Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

Skip it. It kills me to say that, as this was one of the films I was looking the most forward to this summer, but it really is a disappointment. You’ll have an okay time if you do go, but pretty much all the jokes are in the trailers and nothing much wilder than that…

Wes Anderson (that fussy man-child who made the terrific Rushmore 15 years ago and hasn’t left that world since with Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited, etc.) is a very specific kind-of filmmaker who draws a very specific kind of audience. By now, you either know if you’re a Wes Anderson fan or a hater. A person…

Note: Ordinarily, when I watch a movie I like to mention what type of screen I saw it on (regular cineplex screen, poorly kept-up independent theater screen, fake IMAX screen, and true IMAX screen) as I do believe it makes a difference and also because—-9 times out of 10—-the 3D ticket price just isn’t worth…

This was my third most anticipated movie of the summer (behind Prometheus and, of course, The Dark Knight Rises). I’m sorry to say it’s merely pretty good. I’m really torn on this one, because I absolutely love all the risks that Sacha Baron Cohen took, but I don’t think all of them pay off. What…

So this movie is a little bit better than you might think (which matches up with my expectations of it as being in the middle ground for summer movies, not too bad, not extremely good). And in that way, it’s a minor miracle that a film that really says nothing and was made solely to…

So this animated movie pretty much came and went during the last week of April but I might as well talk about it anyway. What Works: Well, like all Aardman claymation movies (the same guys who make all the Wallace and Gromit films and the excellent Chicken Run about a decade back), the movie is…

This movie is awful. I’d like to take a small victory lap in that as I correctly put it on my “List of five movies that will suck,” summer list. What Works: Virtually nothing. I can’t single out the direction because it was a mess. The script featured everything that’s wrong with Hollywood movies. And…

So I semi-reviewed this movie when I talked about the experience of seeing it in China, but this is more the standard review…By now, literally everybody that goes to the movies has seen this but I might as well discuss it anyway. What Works: This movie is thoroughly mediocre, and exactly what you’d expect…so in…

Continuing on with our Alabama Liberal China week, I thought it might interest some—-not many, but some—-to know what it’s like to go to a movie (The Avengers) in Shanghai. If you answered “Probably not much different and you’re wasting our time writing about this when you could be endlessly talking about the presidential election,”…

So what in the hell does that awkward title mean? It means that I recently took a very long international roundtrip on an airplane (more about where I went tomorrow, but I think most readers will be in for a surprise) and one of the only things keeping you sane back in coach—-where I was…

Note: I’m reviewing this based off an early screening I saw a month ago, so I’m not sure that the version in theaters is exactly what I watched (they said the movie would be edited from what we saw). I feel like it’s 95 % the same movie, and I don’t foresee any big changes…

After being lukewarm to downright unenthused about all of today’s movies, here comes an honest-to-God crowd pleaser. I may not have been totally in love with this film, but I can recommend it to almost anyone and feel like they’ll have a pretty good time. What Works: The set-up is that two cops who knew…

Man, this is going to be a hard one to explain… Okay, so this movie is as famous for its ratings battle as it is for the actual content of the movie. For anyone who doesn’t know (and is perhaps not alive on this planet), the film is about bullying kids and received an R-rating…