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 […]

My first exposure to the idea of this movie, I thought, who cares, don’t wanna see it. Another freaking superhero movie, only this time it’s not based on anything famous and it stars Will Smith so they figure our love for him will save them from having to actually write a script (see: Men […]

I’m not so much into the comic book movies.  Outside of Superman and Batman, my experience is limited and my interest less.  I have never seen or read any work based on Iron Man until this one, so I cannot speak to its fidelity to the canon.  I do see a crapload of movies, however, […]

After watching the third adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel, I would argue that the exacting demands of filmgoing audiences have finally drawn out the heart of this book. (Disclosure: I have not read it, but now I am willing to. For the antidote to this impulse, see The Omega Man.) Adding a dog […]

Jack Finney’s 1956 Collier’s magazine serial Invasion of The Bodysnatchers is as vital an original work as George Romero’s first zombie movie in 1968. It’s imminently adaptable and re-adaptable, tweaking it ever so slightly for a whole new metameaning depending on society’s anxieties of the day. In 1956, the story couched its thinly […]

Danny Boyle takes Cillian Murphy into the sun to restart it? I’ll take two tickets, please, just based on the strength of Boyles’ and Murphy’s 28 Days Later. The preview makes it look impossibly action-packed with plenty of “how will he escape that?” moments. The answers are surprisingly mature, gently paced, and […]

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 […]

Alfonso Cuarón took the world of Harry Potter (Prisoner of Azkaban) and rendered it in three dimensions: dark, textured, and always moving.  Even in that fantasy world, everything felt grounded, plausible.  In Children of Men, a film set in the near future of 2027, Cuaron again grounds the story and images in recognizably 2006 imagery.  […]

Shot in post-Katrina New Orleans, Deja Vu is a thriller with a twist dealing with an incident of domestic terrorism. It’s also, we find out, somewhat of a science-fiction paean to some of the more recent chaos theory and time-space continuum cosmology work being done in university settings. Don’t worry, it’s dumbed down […]

I’ll come clean. After all the slaps I got from fanboys about my subjective, personal opinion of the first two X-Men movies, I am not eager to jump in and comment on the third in the series. Sure, this one is different. It’s got a different director, it’s got a whole political […]