Three weren't available and one said they already have a reviewer and don't even want to see my clips.
Grr!
*deep breaths*
I just have to be patient and keep trying. I just know there's a paper out there that needs a reviewer! There has to be! Heck, I bet there's more than one, I just have to find them. I'm eliminating the ones I know have in-house reviewers right now by checking their websites (if they have one), but that still leaves me a lot to call.
4 down, 361 to go.
December 30, 2004
WhewMan. I am almost at the end of vacation and have seen eleven movies. No wonder I'm so tired! Check it out. Italicized movies were added on and not part of the original list
December 29, 2004
Vacation Movies, Day 9Saw "Closer" tonight (well, last night, as it's past 12). It was awesome, but kind of a bummer. Okay, REALLY a bummer. People work very hard to mess up their lives, don't they? I felt that Larry (Clive Owen!) was the one doing that the least. He's kind of a caveman (as he admits) but at least he's (1) honest and (2) not constantly lying to or manipulating the people he loves. He only lies/manipulates a little bit. :)
December 26, 2004
Vacation Movies, Day 6Saw "The Aviator" with my parents yesterday. It was AMAZING. Funny and sad and exciting. Also kind of scary. Neat effects and gorgeous airplanes and everything. SO COOL.
However, I defy anybody who says I have OCD to see that movie and then say it again. I may be a little odd, but I'm not THAT bad. Howard Hughes had MAJOR OCD issues. Poor guy. I felt really bad for him.
December 25, 2004
Vacation Movies, days 4 and 5Thursday I saw "Casablanca" with my family - rawk! I somehow never noticed how cool the Captain is. Gotta love that dry irony.
Friday I saw "The Machinst" and "Team America: World Police". Boy, there's a double feature for you. "THe Machinst" was easily one of the most unsettling films I have ever seen, largely because every time the camera was on Christian Bale's emaciated figure, I cringed inside. I hope he hasn't permanently damaged himself by getting so frickin' skinny. "Team America" was okay. Good to see once, but not a go again and again kind of movie. Matt and Trey are good at being funny but not so good with the political humor except in VERY small doses. This was too much in one place (although the refrain "America! Fuck yeah!" was stuck in my head for a while. That's a catch tune).
Merry Christmas to them as celebrate it!
December 22, 2004
Vacation Movies: Day ThreeSaw "I Heart Huckabees" today, and my brain hurts. It was really, really good, but really really weird. It also had a great quote I loved but don't remember the exact wording of: "Everything is connected. But it's nothing important." Something like that. I should get the precise wording, it was a good quote.
Ow, my brain.
I haven't felt this weird after a movie since "Donnie Darko." Or maybe "Being John Malkovich."
December 21, 2004
Vacation Movies: Day TwoSaw "The Grudge" today - a remake of a Japanese movie done by the same director. Wow. Japanese horror movies are WAY better than American ones. I only found two loose ends in this one (the real estate agent and the junior detective). Can anybody who's seen the original (Ju-On) tell me if they are taken care of in that?
Anyway, it was really effective and creepy as hell. Very cool. Now, time for dinner and a DVD - either a netflix movie or a DVD I borrowed from a friend ages ago and still haven't watched.
Vacation Movies: Day oneSaw TWO movies yesterday, go me!
"Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" is just gorgeous. It's very much a pulp movie, and I think people who harsh on it are forgetting that. I really enjoyed it, although I did find it irritating that I couldn't really bring myself to like Joe or Polly - Dex and Frankie totally rocked but we hardly get to see them. *sigh*
"Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation" was more of the usual from Spike and Mike. Definitely sick, definitely twisted, definitely fun. I liked some of the shorts more than others. For example, I love the bitter film with the guy talking to girls and getting killed (which I am about 90% sure was in the last S&MS&TFA I saw), but I could go the rest of my life without seeing another Happy Tree Friends sketch and be happy.
Today: definitely "The Grudge," hopefully at least one other film. We'll see.
December 20, 2004
ReviewsMy two latest movie reviews are up - Phantom of the Opera and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
December 19, 2004
Vacation!I have a goal for this vacation.
I am going to see a movie a day (maybe more!) and get caught up on the movies I want to see. I'm probably not going to review them. I'm just going to take advantage of the fact that I have two weeks of vacation from my school-oriented jobs and almost no freelance work to do.
December 13, 2004
Go me.New review up (Ocean's 12), as well as more archives - all of 1998 is up now! Yay! Go read! Leave comments!
November 08, 2004
ARGH!!!!DAMN YOU, PIXAR!!!!
Damn you for making such great movies. Damn you for making "The Incredibles" virtually impossible for me to review because it is so blasted good. There's just too much neat stuff to mention and I'm paralyzed trying to describe it.
Sometimes I really hate this job.
September 27, 2004
Voila.My review of Shaun of the Dead is up at The Bottom Line. Hooray.
August 11, 2004
Wow.This is why I still admire Roger Ebert, even as he is aging and making the occasional mistake in his reviews. His review of "The Princess Diaries 2" is brilliant, honest, and funny. I can tell he hated the film, but he's honest enough to admit that he's not capable of liking a movie like this.
July 19, 2004
Reviews upFor them as is interested, my latest reviews are up here. Check it out. Spider-Man 2, Fahrenheit 9/11, and I, Robot. Yay!
May 12, 2004
Rochester!Eeek! The Libertine, a moving about my favorite 17th century poet is in production!
And Johnny Depp is going to play him. *squeal*
May 03, 2004
New Reviews UPGot new reviews up, go check it out!
April 26, 2004
Reviewer on FireMan. Sometimes a movie is just freakin' hard to review.
"Man on Fire" is definitely hard to review.
But I did it.
Writing the review really made me start to question my ability to see a movie the way that the average moviegoer does. I mean, the people at the screening really liked it and I thought it was pretty bad. It's tops at the box office for the weekend, even.
Yikes.
I'm not entirely sure how my review came out - it's less a review and more an essay about the reviewer/audience divide. Hope it's okay.
April 16, 2004
Gojira!Well, I got to see the original version of "Godzilla" this week. Not the one released in the US back in the 50s with Raymond Burr poorly spliced in and about 40 minutes of Japanese footage cut.
The original.
Which was actually a pretty darn cool movie, if you could get over the 50s special effects.
April 06, 2004
ReviewsHave posted my latest batch of reviews. Includes Hellboy!
March 09, 2004
Sign I'm meant to be a movie reviewer #281I've seen about 18 films in the last week or so and not only am I not sick of it (or of writing my reviews) but I'm looking forward to my next film!
Man, I wish I did this full time. Movie reviewing is the coolest job ever.
Oh, and I'm in the March 7 Cinequest Online Digital News feed. Yay me!
March 01, 2004
Cinequest!Got some reviews up in my Cineblog 2004, courtesy of the nice Cinequest folks, who got me advance screening tapes.
Keep an eye on that blog now, kids, as it should be seeing daily updates from here until the end of the festival.
February 25, 2004
No duh.Scholars find fault with Gibson's "Passion".
Nice to see that a bunch of the stuff scholars are bitching about is stuff I already pointed out to various friends in discussions. I mean, sure, some of it is stuff you can argue over. But there are studies showing that crucifixion in the classic pose, with nails through the palms and no other support isn't possible. It doesn't work.
Thank you. That is all.
February 24, 2004
PassionRoger Ebert reviews The Passion of The Christ.
I am really impressed by his review because it's so thoughtful and honest. He's not particularly religious (although he used to be an altar boy, apparently), but I think he shows great respect for the film's intent.
February 18, 2004
Maverick!Cinequest, San Jose's film festival, is coming up and I'm going to be covering it for The Milpitas Post!
Check out my Cinequest blog, CineBlog 2004.
January 12, 2004
Big Fish Review UpFinally. Read the review here.
Big FishY'know, movies like Big Fish make me simultaneously glad and frustrated.
I'm glad because it's a great film.
I'm frustrated because it's so damn tricky to review.
December 22, 2003
New ReviewsGot a bunch of new reviews up over at the Bottom Line. Check 'em out:
December 16, 2003
Again! Again!I'm gonna go see "Return of the King" again tonight, this time at the midnight showing over at the Mall's theater. Wooo. It's gonna be fun, even though it means I'll get like three hours of sleep if I get called in to sub.
December 13, 2003
Argh!Man. I'm trying to write my review of "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" and barely know where to start. Argh! And Ebert hasn't even posted his review yet, so it's not like I can mooch off him, either. Gah!
There's only so many ways to say "godDAMN this movie kicks ass... unless you're passionate about the books, in which case it's only really good.." You know?
Sorry I've been lax with the Word of the Day - I've been blogging while away from my stash of words. D'oh. Hopefully the Word of the Day will resume on Monday.
December 10, 2003
Return of the KingSo I saw "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" last night at a press screening.
I'll be working on a review for the Milpitas Post soon enough but I know folks want to know about it now.
The short version: it's good. Has many of the same kinds of mistakes as "The Two Towers" did, but it's still good. I suspect that fans of the book will be far more upset than other folks.
My more detailed thoughts (SPOILERS INCLUDED) are below. Read at your own risk.
October 10, 2003
Kill Bill Vol 1Oh, man. I was trying to figure out how the hell to write about this movie, and then I read Roger Ebert's review of it. I swear, sometimes he mixes names up (he calls The Bride O-Ren at one point in this review) but he is still damn good at pinpointing the feel of a movie. Tarantino isn't so much making a movie with "Kill Bill" as he is making one giant distillation of the martial arts movie genre.
It's insane. The plot makes little sense. The characters have no depth. It's completely unrealistic. And it's a hell of a lot of fun, if you don't mind a lot of gore.
Go read Ebert's review. He says it better than I can.
September 29, 2003
WOOOO!It's finally happened.
The Milpitas Post is finally going to pay me for my movie reviews. Yay!
I feel all cool now.
And we're not talking comping me for tickets like other publications have done (and whined about, too). We're talking paying me to write, a set fee per published article. Like a real newspaper. I feel so cool.
September 01, 2003
Reviews upI've updated my Movies Reviews section with some new flicks. Check it out!
August 29, 2003
Jeepers! What a review.Man. I have to bow down to Roger Ebert. That poor man had to review "Jeepers Creepers 2" (which I've decided I can't stomach, so I'm doing a late review of "The Medallion" this weekend). And he did a great job! I love his reviews, they read as if they took no effort to write, but are insightful, often funny, and a joy to read.
"Victor Salva's "Jeepers Creepers 2" supplies us with a first-class creature, a fourth-rate story, and dialogue possibly created by feeding the screenplay into a pasta maker. ... Why the creature is called the Creeper when he leaps and flies I am not sure. Why Francis Ford Coppola decided to produce this movie I am also not sure.Go read.
July 18, 2003
Bad BoysGreat review by Ebert here. I was thinking about seeing this but have changed my mind.
July 14, 2003
Awwwww, yeah.I'm finally getting comped for my tickets when I write movie reviews! The guy who runs SiliconValleyParents.com has hired me on a freelance basis to write movie reviews for him. Check it out!
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Pirates of the CaribbeanHe doesn't keep archives, though, so if you're trying to follow those links and it's after July 21, 2003 or so, you should check my personal archives here.
July 10, 2003
Arrr! Avast ye, mateys!Yo ho, yo ho! A pirate's life for me!
At least if it includes the kind of adventure in "Pirates of the Caribbean," which totally kicked butt. It ruled. The dialog was cheesy, there were a bunch of cool references to the ride (both verbal and visual) and Johnny Depp was completely whacked out as Capt. Jack Sparrow. The female lead wasn't quite as bold and brave as the script would have us believe (she spends too much time looking unsure of herself, imo), but everything else rocked.
Even cooler: we got to see a preview for The Haunted Mansion, which has the potential to be totally cool... provided Eddie Murphy's curse doesn't kick into effect.
AND The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen opens tomorrow! This is a great movie week, man. Seriously.
July 01, 2003
Charlie's Angels meets South ParkOkay, so I saw the new "Charlie's Angels" over the weekend, and this thought occured to me while discussing it with friends. The following theory includes spoilers, so if you care about that, don't read the rest, okay? They're spoilers about the Creepy Thin Guy (Crispin Glover) from the first film. Decide now if you care...
File under: Movies
Posted at 09:38 PM |
