Oh, Sam Raimi. You know you’ve made it when the unique flavor of your early low budget films still describes your core style even when you have a huge crazy budget (for another example of this see the films of Kevin Smith). With Drag Me To Hell, Raimi makes a “classic” Sam Raimi movie, for [...]
Wow. I mean just – wow. It’s staggering to contemplate that some producer group sat in a screening room and thought, “Wow, this is gonna be great!” Now, I know we weren’t walking into an Oscar contender or a cult classic, that much was evident. My companion and I hoped and assumed it would be [...]
Films based on video games tend to be light on substance and heavy on style. Max Payne, in this respect, does not disappoint. Visually, this movie is quite gorgeous – more like a graphic novel adaptation than a video game adaptation. It has a stylized, pushed look, designed with razor perfection, punctuated [...]
Full disclosure: I watched the X-Files television series until the first movie came out. I was so disgusted with the transparent clumsiness of the story (so much more forgivable on TV) that I stopped watching the show. Curiosity and a cautious sort of press buzz (”it’s a stand-alone episodes even non-fans can love!”) drew me [...]
On its surface, Made of Honor seems like a perfect little girlie diversion. Platonic (rich handsome) guy friend realizes gal pal is the one, only on the eve of her impending nuptials. It’s ground that was tread more successfully in 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding (one of the two screenwriters’ work apparently only sings when [...]
George Romero. George George George. You created a mini-genre out of what was at the time an oddity: a monster movie (specifically zombies, for their unique properties) which also was a statement about modern day life. Countless follow-ups by you and others continued this trend and made Zombie Movies an event worth [...]
Occasionally I am contacted directly by distributors or filmmakers of tiny films to see if I will review (and thereby publicize) their movie. I try to only say yes to those I know will really watch, and I also try to be as objective as I can; most times I am not worried if [...]
When I saw they were making another Transformers movie, I responded in pretty much the same way I did to the news of a live action Garfield movie: Oh yuck, who cares, and I’m certainly not going to see it. As momentum (and nerdly peer pressure) built, I realized I couldn’t escape. I wasn’t expecting [...]
What a cast! Scrubs, Studio 60, and Arrested Development, supported by James Grodin, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Amy Adams, Donal Logue! How could this movie be a dud? I don’t know, exactly why, but it is. The Ex is a high-energy yawn, stuffed with promise and frosted with expectation. First-time [...]
It is difficult to articulate my fondness for the cast of this semi-improvised Comedy Central show. They (the characters, not the incredible cast that plays them so straight) are ignorant, bigoted, petty incompetents who stumble through their sheriff’s department duties with a half-assedness that makes for real comedy.
So, the movie will be like the show, [...]
