Movie Reviews

So, with the demise of my Project 365 experiment, I’ve been looking for some creative outlets for which I can use this blog. I’ve always been an avid collector of music but over the last decade or so, it’s gotten a little out of control. I’ve somehow ended up with a music collection of some 18,000 tracks across a few thousand artists and albums. However, the sad fact is that there is a huge swath of this music I have never actually heard. A lot of it has been picked up as daily deal albums or because it was highly reviewed on emusic and stuck in the music library where it sits awaiting the day where it shows up on the random playlist. Well, when your library gets this big, the chances of stuff showing up on the random playlist start getting pretty small.

I’m having a difficult time remembering a film that has incensed me as much as James Cameron’s latest effort, Avatar.  I have never had a great deal of respect for Cameron’s work, the first two Terminator films exempted.  In fact, his greatest commercial success, Titanic, has always been one of my most despised films.  However, with Avatar, Cameron has truly done something monstrous.

I know there have been several complaints about this film that have been floating around, the small controversies about the notions of racial loyalty, the white man’s savior complex and Sigourney Weaver’s incessant smoking.  Even the Catholic Church has strongly criticized the films endorsement of nature worship.  I think all of these small critiques are hitting around what is really really wrong with this film.

Rating: 3 out of 5

This is one of those films that has all the parts for greatness but just can’t put them together. This film stars the radiant pixie Audrey Tautou (Amélie) as Angélique, a struggling but talented art student, who is wrapped up in an “affair” with an older married cardiologist, Loïc (Samuel Le Bihan - Red) when things begin to decend into unspeakable horror. Unfortunately, I can’t go too far into the plot of this film with out giving out a spoiler for those who can really suspend disbelief.

Rating:

I rented this film (and I used the term loosely) because of some deep seated need for some mindless entertainment. However, the inanity of this monstrosity is too great to satisfy even that small need.

The plot of this movie is really inconsequential, and I mean really inconsequential. Nominally, the story revolves around Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) an Indiana Jones style archeologist and English nobility posing as a photojournalist. Her father (Jon Voight) died and left her a key to a secret triangle that unlocks the power to control time. Stolen by a secret group called the Illuminati, she travels around the world to stop the fiendish plan. Oh yeah, and there is love, reunion and nudity along the way.

Rating: 5 out of 5

This movie is excellent. This movie is also excruciating. This raw and edgy filmmaking that makes you laugh and wince at the same time. While watching this movie, you have this desire to escape the situation but can’t help but to see what happens next.

This is the story of Roger (Campbell Scott), an advertising writer with an incomparable wit and abundant ego. Roger is that type of guy that we all know (and secretly think we want to be). He can talk his way into (and out of) any situation and into any woman’s bedroom. At least, we men think he can. However, after being dumped by his boss/lover Joyce (Isabella Rossellini) and a visit from his lovelorn nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg), Roger’s bachelor lifestyle turns into a nightmare.

Rating: 3 out of 5

I have to admit that I haven’t read any of the amazingly popular novel’s from which this movie came. However, after viewing this film, I am certainly tempted to do so. While this film is certainly designed for the preadolescent market, it has those necessary hooks to keep even the most hardened realist of an adult interested.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is a young wizard, who after his parents were killed, was left with his mean and un-magical, aunt, uncle and bratty cousin who force him to live under the stairs. However, on his 11th birthday he is accepted into the Hogwart’s School for young witches and wizards and enters a world of magic and mystery. While at school, he and his classmates Ronald Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) set out on a quest to find the Sorcerer’s Stone (which will bring immortality to those who possess it) and to prevent an evil wizard from acquiring it.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Like most good Orson Welles’ films, attempting to diagnose the plot of the film can be a daunting task, but I’ll give it my best effort. Orson Welles plays Michael O’Hara, an Irish sailor who meets the lovely and dangerous Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) during a mugging in Central Park. Elsa recruits Michael to serve on her husband’s yacht on a cruise through the South Seas. A sinister and dark murder plot develops and the truth isn’t known until the very end.

Rating: 4 out 5

I can find no word to describe this film other than charming. Written by the living master of the “men behaving badly, but trying to get better” style, Nick Hornby (High Fidelity); this film introduces us to Will, played by Hugh Grant. A loafer, living off the royalties of a popular Christmas tune written by his father, Will has created the ultimate bachelor life of temporary relationships and comfortable solitude. After an odd revelation, he begins to pursue single mothers for his romantic flings. This brings him into contact with twelve year old Marcus (Nicholas Hoult) and his troubled, suicidal mother Fiona, expertly played by the versatile Toni Collette. Together, Nicholas and Will help each other to become the men they want to be.

Rating: 2 out of 5

I picked up this film after learning that it was made by one of my favorite directors, Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children, Amélie). It was my hope that this installment would be better than Alien3 which, at least on that count, it succeeds, even though that’s a low mountain to climb.

In this installment, 200 years have passed since Ripley’s (Sigourney Weaver) death. A splinter military group working secretly without orders clones her (and her alien parasite) from the copious amounts of her blood left over from Alien3. However, after removing her alien, they discover that the cloning process has left Ripley part alien and the alien part Ripley. As usual, the Government, now replacing that evil corporation, screws up and Ripley and some newfound smuggler friends must escape the alien hordes.