Movie and Television Reviews
The Veteran
Black Death
Deadfall Trail
Swamp People: Season 1
The Traveler
Ninja
Little Fockers
Smokin' Aces 2: Assassin's Ball
Let Me In
Fast Five
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Faster
The Way Back
John Adams
Frost/Nixon
Season of the Witch
Winter's Bone
Winter's Bone sort of reminds me of a Coen brothers movie without the snappy dialogue. It's incredibly dark and features a couple of very memorable scenes, plus the story grabbed me from the beginning. It was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture.
Ong Bak 3
Ong Bak 3 just made my personal list of the worst sequels I have ever seen. The original Ong Bak is sort of a modern martial arts masterpiece and Ong Bak 2 was a bit silly though it had some incredible action sequences. This movie is a mess from the start. The fight scenes are weak, it's boring as hell, and most of it barely makes any sense.
The Walking Dead: Season 1
This has got to be the greatest television show ever made. Just the fact that a bunch of talented people decided to make a post-apocalyptic show about a zombie holocaust still blows me away. Furthermore, the whole thing is based on a very well-liked graphic novel series of the same name. I love the premise and the fact that this series is going to take its time to develop the story.
Game of Death
Game of Death (2010) is a B-movie starring Wesley Snipes as a CIA agent who gets mixed up in an assassination plot where he must fight off fellow CIA agents in a battle for millions of dollars. Despite a thin plot and general lack of dialogue, it does have some good fight sequences.
Monsters
Monsters is a very low budget science fiction movie about a giant monster invasion from outer space that decimates most of Mexico and is headed for the United States. It's a like a mellow version of Cloverfield, minus all the shaky handheld cameras and action sequences. Most people will probably find this kind of boring.
Frenemy
Have you ever noticed that when an actor has a breakout role, all of a sudden some direct-to-DVD movies pop up with that same actor? It's like the stuff wasn't good enough to release until the actor became known. This movie, Frenemy, attempts to capitalize on the success of Zack Galifianakis and his role in The Hangover, although he's only in this for about 10 minutes. Talk about misleading advertising.
Buried
Buried is the kind of movie where people are going to either love it or hate it. Personally, I hated it. I thought the premise was a gimmick, the main character played by Ryan Reynolds was his own worst enemy, and it had too many plot holes to make sense. The entire movie takes place inside a coffin.
Catfish
Catfish is an incredibly fascinating documentary about a photographer named Nev who met a girl online after she painted a portrait based on one of his photos and sent it to him. What unfolded after that was an online relationship based on an elaborate series of fake Facebook profiles and lies built upon more lies. The whole thing unravels right there on screen during the course of the movie as Nev tries to find out why she did it, and how.
Boot Camp
Boot Camp stars Mila Kunis as a troubled teen who gets sent off to one of those teen rehab centers where the kids are beaten and abused like some kind of WWII-era military prison. The movie attempts to shed light on the lack of accountability with these type institutions, but it does so in an unbelievable way. I didn't care much for this dark and violent movie.
The American
The American stars George Clooney as a hitman staking out a job in Italy. It was directed by Anton Corbijn, who is better known for his visually enthusiastic music videos. While I did enjoy this movie, it is incredibly slow moving and only has a few shootings despite it being about contract killers.
Exam
I discovered Exam while browsing the new releases on Netflix and although I had never heard of it or any of the actors in it, I was intrigued because Netflix's rating system said I would likely give it four out of five stars. I took a moment to read some of the user reviews and found so much praise for this movie that I just had to watch it. This turned out to be a really cool low budget thriller.
Balls Out: Gary the Tennis Coach
Most people will already know everything they need to know about Balls Out: Gary the Tennis Coach just from the title of the movie. It's an R-rated high school sports movie starring the dude who played Stifler from the American Pie movies, and it's like the Bad News Bears of tennis. Expect lots of profanity, some nudity, and more than a few laughs.
Battlestar Galactica: Season 4.5
I bought the first three seasons of Battlestar Galactica on DVD, then watched seasons 4.0 and 4.5 on Netflix. In case you didn't know, the whole series is available for online viewing via Netflix. Having watched this entire series, from beginning to end over the course of several months, has been quite an experience. I won't say that Season 4.5 was the best of the series, but it certainly packed a punch.
Battlestar Galactica: Razor
Battlestar Galactica: Razor is a made for TV movie that fits somewhere in between the 3rd and 4th seasons of the show. It is a prequel of sorts that provides background info leading up to events that mainly play out in the 3rd season. As with all prequels, it's kind of pointless and you already know how things will end.
Pawn Stars: Season 1
Pawn Stars is a show that can be found on the History Channel, and it is also available for online streaming via Netflix. I had heard a lot of things about this great show and finally decided to sit down and watch some episodes. It is quite addictive and entertaining thanks to the real people involved and the unique merchandise they encounter. This first season runs 14 episodes.
Black Swan
I liked Black Swan for how original and screwed up of a story it was, but I was not blown away like it's the best movie of the year. I found the movie to be deliberately misleading, and I think the only reason it is doing so well at the box office is the promise of seeing Mila Kunis go down on Natalie Portman. Why else would most guys want to go see a movie about ballet dancers?
Don McKay
I figured out what was really going on in Don McKay after watching the first ten minutes, then I forced myself to sit through the next 80 minutes just to see if I was right. This muddled attempt at creating a nourish black comedy fails on all accounts. Don't waste your time with it.
City Island
City Island is a comedy drama about a dysfunctional family where each member has a secret or two that they are keeping from each other. Over the years, all that secrecy has driven them apart and a very unlikely house guest threatens to shed light on it all. It stars Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies. This movie won an Audience Award at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.
True Grit
Jeff Bridges steps into John Wayne's shoes for the remake of True Grit, and with the Coen brothers behind the camera it's hard not to like this movie. It shames me to admit that I have never seen the original all the way through, but this movie was good enough to make me want to go look for it.
Tron: Legacy
Tron: Legacy is the sequel to the classic computer sci-fi movie from the early 80's, and it is set in present day. It stars Jeff Bridges in a dual role as both his present day self and his 80's counterpart, and Garrett Hedlund plays his son. While this movie is a visual feast, the story isn't as strong as the original.
Valhalla Rising
Valhalla Rising is one of those movies that was almost good. It could have been a minor masterpiece but instead the director chose to make parts of it look like a bad acid trip and the result is an unevenly paced Viking story that disappoints more than it pleases. This is from Nicholas Winding Refn, the director of Bronson.
Peacock
Peacock is a rather fascinating though somewhat dissatisfying movie that borrows a bit from Psycho to focus on an abused child who has grown to become a very disturbed man whose privacy has been compromised. It stars Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon, and many other familiar faces.
Tron
I decided to hunt down a copy of the original 1982 Disney film called Tron in order to brush up on the story before I go see the sequel, Tron: Legacy, that is out in theaters now. It has been more than a decade since I last saw this movie, but I always remember having liked it as a kid. I think it's still an entertaining movie and was definitely way ahead of its time.
Arn: The Knight Templar
Arn: The Knight Templar is the first part of a pair of movies set in Sweden and revolving around a love story affected by the Crusades. Although based loosely on historical events, the character of Arn is fictional. It is currently available from Netflix, which is where I discovered this interesting film.
Centurion
I am a big fan of Neil Marshall's ultra-violent films and was especially excited about Centurion because I like movies about the Roman times. While this movie is nowhere near as epic as Gladiator, it's still a fun-filled romp full of blood and guts. If you are a Netflix subscriber, you can view this movie is streaming HD quality.
Three Kingdoms
Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon was intended to be a historical epic with huge battle sequences. Instead, it ended up being incredibly boring and overused too many of the same stunts and lame camera techniques during the action sequences. I was drinking coffee while watching this and still fell asleep in the middle of it.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The recent remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is another great example of why most remakes are a bad idea. Despite modern CGI and special effects techniques, it fails in comparison to the original and just wasn't that scary to me. I thought the original Freddy Krueger did a better job. Unfortunately, this movie made a ton of money so there will be sequels.
Love Ranch
Love Ranch looks like it'll be a great movie, but it was a disaster. It puts Joe Pesci back in front of the camera for the first time in many years, then pairs him up with the great Helen Mirren. On top of that, it's based on a true story about brothel owners in Nevada. With all that going on, what went wrong?
Give 'em Hell, Malone
Give ‘em Hell, Malone is a noir movie that is sort of a parody of noir movies. It looks like it should take place in the 1940's, but is actually set in present day. It stars Thomas Jane and was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who did the original Highlander movie.
Frozen
The best thing about Frozen is that I've never seen anything like it before. When most horror movies are generic copycats of previous films, this one stands out as something truly unique. It takes a simple premise that could happen in real life, and turns it into a tense thriller.
Survival of the Dead
Survival of the Dead is the Jaws 4 of George A. Romero's zombie series. It's a bad movie in nearly every regard because it tries to be too much at once and there just wasn't enough zombie stuff going on to make it worth seeing. It's no surprise that this never got a box office release of more than a couple dozen screens.
Black Dynamite
Black Dynamite is to Shaft what Austin Powers is to James Bond. This parody movie looks like it was made in the early 1970's, but it was actually made in 2009. It stars Michael Jai White (Spawn) in a hilarious action-packed tribute/satire to Blaxploitation movies of yesteryear.
Harry Brown
Michael Caine kills in Harry Brown...literally. This is like a cross between Dirty Harry and Grumpy Old Men, where a man decides to take a stand against all the hoodlums in his neighborhood. This is a very intense and violent movie from the UK, and Caine makes it his own in such an unlikely role.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief seemed like a sure thing. It's based on the first novel in a popular series of books aimed at young adults, so it had the potential to turn into another hit series like Harry Potter. It was directed by Chris Columbus, who actually directed the first two Harry Potter movies.
The Invention of Lying
This is a comedy farce starring Ricky Gervais in a world where nobody lies. The idea of not telling the absolute blunt truth hasn't even come up yet, and Gervais tells the world's first lie. Eventually, it ends up being a take on religion and has a cheesy tacked-on love story that isn't believable. Jennifer Garner co-stars along with Rob Lowe and a handful of cameos.
Flipped
Flipped is a romantic comedy set in the early 60's and told from the perspective of 8th graders. It stars a cast of young unknowns working alongside veteran actors like Aidan Quinn and John Mahoney, and it was directed by Rob Reiner. If you are looking for a sweet, lighthearted movie that doesn't involve a bunch of nudity, violence, profanity, or sparkly vampires, then you ought to check this one out. Fans of The Wonder Years will especially like this movie.
The Ghost Writer
This is a really well done thriller about a man hired to write a book for a politician who just might have been involved in war crimes. It stars Ewan MacGregor as the writer and Pierce Brosnan as a former British Prime Minister. Although it is set in the United States, the movie was actually filmed in Germany because director Roman Polanski has an outstanding warrant for his arrest for rape charges in the U.S.
The Horseman
The Horseman is a very violent revenge movie that makes Liam Neeson's Taken look like an episode of The Wiggles. This is a pretty low budget movie from Australia that features no actors I've ever seen before, but delivers a very brutal message about the underbelly of the porn industry. Be sure to check it out if you can handle the gore.
Machete
Machete is the kind of movie that will surely please the people who already know they will like it before going into the theater. However, if you expect this to be a serious action movie then you might be disappointed. I saw one couple walk out of the theater. It's campy as hell, really gory, loaded with great one-liners, and purposefully dumb to the point that it is an action comedy. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
The Fourth Kind
The Fourth Kind opens with actress Milla Jovovich introducing the movie with a disclaimer that the film you are about to see is based on archival footage and in some scenes the actual footage will be shown alongside the reenactment. The idea is that a psychologist (played by Jovovich) has uncovered what may be evidence of alien abductions in Alaska, and she has audio and video proof from her sessions with the affected individuals.
Blood Creek
Blood Creek is a horror movie that is entertaining so long as you focus only on what's happening on screen and give no thought whatsoever to the plausibility of the situation. It's a supernatural thriller with some Nazi elements, and even features a zombie horse. Believe it or not, former A-list director Joel Schumacher was behind the camera on this one.
Green Zone
Green Zone is a movie where nobody's right if everybody's wrong. It's a work of fiction although it has some basis in real events concerning the early years of the war in Iraq. Basically, it's about one lower ranking soldier trying to uncover the truth about WMD's in Iraq. In doing so, he finds himself caught in a Mexican standoff between the U.S. Government, the CIA, and an Iraqi general who may or may not be the enemy.
9
9 is an animated science fiction film set in a post apocalyptic world where living sock puppets are all that's left of humanity and giant steampunk machines are trying to destroy them. It bears a PG-13 rating and shows dead humans, including a deceased child in the arms of its dead mother. Because of the rating and adult content, this movie is too rough for small children and will go over the head of many viewers.
Modify
Modify is a somewhat interesting documentary about body modification and the people who are into it. I found this while surfing the documentary section of Netflix and thought it would make for some interesting late night fare. I thought the movie wound up being overly self defensive of body modification without getting into any of the social implications of doing stuff like giving yourself horns or tattooing your face.
Carriers
Carriers is one of those movies that seems like it might be good until the credits start to roll and you realize you just spent 80+ minutes watching a bunch of characters go nowhere. It never provides a proper introduction to the situation and there is no proper conclusion. It's like a bad knock-off of The Road, and it stars the guy who plays Capt. Kirk in the new Star Trek movie.
Predators
I did sort of like Predators because I really like the premise. I found it to be entertaining to some degree and it's hard for me to expect too much from what is essentially the fifth part of a series, although this movie ignores the Aliens vs. Predator movies. That being said, I was not very impressed with this movie because it is more of a tribute to the original than it is a sequel, and I thought it had way too many recycled lines and scenes.
Gentlemen Broncos
The first time I saw the trailer for Gentlemen Broncos, I knew I had to see this movie because it looked so ridiculous. It's from the same guy who made Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, but it doesn't take long to figure out why this never got a wide theatrical release. Some people are predicting that this will eventually become a home movie classic like Office Space, but I don't think so. It's more dumb than funny.
Legion
I knew Legion was going to suck, but I wanted to see it just for that scene in the trailer with the little old lady turning into a demon and crawling on the ceiling. Unfortunately, that was the best scene in the whole dumb movie. I think this movie works better if you watch it as a B-grade comedy and laugh at all the unintentionally funny bad acting and lame dialogue.
Clash of the Titans
I was very skeptical when I first heard that Clash of the Titans was going to be remade, and the early trailers I saw for it tended to focus more on the CGI than anything else. As it would turn out, I did actually like this movie and found it to be entertaining, but it lacked the heart that made the 1981 film so great.
Hardware
I had never heard of Hardware (1990) before it popped up on the list of new releases a couple of months ago on Netflix. Some of the comments and reviews left behind talked it up like this was some kind of classic science fiction movie that was really hard to find. Since the story concerned a post-apocalyptic setting and killer robots, I had to see this movie.
Pirate Radio
About half an hour into Pirate Radio, I started playing with my BlackBerry and even debated stopping the Blu-ray and putting it back in the slip to send back to Netflix. A half hour more into the movie, it finally started to catch my interest, and the last forty minutes of it managed to redeem the whole thing. I can see why this movie bombed at the box office, but it's still worth sitting through to the end.
Solomon Kane
I was really excited when I first heard about Solomon Kane and then saw the trailer. Unfortunately, it never got picked up for a wide release and I've had to wait until it came available on home video before I could see it. This movie is based on a character created by Robert E. Howard, who was best known for creating Conan the Barbarian.
Nothing but the Truth
Rod Lurie's Nothing but the Truth is an interesting movie about journalism and national security, and it has a basis in the real-life scandal involving Valerie Plame a few years back. I liked the movie to some degree, but I was able to figure out the main twist before it was even halfway over, and that made getting to the end a lot less satisfying.
Taking Chance
Taking Chance is probably one of the most respectful movies I've ever seen made about the military. It stars Kevin Bacon as an officer on escort duty, meaning that he travels with the body of a deceased soldier being sent home for burial. This is based on a true story written by the officer who did the escort duty.
Bones: Season 4
I thought Season 4 of Bones was a mess. In fact, I think Bones has officially jumped the shark with this season. It lacked a season-long plotline and ended up spinning off the character stories in too many different ways that didn't hold my interest. By the time the season was over, it had gotten a little too silly and lost the punch that made it worth watching. I'll probably hold off on watching the next season now.
Dolan's Cadillac
Dolan's Cadillac is a neat little movie starring Christian Slater and Wes Bentley, and it's based on a short story by Stephen King. The original story appeared in a collection called Nightmares and Dreamscapes, which I think I may have read many years ago, but I didn't remember this particular story. It's nothing that will blow you away, but it's worth checking out just for the way it all ends.
Splice
Splice is not a knock-off of Species. I wanted to put that first because many people see the previews and immediately are reminded of the movie Species. This film is far more disturbing on many levels. It is science fiction that relies quite heavily on science and a mix of strong storytelling and realistic characters make it a very engrossing film despite it not having much action.
High Plains Invaders
High Plains Invaders stars James Marsters (Spike from Buffy and Angel) as an outlaw who winds up helping save the survivors of a small mining town from giant alien bugs. It's sort of like a western version of Starship Troopers and is pretty entertaining if you don't think about it too much.
Armored
Armored is a dumb movie with an all-star cast and a really bad message about truth and consequences. It tanked at the box office. The director, Nimrod Antal, is also going to direct the upcoming Predators movie, and after having seen this I am not really looking forward to seeing how bad Predators is going to be.
The Lovely Bones
I told a friend that I didn't care for this movie, and he told me that he'd also seen it and that the story went nowhere. He was absolutely right. This movie goes nowhere and leaves the viewer very unsatisfied. I got what director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) was trying to do with the story, but it did not work.
Green Street Hooligans
This is an interesting and violent movie about a bunch of crazy sports fans. Imagine a mixture of Fight Club and Braveheart, but based around football (soccer) fans in England. It stars Elijah Wood and is from Punisher: War Zone director Lexi Alexander. There had to be at least 200 uses of the F-word in this movie.
Robin Hood
The new Robin Hood movie from director Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe is a misfire. It's a prequel to the Robin Hood story, and therefore mostly devoid of all the staples that make for a good Robin Hood movie. Being that it is set after the Crusades and sort of a revenge story, another name for this one could have been Kingdom of Heaven II: Gladiator.
Where the Wild Things Are
I normally enjoy most of Spike Jonze's work. He's one of the few directors who truly brings originality to what he commits to film and although his movies aren't often so easy to stomach, they are still fun to watch in a ‘scratch your head' kind of way. Being John Malkovich is a good example. That being said, I thought this movie sucked.
---> Continued on page 2
