Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

This “movie” is really bits and pieces of the Cirque Du Soleil shows in Vegas, all strung together with the thinnest of plots. Basically, there’s a girl, and there’s a guy, and they are in loooooooooooove or something like that, but they are “separated” by the Cirque worlds they have to get through to be…

This movie may be slightly better than you think…but only slightly. What Works: At the center is a pretty generic thriller that feels more like a 90’s movie than one in 2012 (the pretty blonde female lead, the basic plot, generic villains, a slightly-damaged hero who’s not really that damaged, the plodding plot, the jokey…

Is “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (although, really, who can call this an unexpected journey? the lack of self-awareness in keeping that subtitle is staggering) a bad movie? Not at all. It’s a solid spectacle, and arguably more fun than much of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the problem is that it really isn’t…

I wasn’t really a fan of this movie, but it’s worth reviewing simply because, well, I saw it…But I’ll make it brief since everyone really just wants to talk about The Hobbit (which I will, a little later on today)… What Works: This updating of the classic story will probably please fans of the material,…

This movie is pretty much exactly what’s wrong with Hollywood. The “plot” (or, more accurately, marketing gimmick) revolves around the “new idea” that a lot of the most famous characters on Earth (Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc.) are actually action heroes that fight the forces of darkness. It employs the trendy mass-market concept…

I liked this movie, and it gets a little better the more I think about it. [Disregard the ultra-harsh F cinemascore rating, if people knew what a good movie was, Taken 2 wouldn’t have gotten an A.] While you’re watching it, there may be a certain impatience that sets in as you watch hitmen, thieves,…

I really liked this movie. Will you? That all depends. Depends largely on how much you like the style of sometimes dramatic/sometimes-comedic director David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees, The Fighter, Three Kings) who’s fully operating in dramedy mode, criss-crossing between dramatic scenes that are hilarious and comedic scenes that are maybe trying just a…

I loved this movie. This is the type of rousing, sharp, entirely perceptive big-studio drama that Hollywood almost doesn’t make anymore. [It’s telling that a man many credit with “ruining” the adult aesthetic of the 70’s, Steven Spielberg, is now making some of the most mature and sophisticated films out there.] Some may think it’s…

This is the rare movie I wish I had seen in 3D. [I’m told it has some of the best 3D since Avatar.] And even in two dimensions, Ang Lee’s latest wildcard is visually stunning. The problem I have is that the look of the movie wowed me but it kept me at arm’s length…

For those that don’t know, this is a remake of the 80’s Charlie Sheen/Patrick Swayze macho-fest where the Russians take over a small town in Colorado, and a ragtag group of misfits (is there any other kind?) fight an insurgency campaign against them. Now, this is a really interesting idea for a movie and it might…

Twilight, Breaking Dawn: Part II (you know a franchise has gone on too long when you have to classify its sequels into subsections) will be the most divisive movie of the year. Barack vs. Romney, who cares? “Does Twilight suck or is it, like, the best ever?” That’s the real blood sport taking place across…

Skyfall——for the 12 people on Earth that don’t know——is the latest James Bond movie, although, since people don’t seem to remember the titles of these movies, maybe it should just be called “James Bond, 2012 episode.” Skyfall is a really curious case of a movie that works yet doesn’t astound. It has so many great…

The Sessions is an independent film many won’t get the chance to see, but they should seek it out if it’s playing in a smaller theater they might not ordinarily go to. It’s the real-life story of a paralyzed, Polio-afflicted poet (John Hawkes, so different here than as the ambiguously menacing uncle in Winter’s Bone,…