Archive for May, 2010
By Colin Harris on May 31, 2010 in Drama | 2 Comments
Prospect: One small town in one of the southern states, population 1832, where everybody knows everybody else and the ubiquitous ‘Welcome To…’ sign on the town’s border feels more like the doors of a prison cell. Rhett Ryan knows these ties all too well but, as a wannabe country singer, he thinks he sees a [...]
By Mariusz Zubrowski on May 30, 2010 in Comedy, Crime | 1 Comment
MicMacs is definitely an interesting motion picture. At times it seamlessly channels the silent, yet comically powerful presence of cinema greats such as Charlie Chaplin, but at other times, it’s severely bogged down by the almost nonexistent character development and the increasingly thin storyline. However, visually, MicMacs is a triumph — adding to director Jean-Pierrer [...]
By Mariusz Zubrowski on May 30, 2010 in Action/Adventure, Comedy | 3 Comments
There must have been a reason why I found the initially positive response to director Jorma Taccone’s MacGruber so ominous. Perhaps it was the fact that Taccone’s past cinematic exploits only include an actor credit for Land of the Lost and Hot Rod but it’s more likely that I found the eight positive reviews on [...]
By MovieGoddess on May 29, 2010 in Drama, Thriller | 2 Comments
Given the recent headlines concerning the extramarital escapades of Tiger Woods and Jesse James, the premise of Atom Egoyan’s erotically-charged film Chloe reminds us of something that should come as no surprise to anybody — a cell phone is not a cheating spouse’s best friend. When the specter of possible infidelity looms over a couple [...]
By Colin Harris on May 23, 2010 in Drama, Thriller | 107 Comments
The videotape rolls: “My name is Yusuf Mohammad, my former name is Steven Arthur Younger, and I have planted three nuclear bombs across the country. They will detonate unless my demands are met.” He then points the camera at exhibit A, looking suspiciously like a nuclear bombs with oh, I should say, about 4.5 pounds [...]
By General Disdain on May 21, 2010 in Animated, Comedy, Family, Fantasy | 6 Comments
How many of us have thought about how things would be have turned out had we made a different choice? It’s a rhetorical question, of course — we all have at one time or another (you’re only lying to yourself if you say otherwise). And so, seeing as it makes a great plot (made famous [...]
By Colin Harris on May 20, 2010 in Comedy, Drama | 1 Comment
Creating a satire of the London art gallery scene would seem to be a rather pointless venture but director Duncan Ward, armed with his DVD collection of Robert Altman movies and aided by a lengthy cast list, brings us the lives and loves of assorted artsy types in his debut picture, Boogie Woogie. The plot, [...]
By Colin Harris on May 19, 2010 in Crime, Drama, Thriller | 0 Comments
Boots Mason is a tough guy all right, make no mistake about it. There’s always room in the over-crowded London mob scene for a guy like him, and so it is that we find him doing a spot of debt-collecting at the start of this derivative gangster movie, The Heavy. He’s not long out of [...]
By General Disdain on May 18, 2010 in Comedy, Romance | 3 Comments
How many years has it been since we, the movie going public, have been graced with the stylings of Jennifer Lopez on the big screen? Two years? Seven? The correct answer is four. The other correct answer is: “Not nearly long enough. Not by a long shot.” The Back-up Plan, the reason for her rousing [...]
By Colin Harris on May 17, 2010 in Drama, Foreign, Romance | 6 Comments
His name is Rizwan Khan and he is not a terrorist. However, he’s a Muslim in a post 9/11 America, and not everyone believes him. He must tell the President in the hope that this simple message will filter down through society. The situation is not helped by the fact that Rizwan suffers from Asperger’s [...]
By Colin Harris on May 17, 2010 in Drama, Romance, War | 0 Comments
It’s an interesting concept: Soldiers returning home after the Iraqi war serving what’s left of their enlistment period as messengers for the Army, instructed to tell unsuspecting husbands, wives or other next of kin that their loved ones won’t be returning. I’m pretty sure it’s not official policy, but that’s what happens to Staff Sergeant [...]
By James Barron on May 14, 2010 in Action/Adventure, Drama, Fantasy | 2 Comments
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I gave up any hope of enjoying this film. Possibly it was the moment I saw Liam Neeson dressed in tin-foil armor. Or maybe it was the image of Sam Worthington riding a giant CGI scorpion through the desert. Regardless, by the halfway mark I was already considering using [...]
By Dan Schneider on May 13, 2010 in Comedy, Drama | 4 Comments
Synecdoche, New York is a two hour long, 2008 film from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and was his first attempt at directing films. It is a wildly overpraised and almost as wildly derided film. The truth is that it is a formulaic and dull film whose predictability, especially after the first 45 minutes, is almost total. [...]
By General Disdain on May 4, 2010 in Action/Adventure, Science Fiction, Thriller | 6 Comments
I want one of those super computers that create 3D images in real space that you can interact with — expand/collapse models, move them here and there, zoom in for close look and then out again for a macroscopic vantage — not because I actually have anything important to do, but because Tony Stark spends [...]
By MovieGoddess on May 4, 2010 in Fantasy, Horror, Thriller | 2 Comments
I know that remakes or jumper-cable reboots are a necessary, and inevitable evil in the movie business, but I do get so tired of these disproportionately disappointing efforts. Regardless, I do admit I was looking forward to this remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street but only because of the casting of Jackie Earle Haley, [...]