spoilers within. Clint Eastwood directed Changeling. Ron Howard is one of Changeling’s Producers. Babylon 5’s J. Michael Straczynski wrote Changeling and seems to have insisted that it say A True Story and not Based On A True Story. The cast is impressive from the slightly over the top Angelina Jolie to the totally over the top Jason Butler Harner and the calm and semi-normal people that surround them. With all these powers attached to it, Changeling should have been a bit better than it was. Changeling wasn’t bad, it just seemed a bit too much of a star vehicle for…
Category: movie review
Relative Values starring Julie Andrews
Some spoilers within. Relative Values is one of Julie Andrew’s movies that I somehow missed seeing until very recently. Made in 2000 from the Noël Coward play of the same name. Set in the 1950s we are in the same world as Howard’s End and Gosford Park where we find one woman, Julie Andrews, living in a vast sprawling estate surrounded by an endless array of servants. Chief among these servants is the Butler, played brilliantly by Stephen Fry who appears to be born to play a know-it-all Butler. It’s possible that this would have been a lot funnier if…
The Tale of Despereaux
The Tale of Despereaux has an all star cast telling the story of a small mouse with big ears who thinks of himself as a Gentleman. As with all fairy tales, it is necessary for someone’s mother to die, that someone is usually the hero of the story. Not so in The Tale of Despereaux. The poor mother in this case is the Queen of Dor, who is frightened by a rat named Roscuro, faints, and then drowns in a bowl of soup. Dor is famous for it’s soup, but now the King of Dor hates soup and rats and…
Christmas On Mars-Worst Xmas Movie Ever
To the world at large the Flaming Lips are a One Hit Wonder for their odd and haunting song Do You Realize. The Flaming Lips must have done something else over the years, but none of it has crossed my path. Until I found a blurb on BBC about The Flaming Lips making a movie called Christmas on Mars. Christmas on Mars is the story of a handful of people living on Mars. A group of men, one woman, and a baby make up the people inhabiting the Mars station. During Christmas they are visited by an alien who never…
Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise
Valkyrie is the story a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. Tom Cruise plays a German who has had enough of Hitler’s Germany and wants to start a new, better German without the Führer’s master plans. Valkyrie is the name of a military operation that would secure power after Hitler’s death-and is an integral part of Tom Cruise’s plans to free Germany. Valkyrie is a very good movie, and much like Apollo 13, it really doesn’t matter that you know the outcome. At every step of the operation there is a chance, a good chance, that our hero will succeed…
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Spoilers within. There’s only one of two things you need from a movie critic-one that you always agree with, or one that you never agree with. Gary Cogill is a small time movie critic in Dallas. He has a long bio and list of accomplishments-and I have not trusted his advice on films since he recommended The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. That film is right up there with Peter Jackson’s King Kong when it comes to all time worst movies. Which brings me to The Day The Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves. NOT The Worst…
Twilight-Fun For The Kiddies
Not being a teenage girl, Twilight didn’t do a hell of a lot for me. My experience with Romance Novels involved a handful of old Harlequins and a bit of free time. It was not time well spent. I understand that newer romance novels have lots of sex and a bit of action, but Twilight is a lot more of the Old Style Romance novel. In short, not a lot happens in Twilight. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen virtually every bit of action in Twilight. I have not read the book, but it is on my list to…
The Secret Life of Bees-The Movie
Spoilers within- The Secret Life of Bees was a great book and is a very good movie as well. I found it interesting that The Secret Life of Bees was Produced by Will Smith and Jade Pinkett-Smith. Maybe the Will Smith stamp on a film will be the next Oprah’s Book Club. It would be nice to think so. Set in 1964 in the South at the time of the signing of the Equal Rights Amendment, this is the story of a little white girl who runs away from her slightly crazy father and moves in with a group of…
Bee Movie
spoilers within Jerry Seinfeld said that he was chatting with Steven Spielberg one day and joked that he should make a b movie about a real bee. Spielberg said great and the project was born. It’s a cute story and it makes you wonder if Steven Spielberg would green light any silly idea. Of course, Jerry Seinfeld is a super star in his own right. I’m sure that everyone who meets Steven Spielberg says something along the lines of Hey, I’ve got a great idea for a movie. . . Bee Movie is story of a bee who doesn’t want…
Blindness-Feel Around for Some Logic
Spoilers within. Blindness is a movie about what happens when people start to go blind for no reason. Think Lord of The Flies meets 28 Days Later-only not quite as interesting as either one. I liked Blindness, but it is a standard issue sci fi premise that something happens-we never find out why-and we then watch as society falls instantly into shambles. I was never sure where the story of Blindness was set-at first I thought it was in Hong Kong or some other large city. It seems to set in America, with a large and impressive bridge half completed…