Next to the Star Wars saga and the Indiana Jones films, there was no other movie I loved more in the 1980s than Clash of the Titans. After watching Perseus turn the Kraken into stone with Medusa’s severed head, I was obsessed with Greek mythology. I gobbled up any book I could find at the school library. I even dressed up as Perseus on Halloween in 1982. I was 100 percent sure the third-grade ladies would be swooning over me …
Category: Reviews
First, a warning: Loaded with the stuff eyes love gnoshing, Clash of the Titans should be seen in two dimensions, not three. Filmed top to bottom for a 2D release, Clash of the Titans composition, lighting, effects and edits were created for the unaided eye. As a result, Clash of the Titans retrofitted 3D presentation is a dim, vision punishing mess of double imaging and off-kilter depth; slipshod artifacts that disrupt viewing to the point of souring it. Technological grumbling …
Between Kung Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon, Dreamworks Animation is on to something. Thankfully jettisoning the “story built around jokes” framework that’s been their bread and butter since Shrek, How To Train Your Dragon hews more closely to the better connective practice of building an emotionally resounding story. The result is an animated family film that follows a predictable “find your place in the world and teach your community a lesson in the process” trope, but does …
Despite being a taught action-thriller and one of the best films of 2010 (granted we’re only two and half months into the year), only two things will be buzzed about Paul Greengrass’ (The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum) new Matt Damon-starring movie, Green Zone: Shaky/Queasy Cam and politics. Fortunately, most competent viewers will ease past the low-hanging, easy-to-reach baseless pedestrian criticisms and savor the unapologetic story Greengrass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland (The Taking of Pelham 123) deliver with frantic …
Ogden Marsh is Hollywood’s typical snapshot of small-town, Podunk, Midwest America. Located in Iowa, it’s the kind of place where hunting, pickups, farming, the gentle smell of manure and voting Republican are generally the norm. It’s the type of town without strangers, where kids ride bicycles gleefully and without fear down Main Street, and where the entire town shows up to cheer on the high school baseball team. It’s idyllic, old-fashioned and charming. And when The Crazies opens you already …
There’s something mesmerizing about Martin Scorsese and the answer as to what finally dawned on me while watching him accept the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes almost a month ago. No, it’s not his furry caterpillar eyebrows tucked behind his bold, thick-framed glasses, nor is it his infectiously happy speech and big-toothed grandpa grin. To be precise, it’s his absolute and lasting love of all things cinema, which was unmistakable as I listened to his gracious remarks …
The Wolfman, Universal Pictures’ remake of the 1941 classic, is a taut backlot tram tour of a dour, sunless 1880s England, complete with cobweb-infested castles, fog-filled cemeteries and forests, and topped with blood-soaked werewolves that would make the phony Lycans in the Twilight Saga quiver in their own puppy piddle. Simply put, The Wolfman is a devilishly fun haunted house thrill ride, only with more severed limbs, decapitations, popped out eyes, disembowelments and torn flesh. The movie opens, like the …
With no less than 20 billable stars and eight story lines, the humdrum Valentine’s Day is a marshmallow-fisted counter-attack against the cynical idea that “Love’s Day” is a corporate foisted, marketing driven excuse to steal money and inspire loveless singles feel bad about themselves. It’s a “one day where love conquers all and everyone gets their Valentine wish” movie. Or at least, that’s what the overly forced scripts tries to clobber home. Instead, Valentine’s Day offers a valentine box that’s …
The first thing you should know about Crazy Heart – a simple yet searing portrait of a tired and broken country music artist named Bad Blake – is it will bring to Jeff Bridges (Iron Man) his first-ever Academy Award win out of five nominations over the last 40 years. You should also know if you live in Cache Valley and plan to see this movie, you’ll have to head south to Ogden, where it’s showing at the Megaplex 13 …
Those French. They may look down their collective noses at fat Americans, but they sure do love the way we get s**t done. Luc Besson– cinema’s most prolific Frenchman— has unleashed another action drenched story template (ala Taken, The Transporter) and cozied up with his “Besson School of Filmmaking” graduate Pierre Morel (Taken and the upcoming Dune remake) to offer up the guiltily pleasurable From Paris With Love. Together, Besson and Morel massage French-American relations like it’s nobody’s business. If …