I LOVE HARRY POTTER!!! I HATE TEENAGED TWILIGHT FANS!!! Yay for Luna’s lion hat! Yay for Quiditch (we haven’t actually seen a game since the thrd movie)! Yay for Jim Broadbent (Merlin’s beard!)! Yay for Tom Felton getting a lot of emotional spectrum and screentime instead of just being a wanker and a git! Yay for Ginny Weasely! Boo for Fawkes removed disappearance! Boo for Harry not being magically frozen by Dumbledore during the finale! Boo for Horcrux scene (well acted, but not at all what I expected visually – they made it crystally and more naturally occuring which is silly because it’s magic)!

The best praise I can give this movie is that I liked it better than the first one. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy or like this movie (which I did), but I wasn’t on fire to see it in the first place and basically I was pleasantly surprised. My problems with the first movie are pretty well described by VG Cats: “You have one token human, then make way for the f*#$ing robots”. Sure I laughed at the parents and at Shia LeBouf and Megan Fox…but I REALLY hated John Tuturro and Anthony Anderson…they were very annoying. I mean I even got annoyed at Jon Voight whom I love (not only is he a proud conservative in Hollywood he is an enjoyable actor), which just isn’t fair. The whole subplot with the government trying to decode the alien language was garbage as well. This movie starts off better … Continue reading →

Absolutely BRILIANT sequel. The plot isn’t hackneyed and the adventure is out of this world! Not too fond of Bill Hader’s portrayal of General George Custer. Although Hader is funny (see SNL and Hot Rod), I didn’t quite appreciate his humor and bravado as Custer. Then again, they were just using Custer in the same way they used Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) in the last film (as a cowardly, waxy version of the heroic person they’re molded after)…but they did it weird! Oh well. I was happy to recognize Bill Hader though (I couldn’t tell it was him on the cardboard cutout/poster). Were there a lot of American “The Office” cameos (Andy, Kelli, and Cal) at Ricky Gervais’ request (he the star actor, writer, director of the British “The Office” and executive producer of the American “The Office”)? Or was it merely happy coincidence? I always wonder in these cases … Continue reading →

Laura says they changed the book, but to hear her tell it, it sounds like the smaller semantical changes that I hated with the adaptation of Harry Potter and Azkaban. Sorry lover! A delightfully talented cast including Ewan McGregor and Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd, I enjoyed this film almost as much as Da Vinci Code (I’ve long since gotten over my piety concerning THAT piece of fiction), but not as much as I’ve enjoyed the National Treasure movies. As I cracked midway through the film, “Can’t we just watch Ewan McGregor solve puzzles and kick ass?” To be fair, my problem isn’t with Tom Hanks as the puzzle solver…or with his character Robert Langdon for that matter…I just prefer American history (and the history of it’s European colonizers) to church/religious history. But I do love all the juicy historical tidbits and the life-threatening scenarios our heroes always get themselves into. Before the … Continue reading →

Lot of fun, lots of action… Yay Ryan Reynolds! Sure he’s only there part of the time, but he’s very funny and sarcastic…basically my kind of guy 😉 Yay Gambit! Sure he’s a pre-pubescent punk, but he’s got a N’awlins accent, throws playing cards and fights with a quarterstaff…what’s not to love? And of course yay Hugh Jackman and Liev Schrieber!! Two great actors who really embody their characters, able to express the animal rage at the core of the savage Sabretooth and the wicked Wolverine.

I saw this film in it’s opening week for three reasons: 1) I was excited by the trailer – James Earl Jones! 2) I wanted Disney to plant a tree with my ticket purchase 3) I wanted to support the brand new DisneyNature label (essentially a production house for Disney’s True Life Adventures) Between the first viewing of the trailer and my viewing of the film, a negative thought was introduced into my head regarding this maiden voyage of DisneyNature (primarily from this MousePlanet review): that the film was simply a poor, disjointed summary of BBC’s Planet Earth miniseries (which was and still is a fantastic promo for the beauty of hi-definition television sets). Obviously this wasn’t enough to make me not see the film, but it definitely clouded my idle thought. I agree the film is slightly disjointed and prone to take liberties with narrative jumps, but the story … Continue reading →

The advertisments all highlight the fact that this is a film from the director of Die Hard 2 (which to me is the more lackluster of the quadrilogy) and the producer of Speed (eh), but it’s basically the plot of Die Hard 3. Not to say this is a bad movie…it’s very exciting and terse and enjoyable. John Cena gives a very enjoyable performance (in my opinion not as good as Dwayne Johnson, but not bad for his second tour of the leading man position…The Rock was a little stiff in The Scorpion King) as Officer Danny Shaw, a beat cop in New Orleans who gets dragged into a sadistic terrorist’s 12 round game where the rules are solve the puzzle or people die.

Can you judge a franchise film without being familiar with it’s predecessors? Can a film stand on it’s own regardless of it’s origins? Who am I to judge…I enjoyed this movie very much, despite (or thanks to) having never seen the original Witch Mountain movies (released in the late 70’s by the Walt Disney Company). Dwayne Johnson is a very capable action comedy hero (don’t go in the pimped out fridge Jack…), and I very much enjoy his acting. Carla Gugina once again gets to have fun in a supporting actress role (from Spy Kids to Watchmen, she just keeps working it on screen…). Anna SophiaRobb (Bridge To Terabithia, Because Of Winn-Dixie) is joined by newcomer Alexander Ludwig as insensitive-but-loveable aliens on a mission.