Tag: movies

Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

I loved almost every minute of Captain America. I had high hopes for it, and Joe Johnston (who also directed The Rocketeer) did an amazing job with it. It was both faithful to the original story as well as new and unique. The cast was amazing: Stanley Tucci, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, and that …

Continue reading

Review: Kung Fu Panda 2

You may remember that Kung Fu Panda made my ‘Best Movies I Saw This Year’ list of 2008. Kung Fu Panda 2 is a decent sequel. It’s not nearly as awesome as the first one, but not nearly as bad as a lot of sequels. A minor complaint was the overuse of the slow-motion, over-wide …

Continue reading

Movies better than their books

People usually say that books are always better than the movies made from them. I can think of a few exceptions, whose movies are markedly better than their source material. I don’t intend to provide any justification for my view; it’s just a list: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, based on Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by …

Continue reading

Review: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

It was Heath Ledger’s last film (he died during filming), and it was directed by Terry Gilliam (Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Brothers Grimm). It also stars Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Christopher Plummer. I realized going in that Terry Gilliam films are guaranteed to be weird, that …

Continue reading

So I Watched a Boring Movie

Before my wife met me she had gone on a date with some dude, no doubt neither as smart or handsome as me, and they went to see Mike Myers’s So I Married an Axe Murderer. She said it was so boring that she fell asleep. Years later when I started my current job, Jimmy …

Continue reading

Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox (movie)

I really can’t say enough good things about this movie. I love the story, direction, music, animation, and acting. I went into this movie with no preconceived notions (I barely knew a thing about it, not even that it was based on a Roald Dahl book), and it was awesome. George Clooney is hilarious as …

Continue reading

Review: Ladyhawke

Heather and I both remember loving this movie, and we rented so we could watch it with the girls. It was not the best around. The movie was directed by Richard Donner (Superman, The Goonies), so I was expecting better. Matthew Broderick is the only great part about the movie: he is totally natural and …

Continue reading

Review: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (movie)

I saw this movie before I had read the book. In fact, I had barely even heard of the book. So I had no expectations going into it, either good or bad. It wasn’t very good. The very first conversation in the movie already seems out of place–stating a situation that already seems to defy …

Continue reading

Review: Alice in Wonderland (movie)

The new Alice in Wonderland movie is not terrible, but it is not that great either. The basic premise is that 13 years after her original adventures, as recorded by Lewis Carroll, Alice falls down a rabbit hole and returns to Wonderland, finding it a much darker place, and must fight to save it from …

Continue reading

Review: Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Unfortunately, yes. Heather and I went out on a date Saturday afternoon and saw the aforementioned romcom. It was not that great. The premise is that native New Yorkers Paul and Meryl Morgan (Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker) are a couple that have been separated for three months. Paul is trying to make up …

Continue reading