Movies I've Seen in 2009

I didn't know what to expect from In Bruges. All I knew was that Colin Farrel was in it, and that the trailer looked cool and briefly showed some weird monster thing. Even once I started to watch it, I was still puzzled as to what so many people saw and loved in this film. Well, my eyes have now been opened and I would recommend In Bruges to anyone who enjoys a well crafted movie.

What I loved about it most was its wickedly hilarious dialogue and its brilliant last third. I laughed more at the glib dialogue here than I did in many of the comedies I saw in 2008. And the ending! It's almost poetic. The relatively slow build-up of the first hour or so lays the foundations for utter satisfaction at the very end.

If you've been wondering what Colin has been up to like I have, you'll be glad to see that he's raising his profile with non-mainstream gems like this. I can't help but be pleased with my first movie of 2009.

Wow, wow, wow! Fargo was simply a pleasure to watch! I feel like I'm gushing, but this one is totally deserving. There are clear similarities between Fargo and No Country for Old Men. Both movies deal with the results when average people get mixed up with unfathomable evil and violence. And all for just a bit of money.

I really can't think of a single thing about the movie that I would change. I loved the ending. The music was top notch. The setting was perfection from the accents to the scenery. Every actor fit their role like a glove (Marge has to be one of my favorite characters in a movie, ever). There was just the right balance between the light and dark elements of the film. I absolutely loved it all!

I feel cheated. The Sixth Sense would probably have been one of my favorite movies ever, if I had only seen it back in 1999. But unfortunately I haven't seen it until now, when its plot has become a well known part of pop culture and twist endings have been done to death. Ugh. Oh well.

Anyway, it's clear that Shyamalan's mojo was really working during the making of The Sixth Sense. There's a subdued sense of dread threaded throughout the film that is the hallmark of a Shyamalan movie. Well, a GOOD Shyamalan movie.

The pacing is perfect, the acting is beautifully done (except at the very end, when the sappiness is slapped on a little thick, in my opinion), and the ghosts are all are genuinely disturbing. And the twist actually makes sense! How many times have you been able to say that about a thriller, lately?

Even though I already knew what the conclusion of the movie would be, The Sixth Sense was still very enjoyable. Any other people who haven't seen it because they think that they think that it's been talked about too much to be enjoyed fully....well, you're right. But see it anyway, it is still worth your time!

Still miffed about how unfunny Semi-Pro was? Well, Step Brothers will wash that bad taste right out of your mouth. It's juvenile and ridiculous, but it's thankfully also funny. I'm glad that Will decided to break away from his sports movies phase and do a (slightly) different kind of comedy.

The jokes come at a rapid pace, and there are a lot more hits than misses. John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell still have every bit of the chemistry that they had in Talladega Nights. And since they're essentially playing big kids, they get to be even more silly and outrageous than usual. And that's really saying something.

If you like Ferrell and Reilly's brand of humor, then Step Brothers will be right up your alley. It's unabashedly dumb. The whole premise is so absurd that it can't help but be amusing. It's not quite as funny as Anchorman or Talladega Nights, but it's much funnier than Semi-Pro. If you're not a fan of this kind of comedy, don't waste your time. It won't change your mind. For the rest of us, Step Brothers is beautiful music for a sad world.

Oh, and keep watching during the credits to see some more gems of humor :-)

I was completely fascinated with LARPers after seeing the excellent Darkon, and once I learned that there was another documentary about the subject that had been made, I wasted no time tracking it down so I could watch it. Unfortunately, Monster Camp is inferior to Darkon in every way. Even hardcore fans of documentaries may choose to skip this one.

A documentary is only as good as its subject matter, and Monster Camp simply fails in this regard. I'm not a judgmental person. I liked all the different people that Darkon focused on. There lives were interesting for the most part, and I empathized or identified to a degree with all of them. For the most part they were normal people. Monster Camp, on the other hand...

I hate to say this, but there was very little to like about the participants of Nero Seattle. They weren't endearing or quirky. Mostly, they were just plain weird. The movie makers made no attempt to portray them as three-dimensional individuals. They all came off as losers or super-geeks who had nothing in their lives except their monthly hobby. And I hate to see people depicted in such a negative way.

There's no incentive to get emotionally involved in Monster Camp. Darkon was so well made, that everything that was important to its subjects soon became important to the viewer. All I feel after watching Monster Camp is that most of those people would benefit from focusing more of their attention on the real world.

In a nutshell, I recommend Darkon to everyone and Monster Camp to no one.

I keep thinking that the quality of mainstream horror movies has hit the absolute bottom, but every year even more drivel comes along that makes me feel even worse about the whole genre. Will 2009 follow that trend? The Unborn gives me a bit of hope that maybe this year will be one that's actually enjoyable for the horror movie fan.

It stars Odette Yustman, who I can never see without mentioning that she looks a lot like Jessica Alba. This comparison is fitting, because the tone of The Unborn is similar to that of last year's The Eye. She seems to share Jessica's spotty acting skills as well, because at some points during the movie she was just not convincing. Does that ruin the movie? No. Gorgeous looks truly can make up for a few acting blips.

As for the movie itself, it starts of with a very frightening sequence. It's a little weird that most of the more frightening sequences are near the beginning. The Unborn excels at disturbing images, and I wish that it would have relied more on those types of scares than the silly jump moments and loud noises that are the rule in most modern horror movies.

There is a bit of a mystery for the heroine to unravel in the movie, but this brings about another unfortunate similarity to The Eye. Once she really gets into the particulars of the plot, things start to seem a little silly. That's my main quibble with The Unborn. It tries hard to provide a background and explanation for the events that happen, but it only serves to make it harder to take the movie seriously.

The Unborn is ahead of the curve compared to most of the recent crop of horror movies. Some parts of it manage to be somewhat scary, and that's enough to forgive its faults in my opinion.

The Wrestler has been sitting on my computer for the past week or two, and after all the ruckus I've been hearing about Mickey Rourke's performance and his win at the Golden Globes, I thought I should stop being lazy and watch the film. I have to say, there's something to all the adoration that this movie has received. The Wrestler is solid through and through.

People who have followed Rourke's career see this as his big comeback. I've personally only seen him in Sin City prior to The Wrestler, so I think my experience with the movie was less tinged with nostalgia than that of a die hard Rourke fan. I'm proud to say that enjoyment of this film certainly doesn't depend on being a Rourke devotee.

The Wrestler is filmed in a realistic style that makes it seem almost like a documentary. The realism extends to the wrestling scenes, the dialogue, pretty much everything except the idiots who kept turning down private dances from Marisa Tomei (right, like that would ever happen). In my opinion, the realism is essentially what makes the film work. Rourke's reaction to his circumstances and his interactions with the people in his life are the bread and butter that keeps the film interesting.

Speaking of the people in his life, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood are simply outstanding. They make the acting invisible and really make the documentary vibe even stronger. Nearly every scene they are in sticks out. They managed to be just as three dimensional as Rourke's character with significantly less screen time. Tomei is officially now one of my favorite actresses (and way too gorgeous to be 44 years old), and Wood is now on my list of talented young actresses to watch.

All in all, The Wrestler is a movie that I'm happy to recommend to any and everyone. It has so many memorable scenes: the day that Ram and his daughter spend together, his face as he looks at all the old, washed-up wrestlers at the autograph signing, and let's not forget the entire emotional end sequence. Do yourself a favor and watch The Wrestler, it's a genuine treat.

Bedtime Stories is cute, and it will do a good job of amusing kids. The titular stories are imaginative and droll, but I found myself wishing that more of the movie consisted of these visually appealing sequences. They weren't frequent enough and only lasted for a brief time. The real world sequences just weren't as charming.

As far as the cast goes, I can't really complain about anyone's performance. Adam Sandler was doing his usual thing, minus the profanity. Keri Russell plays the love interest about as straightforwardly as possible. Russell Brand plays the wacky sidekick role and Courtney Cox is pretty much just there, with no real role in the story except for providing a reason for Adam Sandler to keep the kids (who are just as adorable as you would expect from this kind of movie). Teresa Palmer stands out basically because she is so mind-numbingly gorgeous that she immediately draws the eye when on screen. Hopefully she will have a loooooooong American movie career.

There really was no questionable material in the movie, so any kid can watch it without seeing or hearing something that they shouldn't. Adults will probably have a pleasant time watching Bedtime Stories once, but there's really not enough humor here to make anyone besides kids want to watch it twice. But as long as children like it (and they will), I think Bedtime Stories is a pretty successful little movie.

If I ever got together with a group of my friends and made a movie, it would probably turn out to be a lot like Pineapple Express. It's an action/comedy in the vein of Get Smart, but minus the spies and with an R rating and some weed thrown in.

All the different parts of the movie work well. The action scenes are hilarious, the dialogue is hilarious...it's the funniest overall movie that I've seen since Zack and Miri Make a Porno. We're talking about some of the most hysterical fight scenes that I've ever had the pleasure of watching. Rogen and McBride do their usual thing (which I honestly don't think I will ever get tired of), but Franco's jocose character was completely unexpected. I never knew he had it in him!

I'm glad to know that Rogen is a guy that I can always count on for some laughs. Pineapple Express doesn't leave much room for criticism. There's a dangling little plot threat with Amber Heard that I would have liked to see addressed at the end of the movie, but that's only because I thought the other scenes between Seth and Amber were so funny. If that's the most that I can find to complain about, then there's nothing left for me to do except admit that Pineapple Express is simply a great comedy.

I usually pride myself on figuring out the twist or ending of a thriller long before it's formally revealed, but I'm proud to say that Perfect Blue kept me in the dark right up until it was ready to divulge its secrets. Anyone who likes anime and is looking for a good mystery will fall right in love with Perfect Blue.

It's difficult to give much of a sense of what the film is about with spoiling the plot. But essentially, its about a Japanese pop singer named Mima who leaves her musical group and decides to become an actress. She's not entirely happy about the things that she's forced to deal with in her new career, and she starts experiencing odd hallucinations as people around her start to die in brutal ways. This is definitely an intense movie, and some of the scenes are very violent. It's nothing that a fan of action anime hasn't been exposed to before, but it bares mentioning anyway.

I thought the pacing was a little slow at the beginning, but this pays off well once the story gets going, so maybe that's not too big of a deal. The art style leans toward realism in a very pleasing way that aids in telling such a serious story. I'm sure that there are not very many serious anime fans that haven't seen Perfect Blue, and with good reason. It's an excellent thriller that surpasses many of the live-action movies in the genre that I've seen recently.

It's difficult to not compare The Heartbreak Kid to Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and it doesn't do well in that comparison. The latter outperforms the former in nearly every possible way. Ben Stiller isn't at his funniest here, but he does manage to do ok in a few funny moments. Michelle Monaghan was the bright spot for me, she is a great young actress and handles romantic comedies just as well as she does any other genre of movie.

Ultimately, The Heartbreak Kid just isn't as funny as it should have been. There were only a few laugh out loud scenes, and there were long stretches of the movie that were just boring. The story was as predictable as possible, and none of the actors really seemed to be trying that hard. Rob Corddry, Carlos Mencia, Jerry Stiller, Danny McBride...they're all just doing the exact same bits that you've seen them do before. I have to admit that Mencia was kinda funny, though.

And as far as the R rating goes, it doesn't really add much to the comedy. There's some nudity, sex, and cursing, but none of that makes the movie any funnier/better. Sure, I'm not gonna complain about seeing Malin Akerman's goods, but if that's your reason for seeing this movie, you'd do better to track down her scenes from Entourage. You're guaranteed to have a better time watching those.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a movie of beautiful parts that never quite solidify into an equally pleasing whole. It doesn't have a "plot", but instead it focuses on the relationships of a few people over a summer in Spain. The narrative focus switches between three main characters as they all seemingly go through changes, only to end essentially where they began.

Every actor and actress was cast perfectly. Javier Bardem is beyond charming, and really it's more accurate to say that he embodies the role of Juan Antonio instead of acts it out. Penelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, and Scarlett Johansson are all so hypnotically beautiful that it's easy to overlook the fact that each of them gives some of the most outstanding performances of their careers. And I can't talk about beauty without mentioning the picturesque scenery of Spain. I wanted to visit there before, but now I think I'd rather travel there than any other place in the world. The theme song, "Barcelona", was the cherry on top of it all. Each time I heard it during the film, I just had to crack a bit of a smile.

The main theme of Vicky Cristina Barcelona is how different kinds of people look for and respond to different kinds of love and relationships. Each person who watches it will probably relate differently to the actions and thoughts of the main characters, because they all represent the various human perspectives of love. They all seem so refreshingly authentic, in an urbane way. There was very little romantic idealization going on (to my relief).

So why not a five star score after all that gushing? Vicky Cristina reminds me a bit of Closer, even though it's motif lies in the completely opposite direction. Ultimately there's no resolution, no progress in the lives of the characters. It feels like the viewer simply lived among the characters and viewed their lives for a few months, and then left again. Of course, every movie doesn't have to have a tidy ending to be good, but in this case it's a double-edge sword. The ending was so abrupt that I was left wanting to know more. How (if at all) were the characters changed by their summer? Is it unfair for me to wish for a Vicky Cristina Barcelona...2?

The Transporter movies all share the same basic elements. Fantastic action scenes, barely-there stories, and Jason Statham. In the original Transporter, we're introduced to Frank, Statham's character, and the absolute bare minimum of his background. The rest of the movie is car chases, explosions, and fights.

I won't go into the plot, because it's pretty much only here to give Statham a pretext to hand out his ass-kickings. My favorite thing about these movies is that Statham is never really in danger of dying or being beaten. If he's fighting someone, they MAY get in a hit or two before puts them down. Even if it's like, 20 guys with machine guns, and all he has for a weapon is his shirt. The fight scenes are pretty cool, you can always rely on this series to add a few new wrinkles to the standard old sequences.

There's some kind of smuggling going on that Qi Shu's dad is involved in, and Matt Shulze is somehow involved in it too. And François Berléand plays some kind of cop who is also Jason's friend, or something. Qi is the eye candy/damsel in distress/love interest, Francois helps move the plot along, and the rest of the cast are bad guys. That's pretty much it. Seriously.

Don't watch The Transporter if you're looking for a well-written script or some compelling character development. Pop it in when you want to see some bad guys get the crap kicked out of them, pretty explosions, and a pretty girl.

Y.P.F. is...difficult to review. The tag line is, "Sex without complications?....yeah, right." This pretty much describes the movie as well as it can be described. Five different pairings at different stages of the relationship spectrum all go to bed, and we see what the results are of their hanky-panky.

There are some really diverse situations here, from two ex-lovers who want to spend another night together, to a guy who wants his roommate to have sex with his girlfriend while he watches. Complicated doesn't begin to describe some of the things that unfold. Some of it is funny, some of it is painful, and some of it is very uncomfortable.

My constant thought throughout the film was that the basic concept was cool, but it would all work so much better as a genuine documentary. And no, that's not an excuse to see people actually having sex. Real life always trumps fiction, and Y.P.F. is a perfect example of that. Its scripted scenes and dialogue only offer an imitation of what these situations would REALLY be like.

This review is so, so easy to write. If you like comedies, go see Tropic Thunder. It has an all-star cast, it's completely hilarious, and it's even fairly original. There are so many great things about this movie, that it would take way too long to list them all. I saw Pineapple Express lately, and I thought that was good. But Tropic Thunder is even better!

Ben Stiller completely redeemed himself in my eyes by writing, directing, producing, AND starring in this masterpiece. After The Heartbreak Kid, I thought he might have been slipping a bit. I was very, very wrong.

I have to mention how excellent the cast is one more time. It's pretty cool to see some of the unexpected actors who show up here, but they all really do make the movie even better. It works as a comedy just as well as it works as a spoof of actors who submerge themselves to the point of foolishness in their roles in pursuit of accolades and awards. Hell, it works as a parody of movie-making in general. If you can't tell, I love Tropic Thunder. This is comedy, my friends.

Making a movie based on a video game is always a risky proposition, and Max Payne is yet another example of how NOT to do it. Personally, I thought that too much time had passed since the Max Payne games were popular. Why even make this now? The property isn't nearly classic enough to still be recognized by the current crop of gamers who probably don't even remember it. Yes, this has nothing to do with why the movie itself was so bad, but it puzzled me all the same.

Anyway, back to the movie. I almost feel sorry for Mark Wahlberg, because for a talented actor, he sure chose to be in some terrible movies in 2008. The Happening was mediocre in every way, but Max Payne is past awful. Did he not read this script before signing on?

Story exposition comes from random characters with one minute of screen time, people show up in places they have no reason to be just in time for important plot points, and I'm still not sure who some of the characters were even supposed to be. Add that to an appalling directing job and some of the weirdest facial expressions that I've ever seen (especially Mark, he looks constipated 75% of the time).

Even the action scenes don't satisfy. A piece of debris falls directly onto a lone police car, just so it can explode? And we're supposed to be entertained by that? I don't think so. And Olga Kurylenko and Mila Kunis are WASTED. How is that even possible? Olga is on-screen for maybe 5 minutes, and they managed to make Mila, somehow, look unattractive. They can't make an exciting movie out of a game based entirely on shooting, but they managed to make a gorgeous woman look like crap? My head is still trying to wrap around that. My point is, there's not any redeeming qualities in this disaster.

I pity anyone who buys this turd tomorrow, hoping for a good action movie. I hope Mark got a ginormous paycheck for this, because it knocked my opinion of him as an actor down a few notches. Max Payne fails at being a video game adaptation, fails at being an action movie, and fails at being entertaining. Skip it.

Burn After Reading is one of those cool movies that dabbles a bit in more than one genre. It somehow manages to be a comedy, a spy-thriller, and a relationship study. How many movies can claim all that?

A quick glance at the cast is all it takes to see that this picture is pretty star-studded. The Coen brothers must have used their Hollywood pull to get all this talent together, but thankfully the casting never trumped the roles. Everyone fits their characters so well, and there's quite a few unexpected performances to be seen. George Clooney was especially memorable, I don't think that I've ever enjoyed one of his performances this much.

Burn After Reading isn't a rapid-fire comedy, but instead its humor is the kind that keeps a smile on your face basically the entire time, and then widens it with a chuckle or two every few minutes. I hesitate to say that it's for everyone, but I recommend that everyone give it a shot to see if it's there cup of tea. It certainly was mine.

I'm pleased whenever a video game developer decides to make their own game from CGI, instead of turning over the property to an outside studio that may or may not know how to make a decent movie from the property. Resident Evil: Degeneration doesn't manage to be as good as SquareEnix's Advent Children, but it does serve as an equally good alternative to the live action Resident Evil movies.

The CGI is very sharp, but the character models still have that unnatural jerkiness that keeps the realism from being too immersive. I've almost given up on seeing that problem solved in my lifetime. That doesn't stop some scenes from looking almost photo-realistic, and the faces of the people are very expressive. It all looks like a high-quality, video game cut scene. And I mean that in a good way.

It was refreshing to see that the story in this movie actually ties into the canon Resident Evil plot, and completely ignores whatever the hell the story of the live action movies is supposed to be. It would have made a good plot for an actual game. The movie is divided up into two distinct halves, and I definitely prefer the first half over the second. The movie starts to drag on in its later half, and a lot of the finale is just one long chase scene. Yes, that is straight out of the games, but it could have been implemented in a more exciting way.

Capcom shows some potential for good movie-making here, but they don't quite have their craft perfected yet. The voice acting was good for the most part, but sometimes the audio was not synced very well to the mouth movements. There are some pacing problems, and the plot and script could have both used a little bit of a rewrite. This is a good first effort, but in the end it amounts to little more than an extension of the story and a way to help drum up excitement for the upcoming RE5.

It was nice to see Claire and Leon back in action together, and I thought that the new characters that were introduced were interesting as well. Hopefully, Capcom can use what they learned here and make another Resident Evil CGI movie that is a little closer to the outstanding quality of the game series.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley is not very scary or innovative, but it does manage to be interesting enough to watch at least once. It has its share of cheesy jump moments and loud noises that are meant to startle the viewer, but it doesn't follow the PG-13 horror mold as closely as you might think.

The title is a bit misleading, because this isn't really a ghost story. No one gets haunted by any kind of spectre, it's more similar to a movie about possession. Well, more like pre-possession. After you've seen this, that phrase will make more sense. The Haunting of Molly Hartley seems more like a orgin story for another movie, so don't expect a firm resolution or a nice and tidy ending for this. That was ok for me, because the typical horror movie ending has been done quite enough, in my opinion.

Anyway, a lot of the expected genre cliches are here, but quite a few are not. Rent or download Molly Hartley for something a little different, but don't expect anything more than a mild diversion.

And the award for the coolest movie of 2008 goes to...RocknRolla! If this is what Guy Ritchie is capable of, I need to add him to my list of favorite directors immediately. Everything about RocknRolla is so immaculately stylish, only a director with an excellent eye could have pulled off this so well. There have been several movies that have attempted to carry such a captivating style (Domino, Smokin Aces), but I honestly can say that I have never seen it done this well. It's rare for me to see a movie with so many cool and memorable scenes. I don't even think that I could choose a favorite.

The dialogue is snappy, the camera work is captivating?it all adds to the film in subtle and not so subtle ways. The occasional violent scene is never over-the-top, gratuitous or extraneous to the plot. I really don't want to describe said plot in my review, because it unfolds in a very interesting way that only serves to make the movie even better. There really aren't any negative qualities worth noting.

All the actors and actresses are just outstanding. I?m not even going to mention any single one in particular, because then I would have to say something about all of them. Fifty percent of the film's coolness comes from its actors and dialogue, and the other fifty percent comes from its brilliant music and camera work. Add that all together and you get a fantastic British crime caper that's funny, clever, and definitely worth owning. Style can get you a very long way.

Passengers is a mix of the thriller and suspense genres, with a little romance and mystery added in for good measure. If that all sounds like a lot to fit into 93 minutes...well it is.

Anne Hathaway stars as Claire, a psychiatrist who is assigned to assist a few survivors of a horrible plane crash. As she gets to know the survivors, she becomes more deeply invovled in a seeming conflict between the survivors and the airline that apears to be trying to hide something. She grows especially close to Eric, a man that Claire is strangely attracted to, despite his rather odd behavior.

The story is pretty interesting, and leads you down a few different paths before you get to the ending. It's all pretty well done, and as long as you don't dwell on a few plot holes, you may be pleasantly surprised with how it all ends.

The main problem with this is that the movie length is simply too short to make the transitions in the style of the movie seem fluid. The ending comes completely out of the blue, unless you have been paying incredibly close attention. I think the creators of Passengers had a good idea, but I would have liked to see it executed a bit better. Passengers is original and unpredictable, but that's not enough to lift it from good to great.

I'm not very good at reviewing movies like these, because they defy description by the usual methods. There isn't a definite plot, but there really is one. It's a comedy and a drama and an unnamed genre of film that has elements of both and none of those. It seems almost pointless at first, but it ends up being meaningful and captivating. Half the time I was bored and wanted to and watch something else, and the other half of the time I couldn't have been torn away. That's probably one of the biggest changes in opinion that I've ever had during the course of one film.

I loved the latter half, but I thought the first half of the film was dangerously close to boring. In the beginning, Poppy seems to be happy and optimistic to the point of annoyance, like an overly frisky puppy that won't leave you alone when you've had a hard day at work. Oh, but give Mike Leigh and Sally Hawkins a little more time to work their magic.

As the movie goes on, she stops being a caricature and becomes a living, breathing, wonderful person. The kind of person that adds so much more to the world than she takes away. Poppy made me examine myself, to see how optimistic and good-natured I really am. Nothing keeps her down for long, and even when her good intentions don't quite go the way she plans, she manages to make good decisions and do what's best for others. Poppy will go down in history as one of the most likeable characters ever written.

Sally Hawkins handles the role brilliantly. Similar to Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, there just is never a sense that she's acting. It all seems so natural. She's so authentically dorky and kind and silly that I almost wish that I knew a person exactly like her. It took me a while to warm up to Happy-Go-Lucky's particular charms, but I'm so happy that I gave myself the opportunity to. This movie is most certainly not for everyone, but I know that there's a good chance that anyone with an open mind will love it.

I'm a huge fan of martial arts flicks. Anything from Hero to Shaolin Soccer to 3 Ninjas to Ninja Scroll - they are all right up my alley. Add my love of these kinds of movies to the fact that The Forbidden Kingdom has both Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and it should be one of my favorite chop-socky films of all-time, right? Not so fast.

While watching The Forbidden Kingdom, I just could not shake the idea that the makers of the movie were convinced that the fans of Jackie Chan and Jet Li were going to automatically flock to their film, so a lot of effort in order to make the movie actually good just wasn't necessary. Even though it is rated PG-13, it seems like it was made with a younger audience in mind. There is none of the cinematic complexity of Hero, none of the breathtaking fight sequences of Crouching Tiger, and none of the brutal violence of Ong-Bak. It all is just so safe and standard. I do not really even get where the PG-13 rating comes from, it could have been rated G, without the alcohol references and gun scene.

I was disappointed with nearly every element of this movie, and a few very pretty female actresses are not even enough to make me give it a higher score. It is cool to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li fight with and beside each other, but that should have only been the starting point to a much more complete project. There have been some simply epic martial arts movies in the last 10 years, and they leave no reason to recommend a by-the-numbers, fantasy-tinged flick like The Forbidden Kingdom.

Taken is a furious, intelligent action film that offers everything you're looking for from these kinds of movies without any filler. There are no extravagant explosions, no "one man versus an army" shootouts, and no plot holes. It all makes sense, and it is all satisfying.

Liam Neeson kicks copious amounts of ass as an ex-goverment operative who left the service in order to have a closer relationship with his daughter. His past job seems to have made him over-protective and paranoid, but his caution is justified when his daughter is abducted during a trip to Paris. You can imagine that he is not too pleased about that, and he immediately puts his skills to use to get his daughter back.

Taken is filmed in a coldly efficient and realistic style that fits its sensibilities like a glove. The movie length is perfect, the action scenes are brutal ...how much more do you need to read? Go see Taken in your local theatre, and then queue up behind me to buy it when it becomes available on DVD. You will be doing yourself a favor.

Eagle Eye is a techno-thriller that is only half successful. The technology is present, but the thrills are undeniably absent. No amount of fancy-looking computers, chase scenes, and creepy voices from cell phones can make up for a soulless story.

I was really excited about Eagle Eye when I saw the trailer for it last year, but for some reason I never went to the theatre to see it. I love Michelle Monaghan, and Shia LaBeouf seemed like he would be well-suited for this kind of movie. Well, now that I have seen it, I feel fortunate that I watched it in my own home for free instead of paying good money to be disappointed. How can a movie with this much action be, well, boring?

The biggest problem with Eagle Eye is that the viewer is never given a reason to be invested in the story. You see Shia go to his brother's funeral at the very beginning of the movie, and then there is maybe two minutes dedicated to Michelle and her son. And then after that, we are supposed to be willing to accept that they would go through all of this for those reasons. It doesn't work. I was never convinced that I should care about what was happening. All the action in the world will not help a movie if it can not make that basic connection between the characters and the audience.

As for the plot, it was so unoriginal and implausible that it warrants little mention. It certainly did not make the movie any more interesting. This kind of thing has been seen much too often, and I am a little surprised that the filmmakers would think that it would be sufficient. I will admit that a few of the set-pieces were cool, but there was nothing amazing or new.

This could have been a made-for-TV movie with a much smaller budget and cheaper actors, and it would have been just as effective. It is not that Eagle Eye is bad, per se, it just doesn't offer anything to justify being made. Or bought.

Like much of Quarantine's American audience, I haven't seen REC, and therefore can't compare the two. Alll I can do is evaluate Quarantine based on it's own merits.

Quarantine succeeds where many of its contemporaries fail for two simple reasons. It's frightening and it sustains a palapable sense of dread for the entire film. Watch it alone at night for the full effect. You WILL be frightened. Quarantine keeps you waiting and waiting and waiting for the fright that you know is coming, and every second that goes by without it happening only increases its effectiveness when it does.

I'd say that Quarantine is best described as a mix of Cloverfield and a zombie movie. The setup is that a news reporter and a camera man accompany a squad of fire fighters on an emergency call and get trapped in a building that's eventually placed under quarantine. The film style adds a bit of realism to the carnage and helps to immerse the viewer in the events. It's safe to say that I'm a fan of this idea when it's used effectively.

The film isn't perfect, of course, but the fact that it actually accomplishes the number one goal of a horror movie, makes the flaws negligible. I thought that Jennifer Carpenter could be annoying in Dexter, but she absolutely outdoes herself, here. I wanted her character dead about 3 minutes after her non-stop screaming, whining, and wailing started. Bleh. There are a few very dumb decisions made by some of the characters, but people make dumb decisions in real life every day, even when their lives aren't in danger. So, I suppose I shouldn't gripe about that. Horror fans, zombie fans, anyone looking for an intense scare or three, check out Quarantine.

Very cute kids, very cute dogs, it's all pretty standard. There was a brief Entourage cameo, which is always a good thing.

Despite the presence of Juliette Lewis, Dennis Quaid, and Sharon Stone, Cold Creek Manor just comes off as a made-for-tv movie. A boring made-for-tv movie. It's predictable and unforgivably dull.

The plot is as cliche as it is thin. A husband and wife move from the city to a large house in some unspecified rural area, because they think it will be good for their relationship and their two children. The house they move into has an unknown, sinister history that puts the entire family in danger. Blah, blah, blah. It's marketed as sort of a mystery/thriller, but there is precious little mystery or thrills to be had here.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time with this review, because I already wasted more than enough watching the movie. There was no reason for it to be made, let alone watched.

Sex Drive is one of the funnier teen sex-comedies that I've seen. The jokes are fresh, and don't rely entirely on gross-out humor. I thought all the actors and actresses did a great job, with Clark Duke being especially funny.

The title is pretty much the plot. An awkward virgin goes on a road-trip with his womanizer best friend and his best female friend (who he has a crush on), in order to meet and have sex with a girl he's been chatting with on the internet. Lessons are learned, hearts are changed, hilarity ensues...it's all be seen before, but it's still hilarious.

Sex Drive is not as profane as Superbad, but it's almost as enjoyable to watch. If you were a fan of that movie, you should definitely check this one out. You're guaranteed to laugh. A lot.

The Uninvited is the epitome of today's, PG-13 date/horror movie. It's uncomplicated, packed with jump moments, and it has the obligatory twist at the end. If you haven't gotten thoroughly tired of this kind of thing by now, then The Uninvited might be worth the price of two movie tickets.

The film mainly focuses on its trio of gorgeous female stars (Emily Browning, Elizabeth Banks and Arielle Kebbel). None of them are required to do any acting heavy lifting, but they all serve their parts well enough. The only quibble I had was with Banks, but she probably only seemed miscast because of the last few roles that I've seen and enjoyed her in.

Anyway, as this is a modern, mainstream horror film, it's not very scary. The twist ending may or may not come as a surprise, but it doesn't really add much to the film. Check this out if you're a fan of any of the actresses or if you're bored. But don't expect to be frightened or particularly satisfied by The Uninvited.

If you plan on reading Q and A, please do so after you see Slumdog Millionaire. It will keep you from feeling a tiny bit of disappointment in the movie adaptation.

A whiff of sappiness, of a love story forced in where it wasn't needed, merely to appeal to the lowest common denominator, actually has the opposite affect. A heartbreaking, sublime story is only turned into a bit of a cliché by the overwhelming emphasis on the lost (and found...repeatedly) love story between Jamal and Latika. While the heart of the movie should by rights be the divergent paths that the lives of Jamal and Salim take after the death of their mother, instead we're hand fed essentially the same tale that movies like Forrest Gump did so much better.

I hate to sound so negative. Slumdog Millionaire is a great movie that simply focuses on the least interesting of its parts. Urban India, the hopes of millions of poor people hanging on the answers of one of their own, the way that lives can be sent off on wildly divergent paths by tragedy, the way our experiences can become all of what we are - all these themes are captivating in the few moments that they're addressed.
Banal, Hollywood-style drama simply doesn't take Slumdog Millionaire as far as a focus on those real world, substantive topics would have. Instead, we get a lite version of what this story could have been. We're left with entertainment instead of art.

Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Horrible. So many flaws, and I have so little desire to think about this movie enough to list them all. Here are my top 4 reasons for why I wanted my money back.

1. The 3-D aspect is completely wasted. There's no creativity at all. Be prepared to have guns pointed at you and to have pieces of eyeballs fly towards the screen. That's about it.

2. Even the jump moments are repetitive. Each and every time, the characters are going to look over in one direction, and then....BAM! There's the killer. Every single time. Count on it.

3. These are the absolute stupidest characters to ever be seen on screen. They would make a drunk 15-year-old seem like a genius in comparison.

4. The "twist" ending. Ugh. Ugh.

Do us all a favor, and don't give these "people" any more money. Who knows what kind of poo they will make next time, if they get the opportunity

Push reminded me of Jumper from the first time I saw its trailer until the very end of the movie. The parallels will jump (hahahaha) out at anyone who has seen both films, so there's no point in me going into details for you. What you though of Jumper will essentially be what you think of Push.

If you're unfamiliar with Jumper, then here's what Push will deliver. Lots of action scenes, cool special effects, and a barely-there, semi-coherent story. If you're willing to suffer through the latter in order to enjoy the pyrotechnics and eye candy, then Push will mildly entertain you, just like it did for me.

Video game movies are still more often disappointments than successes, but at least we've moved on from the era of crud like Street Fighter. Movies like this were made in such a way that they didn't appeal to the fans of the games or the casual movie audience.

My primary complaint is the laughable casting. It's like the makers of the movie knew absolutely nothing about the games except for the sex, names, and races of the various characters. They make a huge effort to work the names of every character into the movie, just so the audience will (presumably) think it's cool to see their favorites on the big screen. But, Van Damme as an American soldier? Kylie Minogue as Cammy?

Oh, and let's briefly mention the story. Balrog is a cameraman and Ryu and Ken (with brown hair!!) are some type of lovable con-men? Shadaloo City? Ugh. Actual street fighting wouldn't give me enough brain damage to want to ever see this again.

Meet the Parents is one of those "must-see" comedies, and most people think of it as one of the funniest movies of recent years. Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller make a surprisingly effective comedy duo, and there are lots of laughs to be enjoyed throughout the movie.

Ben Stiller plays Greg Focker, a nurse who has met his dream woman, and seeks her father's permission before he ask her to marry him. Robert De Niro plays the truth-obsessed, ex-CIA interrogator, potential father-in-law. Expect lots of awkward situations and general good times. This is one of my favorite Ben Stiller movies.

Enchanted begins as a typical, Disney-animated princess story. But after a gorgeously animated intro, it shifts to the real world, and suddenly all the cartoonish cliches and fairy-tale staples are unleashed upon the real world. If that doesn't sound interesting to you, clearly you're childhood was devoid of Disney or you don't have any young relatives in your life.

Enchanted is funny enough for any lover of (clean) comedy, charming, and...pretty much enchanting. All the fairy-tale characters fit their roles perfectly. Amy Adams perfectly captured the voice, mannerisms, and wide-eyed naivety of a real-life Disney princess. The Dashing Prince, Evil Witch, Comic Animal Sidekick, Inept Lackey, they're all present and accounted for. Disney did an excellent job of gently lampooning itself, but in such a way that it comes off as more of a loving tribute than any kind of mockery.

This movie has a lot of positives, and few negatives to speak of. I was slightly disappointed by most of the songs, none of them besides "That's How You Know" were really that memorable. How weird is that for a Disney movie? And occasionally the lovey-dovey factor went a little high for anyone that isn't an eight-year-old girl to be comfortable with. Hmmm, but it is a fairy-tale. so anything else could hardly be expected.

Enchanted is clever, sugary sweet, and amusing. Any past or present Disney fans owe it to themselves to see it. And the rest of you (if there's anyone left) should do yourselves a favor and watch a movie that's guaranteed fun.

Risky Business is one of those classic 80's films that everyone has (or should have) seen. It has several iconic scenes that people know about, even if they haven't watched the movie.

It's cool to see a young Tom Cruise in a different kind of film than what's commonly made today. Risky Business is occasionally funny, consistently risqué, and (unfortunately) intermittently boring. It's entertaining enough for me to recommend to anyone to watch at least once, but don't go out buying it until you've sampled it first.

Meet the Spartans has a few (very few) reasons why it's getting two stars from me, instead of the one star rating that it probably deserves.

1. It was the only movie on television on a day that I was extremely bored and didn't have any of my own personal movies to watch.

2. I didn't pay to see it.

3. There are one or two scenes that are dumb AND funny, amidst all the other scenes that are just dumb.

4. Carmen Electra is still smokin', in a stripper kind of way.

5. It was extremely short.

6. It made me want to watch 300.

7. I'm feeling very generous today.

Exit Speed has no big stars and not much production value, but it offers an agreeable enough entertainment adventure. It definitely has that low-budget, made-for-TV vibe. I actually think that this could have been a solid big screen movie with an upgraded cast and a bigger budget.

The plot basically pits some everyday bus passengers against a biker gang out in the middle of nowhere. Some familiar character types are here, but there's also some left-field personalities (bow and arrow elven princess!) to keep the movie from being too cliché. It does drag on a bit, but it's extremely satisfying to see all the bikers meet their end at the climax. Watch it, if these kinds of movies are your thing.

I thought that The Guitar was a pretty swell movie. I usually hate movies about people who suddenly find out that they're dying, and then finally start to live their lives when their lives are about to be taken from them. But The Guitar handles this kind of a story in an organic, modernistic manner that doesn't rely on sappiness or melodrama to connect the audience to the protagonist.

Saffron Burrows does a marvelous job. Her facial expressions almost tell the story well enough to preclude any dialogue on her part. There are other fine acting jobs here, but they all drift on the periphery of Saffron's excellent performance.

It's nice to find a movie from time to time that I like despite my reservations. I'm not the kind of guy who would typically be interested in this genre of movie, but The Guitar was more than enough to get me to overlook that particular bias.

Donkey Punch is a movie about the dangers of casual intercourse with foreign strangers, drug use, and deviant sex acts. Apparently, the combination of these three things leads to multiple deaths in the name of self-preservation.

There are copious amount of sex and nudity in the first half of the film, and equal amounts of violence and some gore in the second half. Some of the characters are absolutely despicable, but even the protagonists are a bit hard to cheer for. And stupid. Donkey Punch is as distasteful as its namesake, but that's some people's preference. Not mine, however.

Doubt is a compelling, emotionally dense drama. Not a typical, watered-down contemporary film drama, but the kind of drama that usually only comes from a compelling work of literature. It continues the tradition of No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood in the way that it suspends your own sensibilities and thrusts you wholly into the world of the characters.

The film wouldn't be so captivating without it's marvelous cast, but they wouldn't be able to shine so brightly without this outstanding script. The exchanges between characters are eloquent, yet believable. There's almost a music to the dialogue, and the theme of the tune switches from kindness to confrontation to lingering disquiet with every scene. It's no surprise that mixing acting titans with an extraordinary screenplay resulted in Oscar nominations for all the principal actors, as well as one for the script.

Doubt is essentially about the crisis of seeing the world in black and white, good and evil, when there's no way of knowing with certainty that you are right. Even if your actions or intentions are good, the consequences that they bring about will not come with a price. The subject matter is distasteful, but it's never handled in an exploitative or crude manner. Doubt is a marvelous achievement, and is an amazing movie for anyone who is willing to give it a chance.

Adam Sandler has been trying to add a little social relevance to his recent comedies. Fortunately, You Don't Mess with the Zohan actually has some humor to go along with the social commentary. Much more so than I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

The premise is pretty silly, and a lot of jokes that might appeal to a Jewish audience went right over my head. Still there's a lot of Sandler-brand jokes that fans will enjoy. Zohan was a much better movie than I expected, and any opportunity to see Emmanuelle Chriqui is one that should be taken.

I'll go to any lengths to get myself some Zooey D., even into a Jim Carey comedy. I shouldn't sound so harsh, Jim can be quite funny when he doesn't just rely on physical comedy. Yes Man wasn't the funniest movie that I've seen, but it certainly is good enough to watch one or two times.

It follows the template for this kind of movie fairly closely. A person who isn't living life to the fullest has some kind of life changing experience, meets a girl that he wouldn't have met otherwise, and then loses her to some kind of misunderstanding. A lesson is learned, the girl is won back, and everything is all hunky-dory by the end of the film.

Yes Man doesn't do anything new or different, but it was pleasant to watch and it had a good cast. Sometimes, that's all I really ask for.

Why did I think Ghost Town was so entertaining? Was it simply because I'm a fan of Ricky Gervais, or was it because there were several moments where I actually got to genuinely laugh. Ghost Town was funnier than many of the purer comedies that I've seen lately. And all without any puking, farting, or masturbation jokes!

Ghost Town is basically a light romantic comedy, but skewed more toward guys than usual. It's basically the same story that we've seen before, but it's charming and has a bit of a Ghost Whisper-style twist added into the mix. Fans of Ricky Gervais should waste no time in getting their hands on this movie.

The Watchmen film adaptation is both helped and hurt by its cool trailer and its source material. The trailer was amazing enough to encourage those with no previous knowledge of the graphic novel (like me) to check it out before the movie was released. Unfortunately, this only served to raise my expectations a bit higher than they would have been if I would have gone into the experience completely fresh.

Taken for what it is, Watchmen is a laudable effort. While a few key scenes and important plot points ended up on the cutting room floor, that's more of a reflection of how well-written the source material is, rather than gaffs by Zach Snyder.

The narrative and overall flow suffers the most from the necessity of having a reasonable running time. At times the movie just feels like it's a string of cool events that are taken directly from the comic frames, separated by a bastardization of the rest of the story. But then again, once I think of how complex the story is to begin with, it's easier to give credit to it being handled the way that it was.

The acting was ok for the most part, by the end of the movie I had basically accepted everyone in their roles. Dr. Manhattan, Laurie and Dan took some adjusting too, while Rorschach, Adrian Veidt and Edward Blake were more of a natural fit. Some of the dialogue that works so well on the printed page seemed a bit clunky on the screen, but that's to be expected. Watchmen was written as a comic book, not a play.

I think that open-minded newcomers who watch Watchmen stand a pretty decent chance of liking it. It works fairly well as a superhero movie, even without all its depth and complexity. Watchmen veterans, on the other hand, will just have to come to terms with the fact that while the movie wasn't perfect, it will be very difficult to make a better version of Watchmen. Perhaps we should enjoy what we have, changes and all, and just be grateful that this movie was even made. Don't expect perfection from the Watchmen film adaptation, that's what the graphic novel is for.

Coraline is a modern day, adult fairy tale. Neil Gaiman is known for his imaginative, genre-bending tales, and Coraline is no exception. It shifts in tone from whimsical to frightening to somber, but it's all presented in a truly engaging manner.

Even if the story wasn't as good as it is, Coraline would be worth seeing for its strikingly beautiful art style and fluid animation. It's different from that used in The Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride, but it does remind one of them.

Kids may like this film for its pretty images, but it lacks the snappy humor and wackiness that many modern fairy tales have. It takes a older child or an adult to appreciate the subtleties, melancholic sensibilites, and depths of Coraline.

First of all, what's with the sudden pop culture saturation of LARP-ing in the past few years? It went from a fringe, nerds-only oddity, to the subject of a few documentaries, to a large portion of a mainstream comedy. Craziness!

As for a review of the actual movie, Role Models is a comedy that's a bit more palatable to female tastes than the average film of this kind. It has a positive core at the center of its amusing and slightly raunchy exterior. Paul Rudd is as funny as always, Sean William Scott does his usual thing, and Elizabeth Banks lends her beauty and potent appeal, but it's Jane Lynch who steals the spotlight in her short, but numerous scenes. It's nice to see that Arrested Development alums are still the funniest in the biz.

Role Models isn't nearly as touching or heartfelt as many critics would have you believe, and I do feel like it could have been much funnier. But overall, it left me with a good impression after I finished watching it, and that makes it a success in my book.

I've actually seen Twilight about four times now. My girlfriend is basically obsessed with the series, so I expect that I'll have to see it several more times now that she has to see the DVDs.

It's not really my cup of tea, it's basically just a teen/vampire romance. I think Bella makes some very dumb decisions, and she falls in love incredibly easily. Fans of the series love it though, so I'm not saying that it's a bad movie. It's just not for me.

This movie was amazing. Jason Segel is officially one of the new, go-to guys for laughs. And Paul Rudd continues to be one of the funniest men in comedy. Rashida Jones is perfectly cast in a role that is actually likeable, when it had the potential to be the exact opposite.

I'm sure that the main story of this can be guessed from the trailers. I don't want to post any extra spoilers or give any of the funny parts, but trust me there are many. I Love You, Man is one of the most enjoyable movies that I've seen this year. It WILL be bought as SOON as I get the opportunity. HILARIOUS!

The first thing that struck me about O Brother, Where Art Thou? was the locations. The Coen brothers did a stellar job of portraying the Mississippi of this time period as I have always imagined it would look. It makes me want to seek out these parts of my state myself, just to see what true rural Mississippi once looked like.

The second thing that caught my attention about this movie is how over-the-top it is. That will automatically make it unpleasant for some, but it became endearing for me after only a short time. Yes, George Clooney's accent doesn't work nearly as well as John Turturro's or Tim Blake Nelson's, but after a while it all seems to fit and just seems right.

The third element that stands out about O Brother is the songs. Awesome. Every scene is highlighted by some of the most kick-ass, old-timey tunes known to man. Anyone who doesn't want the soundtrack after seeing the movie is just being contrary.

The fact that this is loosely based on The Odyssey is only occasionally apparent, but the story that is here is more than enough to entertain. Every new character is captivating, no matter how long or brief their screen time.

The movies starts off brilliantly, sags a bit toward the middle, and then finishes fairly strong. It's not quite consistent enough to be a classic, but I definitely would like to see it again. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is just a lot of fun to watch.

I tend to be annoyed when film-makers feel the need to explain every detail of a movie to the audience. I'm not a moron, and I don't need my hand held to understand a story. But at the same time, movies need to have some semblance of a complete story in order to be satisfactory.

The Broken is like a novel with many of the important plot points left out. Motivations are unexplained, and some scenes make little sense in the context of the overall story. I appreciated the slower pace and lack of annoying jump moments, but this story just didn't seem original enough to make up for its faults.

The Broken is the most psychological of psychological horror movies. The thrills are few and far between, but at least it gives an opportunity or two for reflection or discussion after viewing. Just remember, this movie isn't for everyone.

The first half of Wall-E is beyond amazing. Every second is filled with something touching or funny, all with nearly no words, no catch-phrases, and very few of the expected conventions of a contemporary animated movie. It almost seems more like an artsy short film than a big budget, studio creation.

Even when it comes down a bit from the stratosphere in its second half, Wall-E is still a fine Pixar film. It becomes a little more conventional and predictable as the film goes on, but with quality like this, that can hardly be seen as a negative. The visuals and sound are just stunning, making this just as much of a technical achievement as it is an achievement in storytelling. This is the best Pixar movie since Monsters, inc,, and it makes me look forward to Up even more.

The Last Legion just didn't click with me. It lacked the crucial sense of "epic-ness" that movies of this ilk need. The cast was unexciting, the story flew by without making an impression, it was just not fun to watch.

The whole King Arthur connection seemed to be just tacked on in order to bring in more viewers. There was just enough history in the story to let the viewer know how horribly inaccurate it all was. Couldn't they at least have gotten a decent number of extras for the boring battle scenes?

Nick & Norah is a nice little date movie for indie kids. At times I think that it tried to hard for the "cool" vibe, but at Nick and Norah's age, didn't we all do the same?

Being from a small town and living in a small-ish college city, it's cool to see the nightlife and culture of NYC. It would be pretty awesome to be able to spend a night going from show to show with a sea of faceless people with similar musical tastes. I think I enjoyed that aspect of the movie more than the rather typical love story that was the the primary focus.

Michael Cera and Kat Dennings do their thing in their patented, adorable ways. Nick and Norah won't blow you away, but it's guaranteed to appeal to a certain kind of viewer.

I know that Dragon Wars was made with a fairly big budget, but it has "Sci-Fi Channel movie" written all over it. There's nothing polished or redeeming about this waste of time.

Most of the actors are unknowns, the plot is something that an 9 year-old would dream up, and the special effects are really not that impressive. The last battle sequence between the two serpents is fairly cool, but the rest of the movie is simply dross. A Sci-Fi channel original may have actually been marginally better.

Watching the Detectives is a quirky movie for movie fans. It's not incredibly original, but it does put a nerdy spin on a well-worn concept.

I mainly wanted to see this because Lucy Liu is in it, and she was by far the most interesting part. Cillian Murphy was ok, but he just seems more suited for more antagonistic roles.

This is basically just a boy-meets-crazy-unique-girl with a film buff twist. Watching the Detectives has a few very funny parts, and it ends before its gimmick gets stale. Lucy Liu fans should give it a try.

Ummm, what the hell was that? The Spirit was the weirdest movie that I've seen in quite a while, and I don't know if that's a good thing. There's a fine line between campy fun and absurdity, and The Spirit zooms right through them both and directly into retardation at about 100 miles per hour.

Its problems begin and end with the dialogue. It's so horribly bad that it can't help but be amusing. On the plus side, the actors and actresses seem to enjoy hamming it up with the terrible lines. Terrible, awful, abysmal, horrendous...do I need to go on?

I wish I knew what Frank Miller's original intentions were with The Spirit. Did this really turn out the way he was hoping? I don't know anything about the original comics, but I find it hard to believe that this movie shares much in common with its inspiration.

On the plus side (and I use that phrase very loosely), some of the imagery is cool, the actresses are extraordinarily sexy, and I was never bored while watching The Spirit. I just wish that it wasn't only interesting for mostly the wrong reasons.

I really think that I missed out on not seeing this as a kid. As much as I liked watching it for the first time now, I think I would have loved it even more if I would have first seen it when I was younger and could look back on it through nostalgic eyes. Labyrinth seems practically made just for that purpose.

I'm a huge fan of Jennifer Connelly and anything that even vaguely reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, so Labyrinth was clearly going to be enjoyable for me. And let's not forget all the costumes and puppets. They were so imaginative and well-done that they made every scene charming. Sir Didymus stole the whole show. He deserved his own Saturday morning cartoon!

My main qualm with Labyrinth was the occasional song-and-dance numbers. I'm pretty sure that I'm in the minority about this, but they were just too weird and "80's" for me to enjoy...except for the whole little sequence with The Fire Gang. That part was just so surreal and creepy (and catchy!) that it earned the movie an extra half-star.

So yeah, I thought that Labyrinth was awesome. I plan on watching every movie that Jennifer Connelly has been in, but I can't imagine how many could be better than this wonderful gem.

Edward Scissorhands is a really odd fairy tale for adults. It took me a while to warm up to the movie; at first i didn't think that I would like it very much at all. But after I got used to its particular brand of charm, it was enjoyable.

I don't worship at the altar of Depp (like many people do), but this movie along with many others proves that the man is definitely a good actor. The very fact that he could make such a freakish looking character into a sympathetic hero certainly attests to that. Edward Scissorhands is a slice of likeable weirdness that anyone should like, even if not everyone will love it.

I've seen two Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movies this weekend, and it's very easy for me to choose my favorite between them. Edward Scissorhands was a quirky diversion, but Sweeney Todd is simply good. It joins Corpse Bride as my favorite Burton and Depp movies.

There's a dark thread that runs through this film, and it's only gets darker. The occasional humorous song only briefly breaks up the morose bleakness, and I absolutely love it. A few of the tunes seemed a bit hokey, but I can't find any other complaints than that. Only the most extreme opponents of any kind of musical should avoid Sweeney Todd.

This movie is pretty awesome. It seems like an idea that would spring from the mind of a stoner (oooooh, what if men were like apes and the apes were in charge!), but it works marvelously well.

Planet of the Apes made me think a lot while I was watching it about things like holding on to established dogma in the face of contrary scientific evidence and how animals should ethically be treated. And when I was tired of thinking about stuff like that, I was treated to Charlton Heston being awesome and fighting off the simians.

Mostly though, I enjoyed being reminded of how much I hate monkeys, apes, and any of their ilk. That's worth four stars, at least.

Most indie movies that I have seen are either remarkably good or boring beyond belief. The Go-Getter lies between these two extremes, and thankfully it's closer to good than boring.

I'll freely admit that I wanted to see this because Zooey D. is in it, and most of the time I was watching it impatient for when she would finally show up in person. The Go-Getter is sorta like a one-man road trip mixed with a coming of age movie. The story is a little sad, and it doesn't take long to really empathize with and root for the main character, Mercer.

If the movie would have had more Zooey D. and it didn't lose a bit of its narrative focus at the end, it would have earned a stronger rating from me. But The Go-Getter is definitely worth seeing if you're a fan of this type of film festival product. It's not among the best of them, but it's nowhere near the worst.

I started watching Observe and Report with the highest expectations. Seth Rogen and Anna Faris together in a comedy should be gold, regardless of the premise. And the icing on the cake for me was the full-length trailer, with its offbeat vibe and funny moments. I never thought that I would be slightly disappointed by it all, but that's exactly what happened.

The whole thing was just so unpleasant. I don't need my movies to be all sunny and happy, but good God, no one in this was even partially likeable except for Collette Wolfe's character. This takes the dark comedy genre into a whole new place. It has mental illness, drug-fueled sex with the nearly unconscious, and other distasteful scenes.

My biggest complaint was that O&R simply wasn't as funny as it should have been. I chuckled occasionally, but this should have been a laugh riot. I kept waiting and waiting for the truly hilarious moment to come that would make me love this movie, but the closest it ever came was the scene near the end where Seth was beating the hell out of the cops with his flashlight. The funniest moments all go to supporting characters like Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride.

The movie does finally get good in its last 20 minutes, but by that time I had pretty much given up on it. The scene with his mom is touching in a trailer-park kind of way, and it was nice to see Seth's character find some redemption with Nell and the final "chase scene".

I don't know if this movie was truly mediocre, or if my expectations were so high that they couldn't help but be disappointed. Either way, I wanted to like Observe and Report much more than I actually did. Oh, and Anna Faris is so mind-numbingly hot. Except when her character is drunk and throwing up. Or when she has a cold sore :-(

Kung Fu Panda was cool, but it definitely doesn't live up to its stellar cast. The movie breezes along at a brisk clip, perhaps too brief. It's hard to believe that Po could have transformed from his buffonish beginnings to a mighty warrior in the time that it takes for Tai Lung to get from his Mongolian prison to the valley.

The animation was breathtaking and the fight and action scenes were a true joy to watch. Those positives make the dull and cliche plot stand out all the more. And where were all the laughs? If this was intended to be a more serious movie, I would have been all for it. But, apparently it was supposed to be funny, and I really never had any occasion to laugh. Kung Fu Panda is half-brilliant, half boring. Most of my praise sadly has to go to the technical elements like the visuals and the voice work.

I think that Thinner really does work better as a story than as a film. Your imagination makes the Gypsy curse even more horrible when you read than how the film presents it. Stephen King's stories are usually hit or miss when it comes to a film or TV adaptation, but Thinner lies somewhere in the middle. It kept my attention, but it definitely wasn't as good as The Mist or The Shining.

I would compare it in quality to Secret Window. Secret Window was pretty good up until the end, while Thinner starts off slow and builds to a reasonably satisfying conclusion. I don't know if I would watch it again, but I can definitely see that it has some merit.

I had massive expectations for Fanboys. The idea itself is genius, and with the right execution this could have been a classic. Unfortunately, it just doesn't do enough to take advantage of its admittedly cool premise.

Fanboys could have been a treasure trove of Star Wars references and good-natured pokes at the rabid fans who take these sorts of things a tad too seriously. But these scenes often take a back seat to the throwaway cancer story and the boring moments that pop up with surprising frequency. Seth Rogen, Kristen Bell, Danny McBride and William Shatner keep the movie watchable, but Fanboys left mountains of potential untapped. Expect some occasional chuckles and inspired moments, but much more cliche road trip silliness.

I definitely need to watch this again. You never really know what to expect from a Coen brothers movie. Now that I have seen The Big Lebowski, I have an idea of where a lot of the offbeat, violent humor of Burn After Reading came from. These two movies are both pleasing in a weird way that I can't quite put my finger on.

The acting is perfect, that much is not up for debate. I was strangely tied to the plot even when I was wondering what the hell this was all about. You never know what's going to happen next in this, that's for sure. John Goodman was hilariously good, but I wish there were more scenes with Julianna Moore. I liked The Big Lebowski more and more as it went on, and I have a feeling that watching it another time or two will make me even more of a fan. Odd, but good.

Wow, this movie is a wild ride. It starts off very similar to Stuck (which I liked a good bit), but then transforms into a very weird horror movie. I can't say that I loved it, or that I even enjoyed it. But it did keep me extremely interested in how it all would end up.

There are no sympathetic or likeable characters in Hit and Run. Laura Breckenridge plays a drunk-driving, panicky, selfish bimbo. The man she runs over....well let's say that any sympathy the viewer feels for him will disappear very swiftly.

I like how the horror aspects of this are sort of hidden until the second act. Maybe the fear is all in Mary's head...or maybe her victim has come back as one of the vengeful undead. It's left pretty vague in order to build the suspense and that's definitely a plus for any horror movie. Once the action hits, it hits hard. It's all absurd and implausible, but effective still.

21 was fun ,but so formulaic that I find it difficult to recommend seeing it in any other way than on cable. It offers a villian to root against, a likeable protagonist who falls into a bad situation and needs redemption, and a love interest to be won. Add all that to the blackjack element, throw in a pretty obvious twist or two, and you basically know what this entire movie is about. Unfortunately, there isn't much more to it than that.

From Within was actually pretty freaky. It was like a combination of The Grudge, the (few) good parts of The Happening, and maybe a bit of The Abandoned as well. The frightening atmosphere and sense of dread were the main things that I liked.

There was a good amount of gore and violece, and the jump moments never became annoying like they do in many horror movies. I just wish there had been at least a few halfway normal Christians to balance out all the insanely evil and violent ones that were portrayed here. From Within stands alongside The Gravedancers as my favorites of the After Dark series.

Wow, I haven't seen very many subdued, slow-paced dramas like this. There's no stereotypical happy ending, no absurd plot-devices to keep the characters on the paths that they would follow on a more mainstream movie, and the characters actually seem to be three-dimensional instead of dry caricatures.

As realistic and refreshing as the Two Lovers is in some ways, it also manages to be a bit glacial and boring at times. I appreciate the reasons behind this, but that doesn't completely excuse these faults in my eyes. Joaquin Phoenix and his two female co-stars do a wonderful acting jobs, and I was pretty satisfied with how the whole story played out.

This isn't necessarily a feel-good story, but by the end of the movie I felt that things were actually better for Joaquin's character. I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, but anyone with patience and a hunger for a less mainstream take on adult relationships might enjoy this.

This movie was a lot of fun! Ben Stiller clearly does family films well, because Night at the Museum entertained me from beginning to end. I was actually surprised at how funny some parts were (especially the conversations with the dumb-dumb statue) and how the whole thing never got hokey or retarded.

Ricky Gervais was hilarious every time he was on screen, Carla Gugino had the sexy museum curator nailed, Dick Van Dyke was awesome, and for once I even liked Robin Williams. Even the super-cool Paul Rudd was in a few scenes. I'm actually looking forward to the sequel after seeing this.

What a dud. The early montage of Wolvie and Sabretooth and the final fight against "Deadpool" are the only cool scenes in the entire movie. The rest is a cheesy mishmash of melodrama, bad CGI, and misused characters.

I hoped that Wolverine wouldn't be neutered by some implausible, convoluted love story, but it was. This was definitely not the murderous badass that comic book fans love. I thought Hugh Jackman did a good job of portraying Wolverine in other movies, but not here. All the weird posing and odd growling with a noticeable homo-erotic undertone....yeah that doesn't do it for me. Some scenes looked like they were directly inspired by 300.

The other characters seem to be simply thrown together with no care for canon or even common sense. Powers are arbitrarily added, removed or changed, origins are casually done away with, and none of it benefits the movie in any way. And even when powers are used, the low quality of the CG work is so incredibly distracting. Logan's metal claws look absurdly fake, backgrounds don't blend well, and the final power plant sequence looked like something from a 3DO game.

Most of the fight scenes involve nothing but Logan and his enemy charging at one another and throwing each other around for a minute or two. Yawn. Even die-hard fans will struggle to enjoy this. What a missed opportunity.

Drag Me to Hell is not slow-paced by any stretch of the imagination. It's a literal onslaught of shocks and gross-outs. Some parts of the movie work better than others, but it was by far the most memorable of the horror movies that I've seen this year.

I'm sure that die-hard Raimi fans probably have a different opinion about his unique little humorous touches, but as a casual fan I found his little flourishes occasionally distracting. I know that horror movies often benefit from some humor, but some scenes (the anvil in particular) just felt unnecessary.

Drag me to Hell is also loud. I mean LOUD. You will jump. A lot. And not necessarily because you're afraid. You may just be jumping because it sounds like a fully-loaded freight train is about to come crashing from the speakers. Some of the frights are genuine, but your body will slowly become numb to the quick-cut jump scares, and by the end of the movie they really won't affect you much anymore. At least that's the way it was for me.

The story is cool enough, but a few of the plot devices are all too familiar. The certain length of time to break the curse before it's too late for the protagonist, the deaperate séance at the end of the movie, and the last second twist that's pretty much telegraphed to the viewer with more that 30 minutes left to go. Do those things spoil the movie? No. I actually enjoyed DMTH a lot. But these ticky little flaws stand out when the rest of the movie is so enjoyable.

I thought the Alison did really well, and her beastly tormenter was suitably freaky. The old gypsy woman was a scene-stealer. She was equally frightening and disgusting. There's also a memorable goat that I would have loved to see for a longer period of time. Raimi really makes the curse seem horrible, and we can completely understand our heroines desperation to put an end to it.

DMTH pushes the right buttons most of the time, and it's a really good movie to watch with your girlfriend or a few of your buddies. It's not perfect, but don't let the few flaws that I've pointed out stop u from seeing a pretty cool horror flick.

This movie was not at all what I anticipated. The actors who were in it, the movie description, hell even the dvd case art led me to expect something completely different. What I actually ended up seeing was a weird combination that was odd and slightly amusing at the same time.

My main problem was that Downey's narration just seemed so incredibly forced. The dialogue was supposed to be hip and catchy, but it just so unlike anything that actual people would say. It wasn't cool or interesting in a Tarantino kind of way, it was just distracting.

I thought that the plot was needlessly convoluted. I actually thought that the movie was over twice before the actual ending came, and I think my score would have been higher if the movie would have actually ended at one of those earlier points. I get what Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang was trying to do, but I don't think that the movie came anywhere close to being the entertaining film that it could have been.

This will be a very short review that is incredibly easy to write. When a Stranger calls is very boring. There is no tension to be found in the entire film. The set-up is boring. The execution is boring. The killer is boring. Camilla Belle's character is both stupid and boring. This movie didn't need to be made.

Killer Movie is as by-the-numbers as a slasher can be, but I still got a decent amount of enjoyment from watching it. Yes it's painfully obvious who the killer is, but I just couldn't bring myself to hate all the cliches and unimpressive kill scenes. Plus, I thought that the faux documentary format was kinda cool. Basically, I've seen much worse movies.

I enjoy a good campy horror movie, but Black Sheep just didn't do it for me. I think that a person would have to have a very particular sense of humor and a bit of a sheep fetish to like this movie.

There were a few moments that made me laugh (that sheep driving the truck of the cliff was just priceless), but I didn't get any thrills from most of the attempts at humor or the gore. Black Sheep was a good idea, but that's about the best thing that I can say about it.

I've heard so many positive opinions about The Princess Bride that I think I somehow expected it to be more than it actually is. It's a well-done fairy tale, but I hoped that I would find it amazing even without the nostalgic feelings that many people have for this movie from their childhood.

The Reader tried very hard to be epic and meaningful, but it is much more enjoyable if it's viewed as a simple drama with implications that stemmed from World War II. Some of the decisions made by the characters are questionable, but not to the point that it made the story too unrealistic to be enjoyed. All of the actors do fine jobs, and the plot is predictable but still interesting. I've seen this movie twice in a very short period of time, and it was just as watchable the second time around. Is it as memorable as some other movies with a Holocaust theme? No. But, every movie doesn't have to be great. Sometimes simply good is enough..

The Legend of Chun-Li is a perfect example of why video game movies make both video game fans and the general public cringe. I don't think I've ever seen so much foolishness in one movie. Kristin Kreuk is pretty enough (in an extremely waifish way), but she's no Chun-Li. That fits in with the rest of the casting ,though, because none of the other actors in the movie really resemble the characters that they are supposed to be representing. That was supposed to be Gen? REALLY?

The police officers who were investigating Bison were unnecessary additions, but Moon Bloodgood is such a gorgeous woman that I can't complain too much about their presence. Her character and Balrog were the only two people that I liked in the entire movie. I know that these actors could have found projects that were more worthwhile, so why did they even agree to do this?

The plot is unsurprisingly bad. All the scenes of Chun Li wandering around Bangkok (looking very pretty and clean for someone who was supposedly living on the streets) and talking about how she had completely forgotten who she was were just priceless. And I never really understood why she was the only one who could defeat Bison, but whatever. It just seemed like there wasn't anyone involved in the creation of this movie that even had a passing familiarity with how to tell a story. And the fight scenes...how did they manage to be even more boring than the rest of the movie?

This was just a poor effort all-around. It basically just ignored all of the things that make Street Fighter a popular franchise. As short as it was, it still felt much too long.

I liked Sunshine Cleaning. It wasn't momentous or life-changing, but it was a lot of fun to watch and it was (thankfully) not heavy-handed with the more serious parts of the story.

Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, and Alan Arkin each add to the film in a unique and important way. It's been a while since I've seen a movie with a cast this likeable. Some of the scenese centering about the dead mother could have been a little more heartfelt, but overall there is very little here for me to complain about. Sunshine Cleaning is short, sweet and enjoyable. This is good stuff.

I had sky-high hopes for Be Kind Rewind after seeing its trailer. It looked just like the kind of quirky, offbeat kind of movie that can be a lot of fun to watch. Unfortunately, the actual film didn't live up to the previews.

The movie was quirky, but it was so forced that it was difficult to enjoy. The characters weren't particularly memorable or endearing, and some of them were so unbelievable that it just hurt the overall atmosphere. And it's definitely a bit on the slow side. Once Mos Def and Jack Black finally start making the movies, things pick up a little...but that's not enough to redeem this mild disappointment. I don't really care if I ever see this again.

I can't believe that it was only a few weeks ago when I was watching the new Street Fighter movie and thinking that I would never again see another game or anime property ruined so horribly on film. I should have been saving my ire for this piece of fail. Everything about Dragon Ball that anyone has ever loved or enjoyed was hilariously removed for this movie. If it wasn't for the character names and the actual Dragon Balls themselves, would the viewer even know that this was related to the manga/anime in any way?

Everything about this movie is just bad. Why was it made? Anyone over the age of 9 and with any knowledge of Dragon Ball would know to avoid spending a single cent on this horror. It fails as a simple action/martial arts movie as well, so don't expect to like this even if you don't care about Goku. The only way to fix or improve this mistake would be to go back in time and keep it from ever happening.

Confessions of a Shopaholic is decent, but it sticks to the standards of its genre to the point that it hurts the movie, overall. I think Isla Fisher is so charismatic that I would basically watch her in anything, but she doesn't really have anything to do in Confessions except go through the motions with her trademark acting style. I've watched much worse movies with my girlfriend, but I was hoping that Confessions could have been something in the vein of The Devil Wears Prada. Something that I could enjoy, instead of not hate. At least the movie has a great message/lesson for its viewers.

This was a alright movie. Francis McDormand and Amy Adams play two very different characters who are actually similar in certain ways. And this allows them to help each other make very important changes in their lives over the course of a very frentic day. Adams flies around the sceen at a breathless, breakneck place, while McDormand is somber and earnest as she gets swept up into the bright lights and parties of high society. It's brief and fluffy and not a bad way to spend a bit of your time.

Mandy Lane was a very pleasant surprise. The soundtrack was killer, and it really added to the atmosphere and overall coolness of the movie. Some of the camera angles and shooting techniques also made this a good bit more stylish than the average slasher flick.

The cast is pretty typical for this kind of thing, as are their deaths. But there were a couple wrinkled in the plot that, while maybe not completely unexpected, at least kept the movie interesting for me. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is one of the best slasher films that I've seen in a while. It's not perfect (and not a horror movie), but it's worth giving a chance.

You know how these British crime movies are. Layer Cake is less stylized than some of its peers, but its great cast and well-layered plot are more than enough to make it as good as any of the others that I have seen.

Daniel Craig is the star of the show, and his performance here makes me want to watch more of his pre-Bond movies. And I've never seen Sienna Miller this blindingly sexy before. I wanted to see much, much more of her. The plot is suitably twisty and never dull, so fans of these kinds of movies are likely to be as pleased with Layer Cake as I was.

Bender's Game is my favorite of the three Futurama movies that I've seen so far. It still can't match the cleverness and humor of the original four seasons, but at least it has an amusing plot and a quite a few moments that brought a smile to my face. It did end rather abruptly, but this combination of D&D and Tolkien fantasy (among other things) is a much more enjoyable than the first two attempts at rekindling the Futurama magic.

The Legend of the Shadowless Sword isn't as mesmerizing or as ambitious as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Hero, but it doesn't attempt to be. It's a much more workman-like martial arts movie.

The story isn't as interesting and the imagery isn't as eye-catching, but this fairly simple tale offers good, wire-based fight scenes and a couple of likeable protagonists. As long as you keep your expectations at a manageable level, you'll enjoy Shadowless Sword.

I thought that since I had already seen Quarantine, [Rec] wouldn't be very frightening. Wrong. [Rec] scared the crap out of me all over again. There are enough twists and deviations between the two movies to make them both worth watching. And if you can manage to do that alone, at night, then you are a rare breed.

Honestly, the movie is almost TOO frightening. Sometimes the tension and dread gets to such a high level that it's nearly impossible to watch. Hands down, this is my favorite horror movie since The Descent. Oh, and Manuela Velasco is a much hotter and more likeable reporter than her American counterpart. Just in case that kind of thing is of interest to you.

The Hangover is a pretty darn funny movie. Its cast will probably shoot up to the next level of stardom thanks to its success, and I think that they completely deserve it.

You've seen this premise before (group of friends go out for a last hurrah before one of them gets married), but it's rarely been done this well. The scene with the guy in the trunk was one of several stand-out, hilarious moments. The Hangover is definitely a top choice for anyone look for a well-paced movie with lots of laughs.

No one can play a bad-ass, squinting anti-hero like Clint Eastwood. Dirty Harry is full of memorable moments that have influenced so many movies that came after it, and it is a true classic of its genre.

The killer, Scorpio, is such a sick and reprehensible S.O.B., that it makes the viewer want him caught by any means necessary, just like Callahan. Sure, it's a little beyond belief to think that Callahan wouldn't have known that his actions were going to endanger the investigation, but I'd like to think that most people would have done exactly the same things that he did. And when the end finally comes for Scorpio, it is oh so satisfying.

So yeah, this was an awesome movie. I wish I would have seen it a long time ago. It completely deserves its iconic status.

What can I say? This is simply more Tarantino goodness. The story is simple enough and the action isn't overwhelming, so most of my attention was directly on the all-star cast. All that clever dialogue wouldn't be of much use with some capable actors to deliver it.

Everyone was good, but clearly Colonel Hans Landa was the overwhelming star of the movie. The film was at its very best every time he was on the screen. It's not an exaggeration to say that he's this year's Joker. There better be some best supporting actor nominations coming for Christopher Waltz.

The movie never reached the absurd heights of Kill Bill, but it was much more consistently entertaining than Death Proof. There was never a dull sequence, even with the considerable length. I actually wouldn't have minded a few more scenes of the Basterds' exploits. Thank you Tarantino for once again delivering a great movie that I will be watching for years and years to come.

First, Zooey Deschanel has an outstanding pair of legs. Out-standing. Second, whenever Paul Dano is in a movie, I can't help but expect that movie to be a version of There Will be Blood, set in some new time period. Third, one of the characters in Gigantic seemed to have no other purpose in the movie other than to make me miss Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles terribly. Now, on with my review.

This is a movie that will leave you with questions. When a movie is good enough that you enjoy thinking about it further, then some lingering questions can be welcome. Gigantic doesn't quite pull that off. The things that it leaves unexplained are....well, maybe they had best be seen. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about if you choose to watch it. And you will be either pissed off, intrigued, or a bit bemused by them. I think I fit into the latter category.

This definitely isn't a comedy. Maybe it's best described as an odd family drama. The cast is very good, I just don't know if the surrounding framework of the movie was as well thought out as it could have been. If you're at all intrested in the trailer or description of Gigantic, see it. It's not a bad movie. But, not everyone will be satisfied after it's over. I at least give it points for offering up several moments that I didn't expect. Because of that fact and Zooey, I came away from the film with a small amount of approval, despite the loose ends and vagueries.

Point Break is one of the few "surfing" movies that I've seen, and it is definitely pretty far out there. Sure, some of it doesn't make any sense, but it's really just an excuse to see some stunts and some surfing. An Oscar-worthy screenplay isn't exactly a requirement for that.

After seeing it, I can now say that young Keanu and present day Keanu have the same amount of acting ability. I can also say that I've seen Gary Busey in something besides Entourage. Add in the hilarious "shooting in the air and screaming" scene, and you've got a 3 star movie.

I'm always surprised when a movie makes the 80's appear to be more than the ugly, godawful decade that it clearly was. I might not remember it myself, but VH1 has convinced me that nothing good came out of those ten years except some decent music and the Ninja Turtles.

Imagine my shock when I realized that Adventureland actually benefited from being set during that time. The characters actually fit the setting, and the whole movie was more interesting because of it. We're not talking about the over-the-top 80's acting of most movies actually made during that decade, but instead we're presented with fairly realistic people who just happen to be in their twenties back then instead of during the present day. Is the movie loads better because it was set twenty years ago instead of today? Maybe not, but that fact does help it stand out a little bit. The clothes, music, and backgrounds all make Adventureland more memorable in subtle ways.

What doesn't help it stand out is its by-the-numbers story. It's not bad or even slightly boring, but the plot is very predictable. There aren't any curveballs here, just the time-worn staples of the genre. They may not be stale, but they aren't anything to be excited about either.

Basically, awkward boy meets quirky girl and finds himself along the way. Add in an amusement park, some pretty funny moments, and a few obstacles, and you have Adventureland in a nutshell. This is by no means a raunchy teen comedy (if that's what you're looking for, you'll be hugely disappointed), but the occasional laughs were effective. I don't think everyone will appreciate this kind of movie, but for the right crowd, Adventureland offers a good time. At the very least you get to see Kristen Stewart doing something unrelated to Twilight.

Big Fish wants to be a lot of things. It wants to be an epic adventure tale, a fascinating collection of fables, and a story of reconcilliation between father and son. The movie is definitely more successful at achieving some of those things than others.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was a product of Tim Burton, because it was made without many of his signature flourishes. Much of it is set in bright, eye-catching locales that give a surreal feel to much of the film. The fantasy in Big Fish is about as far from Edward Scissorhands as it can be. Burton fanboys/girls will not be pleased if they watch this hoping for the standard Burton-isms. Yes, I made that word up. I like it though, and I'll probably use it again.

Part of the movie is set in the real world, part is set in completely fictional locales, and the rest consists of idealized versions of places in Alabama like Auburn. I have to say that the real world portions are the least interesting, because the story being told there just is not written well enough to make the audience care. What should have been the heart of the movie is instead the stock melodrama that you would expect from a weekly cable show.

The more imaginative portions of the movie are more interesting, but they never went as far as I wanted them to. A movie about tall tales and wild stories really needs more imagination than Big Fish had to offer. Ewan McGregor and Alison Lohman add a lot of charm that the script doesn't supply on its own (Danny Devito was pretty awesome too!), but they're only on-screen for part of the time. I'm not saying that the other actors are bad, it's just that they weren't really given a lot to work with.

If I had to describe Big Fish with a single word, I would choose uneven. There are two movies tangled up in it together, but I really only was interested in one of them.

As usual, I have to start my review of any Nick Cage movie by reiterating how much I dislike him as an actor. He simply plays the same exact person in every role I've seen him in, and that person is Nick Cage. I can't even tell if he's a good actor or not, because he never attempts to act.

Anyway, I'll try to focus on the actual movie now. I actually liked it for what it was, and the car chases near the end of the movie were pretty exciting. Most of the actors seemed to be hamming it up and enjoying their extremely one-dimensional characters, so I won't be harsh on that aspect of the film. Angelina Jolie was absolutely wasted, though. How did they manage to make her look so unattractive? The phrase "crack whore" came to my mind several times during her scenes.

In short, the story is just there to serve as an excuse to see the pretty cars, Nick Cage doesn't exert himself by any means, and I was mildly entertained.

It seems like an almost impossibility for a movie with a plot like this to be sincere instead of creepy or sophomoric, but Lars and the Real Girl manages to walk that thin line pretty well most of the time. Sure, it requires a pretty huge suspension of disbelief by the viewer (A whole town being that nice and supportive? The whole ambulance and hospital thing? Not likely.), but if you can deal with that commitment then you're in for a uniquely pleasurable experience.

Most of the acting burden falls on Ryan Gosling, and he fortunately never lets Lars become a pathetic or alienating figure. Sure, you feel sorry for him, but he still appears to be a likeable young man despite his problems. You root for Lars, just like his sister-in-law (a great Emily Mortimer) does. Watching how Lars changes over the course of the story is one of the big pluses of this movie.

A lot of people will read the plot description and think this movie is too weird to even attempt to watch, but I would encourage more mature people to give it a shot anyway. Sometimes weird is good.

I'm not too sure about how authentic these "true events" actually are, but The Mothman Prophecies manages to be moderately interesting. At least it got Richard Gere out of rom-com territory and introduced me to the milf-tastic Laura Linney.

Once I accepted the fact that the movie wasn't going to be scary in any way, I could focus on the unraveling mystery of what the hell was going on with the weird events and sightings going on in the small town of Point Pleasant. I can't say that everything was explained to my satisfaction, but the impressive sequence at the end of the movie made it worth the time for me. If you can adjust to the fact that this is not a horror movie, then maybe it will be worth the time for you, too.

I started watching Race to Witxh Mountain with the highest of expectations. Carla Gugino, The Rock, and Annasophia Robb are all among my favorite actors in Hollywood, and the premise of the movie seemed like it would provide lots of opportunities for cool action sequences and humor. I'm not going to go so far as to say that the movie was a disappointment, but it really didn't live up to its potential.

The biggest surprise to me was that they didn't go crazy with the special effects. In a movie about aliens from Disney, I really expected to see some awesome stuff. Apart from a few sequences, it's all rather tame.

The cast does a pretty good job, but the humor that I was expecting also never really got going. There are a couple attempts at laughs, but they were only worthy of a few chuckles, at best. Overall, the plot was very predictable, with little imagination.

I still liked Race to Witch Mountain, but it could have been excellent instead of merely ok. It's a good action/family movie to watch with slightly older kids, but they probably won't be extremely impressed by it.

I was initially inclined to dislike The International. Its beginning was hard to follow and uninteresting. Thankfully, the movie quickly became more focused and involving, and continued to get better throughout. I'm glad to say that it ended up being one of the better thrillers that I've seen this year.

There are a few impressive action scenes, but The International is far from a mindless action movie. Constant attention has to be paid to the various characters to avoid losing all awareness of where the story is going. Even the basics of the plot are fairly complex, and they don't really boil down to "BANKS ARE EVIL", like the movie description suggests. I know that the phrase "intelligent thriller" is incredibly vague, but this would be a film that I would put forward as an example of what I think that term means.

As for the cast, the inclusion of Cluve Owen and Naomi Watts was a smart move. Owen is at his unkempt, pessimistic best, and that fits his role very well. This is the best movie that I've seen him in since Children of Men. Watts is simply one of the most capable actresses around. Any movie with her in it is basically instantly better. And she might be 41, but I don't believe it.

If you like the tone and camera style of the Bourne movies, then The International might be worth your interest. It's not as frentic or action-oriented as that series, but it does supply a similar kind of semi-cerebral entertainment.

Yes, I'm ashamed that I didn't see the entirety of Raiders of the Lost Ark until I was 24. Yes, I know that I must have some kind of internal scarring as a result. Yes, I know that there is no excuse that I can offer for not seeing this movie long before now. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark is an adventure movie in the truest sense of the word. The influence of the Indiana Jones series can be seen today in countless movies, tv shows, and video games. It seems like every other scene was iconic and familiar, even though I had never seen it before. I can only imagine what it was like watching this movie on the big screen when it was first released. I bet it was an amazing experience. 

I had a good time watching the movie. The pacing was good, the story was good, and the eye-catching action just kept coming and coming. It really made me excited to see the other movies in the series.  

THIS is what I call an action movie. Speed is relentless. This isn't about plot or character development, it's about rushing breathlessly from one extreme situation to the next. 

All of the action sequences work well, even as they get more and more outrageous. Keanu Reeves is well-suited to this kind of role, because it doesn't require deep, emotive acting. He just reacts to every new situation, and this is the kind of thing that I think he's best at. Speed really does have the perfect name. Don't watch it for any other reason than a quick visual adrenaline rush.  

Dark City doesn't have a slow build-up like many sci-fi movies of a similar vein. Instead, it thrusts you headlong into the mystery of a man who wakes up with no knowledge of who he is, in a city that just doesn't seem quite right. It gives you these mysteries and then continually expands on them, leaving you few quiet moments to attempt to figure them out for yourself. Needless to say, I was very impressed by this approach. It lended a thriller-type atmosphere to a genre where that's not often the tone.  

I might have initially been interested in Dark City because of Jennifer Connelly, but I ended up enjoying the movie even after I realized that her role was relatively minor. I think that the film suffered a bit because its director didn't quite do the material justice, but overall, Dark City was interesting and fun to watch.  

Eastern Promises is not a pleasant film. Imagine a darker version of A History of Violence with a heavy emphasis on the Russian mob. The plots of those two movies aren't similar, but the uncomfortable realism of them both is the common thread that binds them together. 

I don't consider myself squeamish, but Eastern Promises made me positively cringe at times. Not at any excessive violence or profanity, but because it immerses you in a story and a world that's quite possibly not very different from reality. It all seems so realistic, that it reminded me that these kind of events are the actual lives of real people out there. The quality of the acting is just that outstanding. 

I can't say that I loved watching Eastern Promises, but I can say that it was a very good movie. Quality and enjoyment don't always go hand-in-hand. I recommend it to anyone who can appreciate a grim movie about a bleak world.  

Where the Wild Things Are is as mercurial and as hard to get a handle on as the emotionally unstable young boy who is its focus. It's visually captivating, occasionally frightening, and heartfelt in its inconsistency.

Max is clearly dealing with emotions that are difficult enough for an adult to handle. His anger, fear, and sense of being ignored are all embodied by the wild things that make him king, and he learns about himself through them. Their dangerous and destructive play, their fear-fueled rages, it all helps Max understand more about his own life.

The beginning seems hurried and the ending seems abrupt, with not enough emphasis on whether Max has truly learned anything. Other than that, I did not see much to complain about. This isn't a "kid's movie" (even though the kids at the theater I went to seemed to enjoy every minute of it). There is more danger than humorous circumstances and no pop-culture references to be seen. I don't know if this is the movie I would have made, but I have to respect the effort and creativity that made a very brief book into a very unique film.

Besides Nicole Kidman in some see-through sleepwear, there's not much of The Invasion that I would care to experience again.The movie is ham-fisted with its message, uninspired, and worst of all, dull.

The plot was about as predictable as it could be. Any suspense that I felt was solely based on my reluctance to see anyone's mouth or beverage vomited in. There were no thrills and no chills, but lots of boredom.

I kept waiting for The Interpreter to kick into high gear and become the thriller that the DVD case advertises, but that never really happened. It's not exactly dull, but calling it a thriller is a pretty huge stretch. There are long periods in its 2+ hours of the same conversations being recycled over and over.

As for the story, it's a bit wobbly. There are a few scenes inserted into the movie seemingly to make sure that the viewer knows the true antagonist long before the story properly reveals what's going on. Nicole Kidman and her pretty hair will only keep you interested for so long, more intrigue and action would have done a lot to lift The Interpreter above mediocrity.

Die Hard was probably the end all, be all of action movies 20 years ago, but by now the things that it helped make so popular have become genre staples. Someone who is seeing the movie for the first time in 2009 (like me) can't help but compare it to all the other action movies that I've seen before.

John McClain is certainly a unique character. It's not too often that you have a main character in an action movie running around with bare feet and talking to himself. But, who wouldn't be a little crazy in that kind of circumstances?

The action scenes are about what I expected. A lot of shooting, a brutal fistfight or two, and some explosions. There's nothing about Die Hard that particularly irked me, I just wish I could have seen it earlier, when it would have had more of an effect on me.

The plot of Die Hard 2 is bad, even for an action movie. How did the enemy soldiers get all their airport equipment? Was there really no other way they could have communicated with the airplanes sooner? Aren't there SEVERAL airports within 90 minutes of the D.C. that ALL the planes could have flown to? Why in God's name would that idiot airport police officer keep being as beligerent and unhelpful as possible in such an emergency situation? Even John McClain couldn't believe that all these things were happening to him once again, right before Christmas.

So yeah, the filmmakers were asking for a pretty huge suspension of disbelief this time around. I have to say that I Iiked the original Die Hard a lot better. The plot made more sense and the villians were much more likeable. More explosions doesn't automatically make a better movie.

First of all, the whole stepbrother/stepsister romance freaked me out. Yes, I know their parents had gotten divorced, but still.

Clueless is one of those movies that has become a part of pop-culture. An entire generation of teenagers and young adults saw it in the 90's. Thankfully, it still is fun to watch today. It's one of the few movies that I've seen Alicia Silverstone in, and it gave me a really positive impression of her. Good movie.

Before the Devil Knows You're dead is a movie about misery and bad decisions. Misery leads to more misery, and bad decisions made because of misery, that in turn lead to even more misery.

The specific kind of misery involved here is the brand unique to families. Misery resulting because the poor relationships between father and son, husband and wife, and father and daughter. There may be a crime at the center of the plot, but it's never really the movie's focus.

The acting is as good as you expect. Seeing Hoffman and Tomei in the same movie was a treat, because they are two of my favorite people in Hollywood. There are no weak spots in the cast to think of. And the re-occuring theme music that plays from time to time in key scenes? Awesome.

Much of the movie moves at a slightly subdued pace, and I'm sure there are people who won't care for that. But when an intense scene does happen, you won't be able to look away.

Like a lot of other reviewers have said, First Blood wasn't at all what I expected to be. This isn't a typical 80's action movie. It has a heart and a message that elevates it beyond its explosions and gunshots.

Who knew that Sly Stalone had this kind of a performance in him? Maybe his breakdown scene could have been done a little better, but for the rest of the movie he does a great job of portraying Rambo well, as neither a hero or a villian. He's a man who has scene a lot of terrible things, done some himself, and seen his friends die in front of him.

First Blood was the very best kind of surprise; a good one. I really want to see the other Rambo movies to see if they continued to be as good as the first.

I'm relatively new to these English historical dramas, but I've seen enough to know a good one after I've watched it. The Other Boleyn Girl is pretty good, but it suffers from overly simplistic and two-dimensional characters.

Everyone in the movie seems to possess only one or two characteristics. King Henry is lustful and easily manipulated. Anne is ambitious and vengeful. Mary is sweet and loves her family to a fault. I don't know how true the movie is to actual history, but I doubt that these people were as emotionally shallow as they seemed here.

Scarlett and and Natalie make a good on-screen pair, and both are easy on the eyes in their period clothing. My opinion of which was the more beautiful changed from scene to scene. Check this out if you enjoy either of the actresses or you like a period drama that's not necessarily epic, but is fairly interesting.

I liked The Bank Job a lot. It's not much like the average Jason Statham movie, which I guess can be attributed to the fact that it's based on a true story.

It's nice to see him in a differnet kind of movie for a change. Everything is a little subdued in a British kind of way, and the 70's vibe is definitely a plus. The Banl Job is a very nice crime caper, without most of the less realistic elements of a lot of crime movies.

I never could completely come to terms with Johnny Depp as Boston George. He's a good actor, but he never really seemed like a guy from New England. As the movie went on, I grew more accustomed to the character, but the issue never completely went away.

As for the movie itself, I liked it well enough. It was pretty obvious that some parts of the real story had been changed to make George a more sympathetic and likeable character. If you like these kinds of druglord sagas or you are a huge fan of Johnny Depp, then you'll probably like Blow. It's no Scarface, however.

The Box is a challenging and odd movie. It doesn't hold your hand and guide you through the plot, instead you have to pay attention and figure out what's going on in pieces and fragments. That can be frustrating, but the end result is a movie that will leave you either hating it and thinking it's too convoluted for it's own good, or intrigued and wanting to see it again to make better sense of it all. I think I fall into the latter category.

The trailer really does nothing to prepare you for the movie you're about to see. It's not exactly a horror movie, but there's a continual thread of menace and fear that underlies the entire film. It's not sci-fi either, though there are some sci-fi elements. I guess if I had to compare it to another movie, I'd choose Donnie Darko. Not because they're particularly similar, but because you have to have a certain open-mindedness and appreciation for something deeper than the average movie experience in order to enjoy them both.

It's simple. If you like action movies AT ALL, then you should watch Hard-Boiled. It's two hours of stylish mayhem, wrapped around a serviceable story.

The gunplay and stunts really are remarkable. Shotgun blasts explode like rockets. No one gets shot only once, usually it's 8 or more times. Slo-motion is used in such a cool way, that it makes the very idea of it fresh again. Don't let the subtitles keep you from this action classic.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was a genuinely exciting movie. I can't count the number of times that I had a smile on my face while I was watching it. It was filled with the kinds of moments where I was worried for the fates of our heroes and wondering how in the world they would survive the terrible danger that they were in. From the memorable and complicated intro, to the happy ending, I was having a very good time.

The tone of Temple of Doom is very different from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are a few very dark scenes that I never expected to see before I watched the movie. Short Round and Willie made excellent comrades for Indy, and turned out to be much more than the annoying sidekicks that I was expecting. Overall, I found it to be funnier, more enthralling, and more exciting that the first Indiana Jones movie ever was.

I usually avoid biopics like the plague, but the actors involved in The Aviator and the time period that it spans made me give it a shot, anyway. Did it change my opinion about these kinds movies in general? No, but at least I can add The Aviator to the short list of biopics that I didn't hate.

I don't know much about Howard Hughes, so I can't comment on how authentic the movie was. It managed to be entertaining for the three hours that it lasted, and that's what mattered to me most. Howard had an important, colorful, and occasionally tragic life, and it's a tribute to Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese that they could communicate that story without resorting to the sappiness and melodrama that I've come to respect from this genre.

The best parts of the film were those that dealt with the Hollywood aspect of Howard's life. Kate Beckinsale was a good Ava Gardner, and Cate Blanchett was a phenomenal Katherine Hepburn. She deserved every bit of the praise, nominations, and awards that she received for that role. I'm a sucker for anything that deals with the Golden Age of Hollywood, and those parts of The Aviator made the entire movie worthwhile, for me.

Shooter desperately wants to be a combination of the Bourne movies and Rambo, but it's hampered by one of the most laughably predictable plots that I've ever come across. There is literally nothing unexpected that happens in this movie, from the death of the protagonist's buddy at the beginning to the final revenge scene at the end.

A below average story can often be somewhat overlooked in this kind of a film, but Shooter pushed my tolerance farther than any movie that I've seen in recent memory. The villians are cartoonishly evil, right down to the cackling laughter. The other characters don't fare much better, they're paper-thin and as one-dimensional as they can be. And the dialogue! Good Lord, it sounded like it was all jotted down on a paper napkin in five minutes, right before the filming started. Or maybe there was no script, and the director simply told the actors to say something that sounds bad-ass or evil before each scene. Oh, and let's not forget the "political message" that's tacked onto the movie in an attempt to give it "depth". It was as subtle as a brick to the face, and about as welcome.

So, why am I still giving Shooter a slightly above average score? Because it was somehow a likeable movie, despite the terrible plot and characters. Unsurprisingly, the shooting and action scenes were the saving grace of the film. Most of the sniper stuff was really cool, and Mark Wahlberg was a convincing hero....when his mouth was firmly shut. Rhona Mitra and and Kate Mara were criminally under-used, but their presence was still a plus for the movie. I just wish that they were given more dubstantial to do than be pretty faces and conveniently move the plot along.

If you can somehow buffer your mind against the truly horrible aspects of Shooter, then it can provide two hours of moderate, violence-based fun. Just don't feel bad if the poor story and characters are too much for you to tolerate. I understand, I really do.

I have a hard time reviewing movies like Little Children. The difficulty isn't in deciding whether I like it, it's having to explain how the things about it that I liked are hard to extract from the things I didn't like. The pros and cons are just mixed up together.

I loved and didn't like how the movie made me empathize with characters that I should not have supported and the decisions that they made. I loved how uncomfortable it made me feel about certain things, like how we treat those among us who are undesirable, and how cruel we can be when we fear someone. I loved how I slowly built up sympathy for a character, and then that emotion was deftly twisted into revulsion, and finally pity. I loved how it made me wonder at how loneliness and distance can creep between a husband and wife, without them realizing it until the damage is done. This isn't a feel good movie by any means, but neither is it really depressing. It's a mixture of the good and the bad things in life.

It's always nice to get more from a movie than you expected. I was expecting to see a simple drama about the suburban family, starring my favorite actress. Instead, I found a story with all the richness of a good novel. It was even narrated, which contributed even more to the novel-like experience. If you have the patience to slowly build toward the pay-off of a well told story, and an affinity for characters that struggle with very human flaws, then Little Children is a movie that you must see.

I'm not the biggest fan of crime dramas, but I can certainly recognize a good one when I see it. Heat easily falls into that category. It's remarkable that such a long movie could never feel dull or drawn-out, but Heat manages that feat with little effort.

I called it a crime drama, but the actual crimes themselves receive relatively little of the movie's focus. Sure, when the action scenes occur they are very well done, but it's not hard to see that the private lives of the main characters are the real substance of the story. Thankfully, the actors assembled here are more than equal to the task. If you've wanted a thoughtful look at the other side of life for a dedicated cop or a wily thief, then you'll greatly enjoy Heat.

First of all, this was the first time that I've watched a movie where the main character had the same first name as me. It was definitely bemusing to hear the word Lewis over and over. Ok, now to the actual movie.

My first hour of watching Meet the Robinsons was an utter disaster. I hated the art style, it's more bland than the very earliest CGI family movies, and certainly not up to the level of what I would expect from Disney. Look at Toy Story; that movie is years old, yet a single one of those characters had more personality and charm than the entire cast of MtR. The storyline was just an endless stream of unconnected skit after skit, like a Carrot Top performance. It didn't help that for every one of those random situations that was funny, you'd have to suffer through three that were not humorous whatsoever. Most of the random jokes that were constantly being lobbed at the viewer were incredibly un-funny. The only word that I can think of to properly describe it is manic. Even a kid wouldn't be entertained by such a disjointed mess.

With that said. The movie finally settled down in its last third, and became somewhat involving. A storyline materialized, and though it was predictable, at least it kept the movie moving in one direction. There were even a few occasions to laugh, which I had almost been convinced that I wouldn't do. I probably would never buy Meet the Robinsons, but at least it didn't turn out to be the awful disaster that it seemed to be initially speediing towards becoming.