This website is under transition to its new home – I have partnered with PixelatedGeek.com, a hub site for all things fun and nerdy! Check out my review of The Switch here http://pixelatedgeek.com/2010/08/the-switch/ You can keep this site bookmarked as it will soon mirror to their site! I am very excited about this new partnership [...]
There are some actors who excel at playing a wide range of eclectic roles, high or low status, mighty or feeble, comic or tragic. There are some few of these who can do so and yet still can shape a character into a thing that could only have been played by themselves. Kevin Kline is [...]
San Diego Comic-Con was a huge love fest for this, director Edgar Wright’s latest movie. (Previous beloved outings: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz.) Some may complain of Michael Cera fatigue, but Scott Pilgrim gives Cera’s tender appeal some post-punk juice. This movie makes full use of Brian Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel source material (graphic [...]
This little comedy, now available on video, feels like it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. At times it treads the path of “normals shocked by weirdos” forged by such films as Four Christmases or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. At other times, a satire of – well, something – seemed to be brewing, [...]
I have to say it – Winter’s Bone left me cold. The acting is very good, the dialogue is naturalistic, and the art direction paints a vivid, textured picture of rural Missouri that is both lost in time and vibrantly present. The lead, Jennifer Lawrence, turns in a steely, raw performance. So what’s the problem? [...]
After zillions of cop movies, buddy and lone-wolf, comedic and dramatic, the type of action that movie cops get up to has evolved into big, loud boom boom and total disregard for administrative aftermath. Even TV procedurals skip over a lot of the procedures as an act of mercy to the story. The Other Guys [...]
Dinner for Schmucks, a remake of the 1998 French farce Le Diner de Cons (The Dinner Game), reunites the extremely lovable duo of Paul Rudd and Steve Carell. Readers of Cinerina know my feelings on Carell – an actor even before he is a comedian, Carell can swing his characters out in a wide outrageous [...]
After seeing Angelina Jolie and Liev Schrieber talk about Salt and its deep textual layers, complex character stories, and levels of deception at their Comic-Con panel, I got the impression that this movie was going to be a twisty thriller with surprises and depth. After seeing Salt, I’d have to amend that to “Salt is [...]
While I always try not to read or hear any critical buzz about a movie before I see it, some movies crawl into the cultural consciousness and become unavoidable. I had heard that enthusiasm for this movie was overblown because of its “lurid” subject matter, or its “unconventional” relationships. I find that kind of commentary [...]
Please Remove Your Shoes is a tiny little documentary centered around the historical failures of the FAA and airlines in managing effective air travel security (Exhibits A & B, Pan Am 103 and 9/11) and the continued, even less-effective tenure of the TSA. Produced, directed, and edited by Rob De Gaudio, this film is clearly [...]
