I can’t remember the last time I watched a Disney movie-oh yeah, it was Tron 2. Shudder. John Carter of Mars is the story of a US Civil War vet who ends up transported to Mars, where he has amazing adventures and wins the heart of a Princess. The CGI is good enough, it looks exactly the the CGI used to animate the last three Star Wars films and there is a strong Star Wars feel to John Carter. Hordes of computer generated aliens, a chase scene that stole a couple of moves from the Speeder scene in Return of…
Category: movie review
The Rum Diary
The Rum Diary by Hunter S Thompson is the story of a wanna be writer who fakes his resume to get a job at a Puerto Rico newspaper. Johnny Depp plays Paul Kemp, whose job at the newspaper includes such hot topics as the daily horoscope and league bowling scores. In his spare time he gets involved in cock fighting, experimenting with drugs, and being part of an evil plan to turn an island into a tropical resort. The Rum Diary is not exactly blockbuster material. It’s filled with the mundane acts of a mundane life. Our hero gets drunk,…
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
I liked Mission:Impossible-Ghost Protocol. The story of four agents duking it out with a Supervillian and a Russian Cop. Along the way things blow up, people get chased, cars crash, and there are a lot of pretty cool fights. Ghost Protocol is the kind of movie you walk out of the theater looking for someone to pick a fight with-or someplace to go shoplifting. One of Tom Cruise’s super spy talents is stealing random bits of clothing, cars, phones, and just about anything else he needs from random strangers. But hey, he does need them. It’s not like he steals…
Attack The Block
The story of a council block inhabited by an odd mixture of London poor, that happens to become the center of an alien invasion. From the producers of Shane of The Dead, Attack The Block is a pretty straight forward take on a monster movie. Unlike CGI fests such as Super 8 and Cloverfield, Attack The Block gives us a story on a human level-and leaves the over the top special effects in the box. Our heroes don’t start off very heroic, they are busy mugging a woman when something falls from the sky and flattens a car. They find…
Hugo in 3D
3D looks like it is here to stay this time-and if they could all look as good as Hugo, that would be a alright with me. The opening shot is a long zoom from the city of Paris down to a pair of eyes and it was pretty damned impressive. I especially liked the snow-it was one of those old school 3D effects were you wanted to reach out and touch the flake in front of your face. Hugo lives in a 1930s Paris train station where he has taken over the job of winding the clocks from his missing…
In Time
In the Future, people never age past 25, all cars were designed in the early 1970s, and time has replaced dollars as currency. In Time is a familiar story, a poor guy from the bad part of Time and a rich girl from the good part of Time, go on a Robin Hood style crime spreed to help the poor and the disenfranchised. Amanda Seyfried and Justin Timberlake and the rest of the cast is young and good looking and always a minute or so away from dying. It seems that everyone could be an immortal, but where you put…
Another Earth
Another low budget sort-of-science-fiction film with a lot of art house appeal. Another Earth is about a woman who is in a car crash and crippled with guilt over her irresponsible actions. She spends years in jail and then stalkes the man she plowed into. She spends a lot of time moping around and looking sad and remorseful. In the background of this sad sack story of a drunk driver is the secondary story of a second earth appearing in the sky one day. The other earth is an exact duplicate of our own earth. It keeps getting closer and…
Contagion
Contagion was not what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be more 28 Days Later and less PBS Special on Diseases and how they are spread. So instead of a tense story about the end of the world, we had a rather dry and boring story about the spread a virus and how it brings out the worst in people. Contagion was not a good movie. None of the characters were likeable, starting with the first person we see who is screwing around on her too good to be true husband. This moves the story from…
Empty the Movie
Empty is a sort of post apocalyptic story, if you can call going one week without gas a post apocalyptic event. Yes, this movie tells the tale of a world without gasoline-thus all gas tanks are Empty and anarchy reins. Empty is an ultra low budget independent film with a cast of about ten people-with two of them grabbing the bulk of the screen time. Much like Monsters our heroes are a rich girl and a poor working class schmuck. The rich girl is mostly reasonable and sane, her working class, tough guy boyfriend is mostly a total asshole. We…
Dreams with Sharp Teeth
Harlan Ellison is odd fellow. At age 72 when Dreams With Sharp Teeth was put together, he seems just this side of madness as he rants and raves about the world around him. But then, he has always ranted and raved about the world around him. I have never been a huge fan of Harlan Ellison’s writing. I can’t name even a single story of his that I can remember reading, though I must surely have stumbled across one or two over the years. No, it’s more stories about Harlan Ellison than story by Harlan Ellison that spring to mind.…