I had mixed feelings about Will Smith’s Hancock when I saw the first previews-it looked like a comedy about homeless superhero. And for the first part of Hancock, it is a comedy about a homeless superhero. This Will Smith movie shows us a superhero without a Fortress of Solitude-he lives in a ratty mobile home, who hates kids-he tosses one into the sky and seems to debate with whether or not he should catch him again, and no one appreciates him, being around at all-everyone in L.A. would like it if he would move to New York. This is fun…
Category: movie review
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening
“If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.”— Albert Einstein seen on a chalkboard in The Happening-according to Roger Ebert, Einstein never said this-but the quote gets 88,000 hits on Google saying he did. I know what your thinking-M. Night Shyamalan should find a nice rocking chair next the Wachowski Brothers and Chris Carter in the Home For Has Been Film Makers. Certainly the last couple of M. Night Shyamalan movies were not much to write home about. I liked M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense and I…
Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull
Ok, I know the title is Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but really, they could have just called it Indiana Jones. This was a good movie and it was fun-and there were all kinds of tips of the hat to older Lucas projects. In the original Raiders of The Lost Ark the opening credits featured a mountain with stars around it replacing the normal Paramount mountain in the corporate logo-that trick is repeated. Followed quickly by a group of 1950s teens very reminiscent of American Graffiti-which starred a very young Harrison Ford. Old Indiana Jones mentions…
Jumper-Can’t Tell The Players Without a Scorecard
Jumper is a visual stunning film-so much so that it is only after you leave the theater that you stop and ask yourself what it was about. We have a hero who can instantly transport to anywhere on earth-so long as he has been there before. Or at least, that seems to be the way it works in Jumper. Or maybe he can jump anywhere he sees a photo of. Or maybe he can jump to Oz if he gets a really good image of The Emerald City. No, it seems that he has to travel to the locales that…
Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman
What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. -Captain of the many Bosses Cool Hand Luke is the story of a chain gang and one man who keeps trying to escape. The barflies in Cheers noted that this is the sweatiest movie ever made and the tag line is right up there with We’ll always have Paris. This 1967 film is one of Paul Newman’s best. Cool Hand Luke is a fun movie, despite the fact that it is about a bunch of men tortured by an unjust legal system. Of course, it could be argued that life was a…
Alien vs Predator 2 AVP R
Picking up exactly where the last movie left off, AVP 2 is a brisk movie where there is a ton of action and yet nothing seems to happen. The gore and violence in this film is not, as in Sweeney Todd, in any way real. This did not stop the film makers from trying really hard to push our buttons. They murder a father and son out hunting, a roomful of new born babies, pregnant mothers and their unborn children- and the death count just keeps right on rolling. But none of these deaths means anything. There is gore and…
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Not Jessica Rabbit
I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.–Jessica Rabbit Who Framed Roger Rabbit? followed an old Hollywood tradition of mixing live actors with cartoon characters. Jessica Rabbit was not the first sexy toon, Betty Boop was, and it is nice that she makes a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Gertie the Dinosaur was the first live action/animated action film and that was back in 1914. Mary Poppins and a number of other Disney films have used the technique. But the best of the lot has to be Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The story of a down and out Private…
Sweeney Todd-Not For The Squeamish-Really
One of my favorite TV shows is Dexter, the story of a serial killer who dices up his victims. One my favorite movies of all time is Silence of The Lambs. Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street makes them both look like Sesame Street. Should it be shocking that Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the story of a madman who murders just about everyone he meets, is a violent, gory, blood soaked horror movie? Well, yes. No complaints about the special effects in Sweeney Todd, nearly two hours after watching Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber…
Golden Compass Beautiful and Baffling
“My books are about killing God.”Philip Pullman, quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald on Dec. 13, 2003. But that was then and this now. If there is a story about killing God in the Golden Compass movie it is so well hidden I might have to play the movie backwards to hear it.Where I Am Legend had some of the most annoying special effects in recent history, The Golden Compass is eye-popping and dazzling. True there are more than a few cartoony moments with the little daemons that follow everyone around, but that fits well with the story. The cityscapes…
I Am Legend- Will Smith All Alone
“That was kind of a depressing.” person behind me in the theater. Gene Shalit on the Today Show seemed to feel I Am Legend was a bit of a downer as well. Did you happen to see the trailer for this movie? It’s about the Last Man On Earth, how funny did you think it was going to be?In the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, Neville is the last man on earth because everyone else has become a vampire. Yes, vampires. The people in Hollywood still don’t have the balls to make that movie.I Am Legend with Will…