Category Archives: Film

Ebert and Roeper eat your heart out.

Bright Star

Bright Star ~John Keats~

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon in death.

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Alice in Wonderland: A Narcissist’s Review

As I left the IMAX theater tonight, pondering the tone of my review for the latest cinematic interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s enigmatic tale(s), I came to the rapid conclusion that there is a sure fire two-part litmus test for whether or not you will find this movie worthy of your entertainment dollars:

a) Are you a fan of Tim Burton films?

and/or

b) Do you enjoy the basic plot of the story of Alice in Wonderland?

My answers to those questions:

a) Most certainly. More often than not, Tim Burton satisfies.

b) Yes, but I did not come by my enjoyment in the conventional sense.

At this point I could give you an x out of 5 stars rating, brush my teeth, and drift off to sleep
dreaming of watch-bearing rabbits.

But you just know I’m not going to go quietly into this good night now, don’t you?

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Shutter Island

A Non-Spoiler Review

When it comes to the horror/suspense/thriller genre of films, I prefer work like The Others and The Orphanage to that of Friday the Thirteenth part 47 and Freddie Kills Jason’s Mother’s Favorite German Shepherd. Give me something creepy and filled with atmosphere over slasher gore any day. I am especially a sucker for any story set in an old insane asylum. The true horror of what used to be done to people in the name of mental health care coupled with locales that, when abandoned, are as creepy as they come ratchets my interest level way up. So when I saw the trailer for Martin Scorsese’s latest film, it mattered not to me that it starred the ‘sometimes good, sometimes not-so-good’ Leonardo DiCaprio or that it was being released during the months of the year where all bad films go to die. I knew I had to see it in the theater, and Saturday morning found me doing just that.

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Moon, and more

In the not-so-distant future the majority of Earth’s energy needs are supplied by Helium-3, mined from the far side of the moon. The company responsible for this miracle is Lunar Industries. Their lone moon-based employee, Sam Bell, is nearing the end of his 3 year stint ensuring that the machines keep working and that the Helium-3 is regularly shipped back to Earth. Despite the company of his robotic computer, GERTY, the isolation (made worse by the fact that the live satellite connection to Earth is broken) is taking its toll on Sam. With two weeks to go, and a wife and young daughter to return to, Sam just has to keep it together for a little while longer.

A virtuoso solo performance of a story penned by the son of a famous rocker begets an intense, thought-provoking science fiction film that recalls the kind of stories that made golden age science fiction authors great. Save yourself from the possibility of any spoilers by not watching the trailer. Go rent the film. Moon is a fine example of science fiction done right.

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Double Feature

A couple of really big films came out over the Christmas holidays, and over the course of the last three weeks I have managed to get out to the theater to see both of them. Both films won Golden Globes this past weekend, and I seem to be posting like mad lately, so it made some sense to me to go ahead and do a couple of brief film reviews Double Feature style. I would love to know your thoughts/feelings about these two films. Each in their stead have things that recommend them and each have generated very vocal and understandable reasons not to see them. In the course of their respective reviews I will attempt to touch on them. The order of the poster images and the review order were chosen simply in the order that I saw each film. I watched Sherlock Holmes over the week between Christmas and New Years and watched Avatar this past Thursday evening.

And now, on with the show…

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