Tag Archives: movies

[Movie Review] Toy Story 3

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Fifteen years between the first  film of a trilogy and the culminating final installment is quite a long piece of time within the Hollywood machine. But somehow, Toy Story, not only manages to succeed in the face of a sure demise, they actually manage to craft a film that elevates the entire franchise from “Much Loved” to “Greatest of All-Time”.

Go ahead and try to come up with a true film franchise with at least two movies that matches the overall success and originality of Toy Story. Seriously, go ahead and try. I’ll wait.

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Come up with anything?

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[Film Review] Grown Ups

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Sometimes I like to check out a movie that I’m not particularly interested in, or one that I assume will be very popular with the general movie going public to gauge what current tastes are trending toward. I have seen Grown Ups, and I’m scared what it means for comedy movies in the U.S. if THIS is what makes people laugh.

Grown Ups looks to have an all-star cast, but you’d really be mistaken. There is but ONE bankable star in the film, and that’s Adam Sandler. But, oh how the mighty have fallen in his regard. His more dramatic turns (Punch Drunk Love, Funny People) have been enjoyable, but his comedies have been increasingly dreadful for the better part of a decade now. And I know it sounds like stock “Old Sander is awesome Sandler” stuff that you hear everyone say, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the truth. Here, you have Sandler co-writing and producing a movie if for nothing else to get some of his struggling friends a tally under the “Career Win” column, a column none of them have visited recently. Guys like Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Chris Rock. Continue reading →

[Movie Review] Splice (2010)

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Splice is a tricky, tricky film. While some advertisements would lead you to believe it’s a horror movie that focuses on the simple scares of stuff popping out from the darkness accompanied by loud, almost verbose music, those advertisements are deceptive, as Splice is actually a very well crafted film that is thought provoking and even somewhat topical.

I would imagine most people who are very interested in this film are because of the way it was marketed. It’s not a slasher movie, it’s not a monster movie. It’s a science fiction horror film, and it wears those hats very blatantly once the movie begins. The tone of the film is never to scare you by simply startling you, it’s one that requires a bit of thinking to go along with its ride.

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[Doubleshot Movie Review] Macgruber

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As the only two people who saw the new Saturday Night Live sketch turned feature-length movie Macgruber over the weekend, contributors Andrew Majors and Daniel Gauer both felt compelled to share their contrasting views on the Will Forte spoof in the latest entry in our mostly unused and arguably unneeded Double Shot Feature

Review by Andrew Majors:

Judging by the weekend’s measly Box Office estimates, I was one of very few people to head to the theater and check out the debuting film Macgruber.

A lot of people made a big mistake.

Macgruber is one of the most belly laugh packed films to hit the theaters in a very, very long time. It’s much more than an SNL film, or a spoof film, or many of the other preconceived tags the film has garnered. It’s a well-put together, blisteringly funny film that takes advantage of every lavish Hollywood cliche at its disposal and then implements it in the funniest way possible. Continue reading →

[Movie Review] A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

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A Nightmare on Elm Street as directed by Samuel Bayer is essentially a remake of the highly acclaimed 1984 original from Wes Craven. According to the majority of press, the general consensus is that the new age retooling pales in comparison to its source material, which is widely regarded as one of the best and most inspired horror films of all time.

I’ve never seen the original. It was before my time, as you may like to put it. Therefore, I have nothing to compare the film to, other than the general standard of film quality. I have no nostalgic connection to Freddy Krueger that will win the production points, nor will I become butthurt if any aspect of the film strayed from being faithful. All I can do is tell you whether or not the movie is good.

Which, in all honesty, it’s not.

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[Movie Review] Kick-Ass

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kick ass movie

Dave Lisewski is  the traditional high-school ghost. He exists only to his friends, fantasizes about his English teacher, has a crush on a hot girl, hangs out at a comic book store, and so on. Dave starts to wonder out loud why nobody ever tries to be a super hero. So he buys a scuba suit, starts a MySpace account, and begins trying to do it.

Only it goes terribly wrong right out of the gate because he has no power, no training, and no real skills. As Kick-Ass, he usually ends up getting his ass kicked (as Big Daddy loves to point out), and he contemplates quitting numerous times. But it’s the desire to do good that compels him to continue down his chosen path of masked vigilante. He meets some other avengers along the way, and ends up involved in a very personal battle with Frank D’Amico, the father of one of his classmates and criminal mastermind. Continue reading →

[Movie Review] Couples Retreat

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couples retreat reviewSometimes I like to punish myself by laboring through movies I have no interest in, just to see what the general movie going populous seems to enjoy. I feel it’s a valuable trait in a reviewer to not only review stuff you are expecting to enjoy, but to review stuff you might not be as excited about. However, these usually seem to be self-fulfilling prophecies when it comes to movies because Couples Retreat is freaking terrible.

The premise is as paper thin as paper thin it gets. A group of friends go to an island resort to investigate their relationships. There is the couple on the verge of divorce, the couple that is happy on the surface, the high school sweethearts who now loathe each other, and the recent divorcee and his young girlfriend. Stereotypical relationships to be sure, but with good writing those stereotypes would at the least be  humorous (which I’m guessing was the intent). Continue reading →

[Movie Review] Alice in Wonderland 3-D

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It’s commonplace in the Hollywood machine of today’s world for long standing classic source material to be “re-imagined” every decade or so. I’m sure it has quite a lot to do with making money and knowing that the product already has a core audience that will be interested in it no matter what, but it sure doesn’t lend itself much to the creative process. The latest of these re-imaginings was released a couple of weeks ago in the form of Alice in Wonderland.

Now, I know quite a few people who loathe anything Tim Burton does, and I can find merit in their claims. I have seen a large number of his films, and most of them seem to be cut from the exact same cloth. The imagery is always stunning, but most of the films seem to spin their wheels quite a lot while trying to show us so much of the beautiful scenery. Continue reading →

[Movie Review] The Crazies (2010)

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The Crazies is a remake of a 1973 George A. Romero film by the same name. Directed by Breck Eisner, this film takes place in a small Iowa town where, after Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his Deputy, Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) find themselves with a handful of dead bodies, things seem to go straight to Hell. In one of the earlier scenes a man locks his wife and son inside of their country home and sets it ablaze.

Shortly after this scene I set my hopes high for a frightening, heartless celebration of gore and violence. What The Crazies delivers instead is a tale of survival against a disease cause by government corruption and dishonesty. It turns out the entire epidemic was caused by the crash of a plane carrying some chemical weapon into the town’s drinking water. When David and Russell stumble across this problem, things in the story finally start to progress. Continue reading →