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Title
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Description
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The Aviator |
A partial biography of Howard Hughes spanning 20 years that looks and feels like Citizen Kane. The movie is a bit long and there are some slower spots, but it really looks great. We watch as a young, brash, eccentric millionaire takes on the establishment doing whatever he wants, spending millions of dollars doing wildly outlandish things, but then slowly turning inward toward growing despair and madness. Leonardo DiCaprio does a great job. And so does Director Martin Scorsese. It does not have a happy ending (as we all know) and has a stronger effect if you're old enough to remember Howard Hughes before he died and faded from view.
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National Treasure |
This improbable modern day Indiana-Jones-like treasure hunt starts with stealing the Declaration of Independence and then gets more and more ridiculous. I was impressed early in the movie when they were handling the DoI with care, but later on they start handling it like a kids placemat from McDonalds. The movie keeps a nice snappy pace over the 2.5 hours as they go from Washington to Philadelphia to New York and is interesting to watch even though it's clearly impossible.
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Finding Neverland |
The bittersweet story of how theatrical writer James Barrie came to be inspired to write "Peter Pan" in the early 1900's after befriending 4 fatherless boys in London's Kensington Gardens one beautiful green summer. What follows is a fact-based story of sorrow and hope, of failed and satisfying relationships that asks you to step outside the ordinary and make the most of the time you have left. Johnny Depp's mildly sad, understated performance carries the movie which took a few liberties with some of the facts, but comes across as being genuine.
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A Series Of Unfortunate Events |
This movie encompasses the first 3 books of the childrens series, although not in chronological order. Jim Carrey plays an animated and despicable "uncle" to 3 young children orphaned when their parents died in a suspicious fire. All sorts of bad things happen to the children (Violet, Klaus and Sunny), but they stick together and fight their way through the evil doings. The movie is episodic (what would you expect?) but seems to go very fast. We had a series of unfortunate events at the theatre too - the bottom half of the movie was mostly blanked out and the theatre lights never came on at the conclusion.
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Closer |
A real talking movie with very little action. The characters are not lovable - spending the whole time backbiting, sniping and being mean to each other and having sex for conquest and blackmail instead of love. It grows old fairly quickly as they progressively screw each other physically and figuratively. There is some voyeur appeal because of Natalie Portman's strip club scenes (but they didn't show much). Also, Natalie's acting in this movie is very good.
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Blade: Trinity |
Wesley Snipes is at it again. But he's done it before and this Blade didn't really have anything too new to cheer about. I liked Jessica Biel as Whistler's daughter and the wisecracking Hannibal King character. But overall this movie seemed mostly a re-hash of earlier films with similar action. I liked the Predator-like fangs on the vampires but I'm told these were not new and were done earlier in Blade II.
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Sideways |
Offbeat bittersweet comedy about 2 guys on an week-long outing in California wine country. The wine becomes a metaphor for human life, aging to a perfect peak and then slow decline after middle age. Some wines are balanced and sweet and others are bitter and disappointing, but hopefully they're all memorable. Reminded me of a Coen film where the unexpected twists to life are always just around the next corner.
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The Spongebob Squarepants Movie |
Spongebob and Patrick have to save Mr. Krabs from the wrath of King Neptune by traveling to Shell City to retrieve his crown that was stolen by Plankton. This is really just an 88-minute version of the regular cartoon show. But it's so totally focused on SB and Patrick that Squidward, Sandy and the others are just bit players. For someone like me who's seen virtually all of the TV episodes, it was just OK. It's probably better for newbies who haven't ever experienced the zanyness.
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The Incredibles |
Another animated film by Pixar that is very, very good. The Incredibles are just like any other family except they have super-powers that they try to keep hidden (because of ongoing litigation). But they are forced out of hiding to do battle with an evil kid-turned-adult who's unleashed a huge spider robot that can't be stopped. The action and humor are incredible.
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I Heart Huckabees |
Oh golly gee, a new low. So bad that it must surely squat among the lowest of the low. Some might find it artsy and humorous. I found 106 minutes of wasted time in this lame movie about 2 idiots searching for the meaning of life as revealed by 3 dimwits. It's a one-trick pony. After you've seen the first 30 minutes you can pretty much skip the rest. And you wish you could.
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Friday Night Lights |
Odessa, Texas is the setting for this fact-based story about the local obsession for High School football and the 1988 Texas state championship. I liked the down-to-earth blue collar feel of the film and felt some sympathy for people with so little in their lives that High School football becomes so overwhelmingly important, but I'm not a big fan of this genre and it usually sets me to yawning like watching a blowout game in the 4th quarter.
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Collateral |
Wow. I thought this movie was pretty good. Tom Cruise plays a bad guy - an expert hired assassin. Jamie Foxx is his unwilling cab driver caught up in 5 planned murders over one night in LA, but he can't back out or he'll be the sixth. Lots of good character development even for people who eventually get killed. Right at the end, one continuity error distracted me for a bit, but I don't think many others saw it.
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The Forgotten |
A mother is sure that her son was killed in an airplane crash, but nobody believes her, because she never had a a son. Her quest for answers just leads her into deeper problems of the X-Files variety (only a few know what's really going on). About half-way into the movie there's one scene that literally knocked me out of my seat. After that I was a bit more prepared for a couple more unexpected moments. These may not translate well onto the small-screen, but they worked great in the theatre.
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Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow |
A different movie as you can tell from the title. A comic-book style film captured in 1940's style cinematography with a hero, a villain and a damsel. The hero is reminiscent of Indiana Jones, the robots are mostly clunky 1940's style, the plot is what you'd expect and the characters were predictable. They did a good job in capturing the look and feel of 1940's science fiction and it was a decent enough diversion for a couple of hours.
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Hero |
In the tradition and style of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" this is a nice subtitled Chinese movie that evokes the image of long-ago China 2,200 years ago. What follows is a tale of an emperor trying to unite 6 kingdoms, his would-be assassins and battles on an immense scale. I have never seen so many arrows in my life - big thick black ones too. The story is just OK but the scenery and atmosphere are outstanding. I must be getting used to subtitles because it didn't bother me much this time.
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The Village |
An unusual movie, more of a mystery than a scary movie. The setting is a rural backward village that wants no contact with the outside world and has invented elaborate rituals to keep its inhabitants within its boundaries. However it takes over one hour (major yawn) to set the stage and get down to the somewhat scary parts. Putting aside the dreadfully slow first hour, the rest of the movie was pretty good. It was certainly better than the Blair Witch Project from a few years ago (1999).
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Catwoman |
Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) is a meek, mousy 20-something until a magic cat transforms her into Catwoman who has beyond-incredible speed and agility. But patience is what you'll need when watching this movie since it takes 1-hour before Catwoman eventually emerges and the movie can get down to business. Then you'll get dizzy with all the leaping and eye-scrambling camerawork. There were some cute moments and I thought Halle did a credible catty-job, but her catlike abilities were just way too wild and she could have been just a little bit more seductive.
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I, Robot |
Action-packed futuristic murder mystery. Set in 2035 Chicago, detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) really doesn't like robots and nobody understands why until bad things start happening. With a strong resemblance to Bladerunner (a big-city detective chasing errant robots) and 2001, A Space Odyssey (mainframe computer interpreting it's program in an unexpected way) there's nonstop action as the truth unfolds. I thought the CGI robots were very well-done and the chase scene in the tunnel was outstanding.
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Fahrenheit 9/11 |
Unabashed Bush bashing by Michael Moore. More neutral on Republican versus Democrat than I expected (he hits on both of them). But he shows a connection between the Bush family's relation to oil money that leads you to believe the Iraq War was really about "the haves" just wanting to make more money and that the American people were intentionally and continually misled that it was to fight Al Qaeda, WMD and 9-11, so they would support the effort. I liked the cultural and political insight and humor, but the relentless anti-war theme was pretty thick.
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Spiderman 2 |
An outstanding sequel. Spiderman is an emotionally conflicted superhero who has trouble with family and friends and is physically worn out. But somehow he deals with all his many troubles and still saves New York from a nuclear meltdown caused by a deranged scientist that's morphed into an immensely powerful half-mechanical creature. A great mix of plot, character development, high-speed action and special effects.
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Two Brothers |
A disney-like family story about 2 tiger cubs in 1890's Cambodia, separated when very young and reunited much later as adults. I was amazed by the cinematography. There were some incredible action scenes and the tiger's facial expressions told you exactly what they were thinking (happy, angry, puzzled). The movie was paced a little too slow for my kids, but I liked it.
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Dodgeball |
OK, this is a Ben Stiller movie so it's gotta be stupid. It is and I liked it. It's the nerds versus the jocks in an international Dodgeball Tournament in Las Vegas. It's predictably ridiculous and improbable with lots of sight gags and silly dialogue. Lots of suggestive situations make this movie suitable only for teens and adults, not pre-teens.
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The Terminal |
Tom Hanks plays an unlucky airline traveler from the mythical country of Krakozhia who's forced to stay in New York's JFK Airport International Arrival Lounge until his country is officially recognized by the US government. The movie gets a bit old after a while because that's all the plot there is. Catherine Zeta-Jones is cast as an occasional love interest, but their relationship seemed contrived and out-of-place. A little disappointing for a Spielberg/Hanks movie.
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The Day After Tomorrow |
Bad things happen when you mess with Mother Earth, specifically the Gulf Stream. The whole Earth goes into an Ice Age in a catastrophic way or at least that's what this movie says when it goes over-the-top with unexplained immense tidal waves and three gigantic super-ice storms across the northern hemsiphere and everybody heads toward Mexico. Then it turns into a "father saves son" story as a devoted Dad treks from Pennsylvania to New York City.
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban |
More of Harry's dark past is uncovered in this latest episode although I'm told by my daughters that large portions of the book never made it to the screen. I thought the Dementors were extremely creepy and while the entire tone of the movie was more dark and foreboding than earlier ones, the story felt fuller and the movie was deeper in character development.
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Shrek 2 |
This was a very good movie, even better than the original, which was very good. Lots of fun and laughter in many areas: sight-gag humor for the kids and deeper humor for the adults with nuances that will take another viewing to fully appreciate. I thought the addition of Puss In Boots really spiced things up and gave Eddie Murphy's donkey a run for the money as the most humorous animal sidekick.
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Hellboy |
The Nazi's are at it again. This time trying to win the war through tapping into an evil alternate universe and accidentally snatching a devilish boy from the ether. Fortunately this devil boy has a good father and he grows up to be a champion superhero. I thought this movie was OK but I'm just not a much of a fan of non-SciFi supernatural. I did like the action near the end when Hellboy turns to his darker side.
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Starsky and Hutch |
Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller find themselves back in the 1970's playing those oddly matched detectives from the familiar TV series. Great 70's tunes, puffy hairdos and wide collars. I liked the retro look, but the plot and laughs were pretty average.
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Hidalgo |
I still can't belive this film is based on fact: A soft-spoken half-Indian cowboy from the 1890's Old West takes his wild little mustang (Hidalgo) to Arabia and beats all the locals with their big desert-bred Thoroughbreds even though Hidalgo is skewered by a wooden spike in the final stages and it has to be cut out with a knife. I was a little distracted by Omar Sarif playing one of the patriarch Arabs, reminded of his earlier role in another desert film. The desert scenes were very pictureseque, but the movie felt a bit overlong for such a simple storyline.
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The Passion of the Christ |
If you like watching somebody get beaten to a bloody pulp for 2 straight hours, this movie's for you. Written by Believers for Believers this movie delivers sustained gore aplenty. I'm thinking the actual event was probably far less gruesome and less well-attended by the locals. The movie dwells almost solely on the torture of the Crucifixion and avoids most of Christ's teachings. Everyone speaks in Aramaic and Latin which I though was interesting. Other than that, I found it to be a disappointment. I wasn't stirred to passion, I got tired of the sustained carnage and the storyline follows the well-established details of the Gospels and provides no new insights or inspiration.
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Against The Ropes |
Meg Ryan's career is against the ropes in this routine film about a female boxing promoter taking a chance with an unknown middleweight fighter. Meg looks like she's aged quite a bit, she's really skinny and has a raspy voice like she's been smoking a couple of packs for the last 10 years. The plot is familiar: Unknown Fighter takes on the Boxing Establishment and wins, even though the other guys cheat. Meg is just not convincing in this role; she isn't threatening and running around in a new revealing-costume-of-the-day doesn't help her credibility.
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Along Came Polly |
Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston become each other's new romantic interest after Stiller's character gets dumped by his new bride during his honeymoon and then he runs into wacky Polly. What follows is somewhat amusing movie involving a madcap ferret and the usual Stiller-brand of situational comedy. It was OK, but really not that memorable.
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Torque |
Motorcycle gangs with highly-expensive powerful motorcycles racing at unbelievable speeds are the focus of this tale about a young man trying to clear his name from an undeserved murder rap. Perfect for young rebellious teen boys, this movie with all these shining, sleek expensive motorcycles, lots of action and rough, tough characters makes you wonder how they afford this hobby and what a drastic lifestyle change is ahead of them when they settle down and have kids and mortgages.
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Cold Mountain |
A tale about a Confederate soldier disillusioned by the brutal senselessness of the war who defects and tries to make his way back home to Cold Mountain, North Carolina. The storyline is pretty straightforward, but the acting and characterizations are just outstanding, especially Renée Zellweger who plays Ruby. I loved the line about the Civil War where Ruby says the men started the storm and now they're all coming back crying that "it's raining". Violence and situations justify the R-rating.
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