Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

Months ago I tapped this film as my most anticipated for the summer. It seemed to be the rare blockbuster that was remotely concerned with the world we live in, and it turns out that that’s true…to a point. Even if Elysium ultimately falls a little short of expectations, it’s still one of the absolute…

A textbook example of how expectations can alter your experience at the movies. I think this movie looked like generic junk a couple months——-hell, a couple weeks before it opened. And then the buzz got progressively better a few days before it opened (reviews were actually good, there were rumored to be interesting twists, Paula Patton had…

To say that this Wolverine is vastly better than the first standalone film for him is the ultimate backhanded compliment. I’m only saying this movie is good (not great) but judging by all the lackluster superhero/comic-book movies clogging up theaters in the last couple years, that just might be good enough. What Works: The Wolverine…

A foreign film…an independent foreign film…a independent foreign documentary. That’s what The Act of Killing is, and so, naturally, very few people in the United States will ever even hear of it, let alone watch it. Still, those that do catch it are going to be watching one of the most subtly audacious and thought-provoking documentaries…

I think so many people are focusing on the “importance” (a tricky and subjective word) of this film that they’re really missing out on the film’s true message: the banality of racial tragedy. Obviously, that’s given added meaning in the days sense the Zimmerman trial verdict. What Works: Oscar Grant (played by Chronicle/Parenthood’s Michael B….

The anticipation of going into this movie may be scarier than the film itself. That being said, I couldn’t help but smirk at the theatergoers saying “Well it wasn’t that scary” on their way out of the theater even as they were screaming their heads ofduring the film. It seems like unless a movie gives you a…

It follows a formula too much and very few scenes in this movie (about a high school valedictorian trying to become more sexually experienced before she goes to college) are really funny, but in its female-version-of-Porkies way it stumbles onto some real truths about young love/sex and how different it is for boys and girls. What Works:…

Ryan Reynolds (the voice star here) had double flops on the weekend of July 19th when he starred in this and R.I.P.D. although this film appears to be doing a little bit better than his fantasy-buddy-cop movie. Apparently, people would rather watch a really fast snail than a Men in Black rip-off, to each their…

This thing pretty much opened and died on opening weekend, so it’s only fitting that I don’t spend too much time with it here. That being said, the grosses were dismal (a 12 million dollar opening for a film that cost well over 100 million to make), the reviews were terrible (a horrible 15 percent…

A movie like this is actually really hard to grade because they’re putting so little effort into it to begin with. It’s like it’s almost making fun of itself as it goes along, so it’s a little hard to really find anything that wrong with it (or right with it) without looking like you’re taking…

Kicking off the first of a staggering seven new movie reviews today (and hey, a couple of them are even brand new movies) proving once again Alabama Liberal’s diversity is Pacific Rim, a new monster movie that’s either a slight disappointment or the sleeper hit of the summer depending on what article you read and who you…

This movie desperately wants to be the next Little Miss Sunshine but I really don’t think it is. It’s set during the summer vacation of a very lonely and introverted kid——and it is a testament to this kid’s lack of charisma or presence that I honestly cannot remember his name or the actor who played…

Sofia Coppolla’s detached yet intriguing movie based on a real-life ring of kids who broke into celebrity homes and stole expensive crap from them that they didn’t even know was missing. What Works: There’s something audacious about watching shallow young thieves break into the homes of shallow young celebrities and steal items of such conspicuous…