Coraline
This afternoon we went to see Coraline. I was lukewarm towards the book by Neil Gaiman (especially since I don’t care for Dave McKean’s artwork), but I’m happy to say that the film is terrific....
View ArticleStar Trek: The Reboot
J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek film is sort of the anti-Battlestar Galactica. BSG took a fairly goofy old TV series and turned it into a serious adventure drama. Star Trek takes what was a serious...
View ArticleUp
Pixar’s new film Up is terrific. The journey of retiree and widower Carl Fredrickson (voice of Ed Asner) to South America in a house lifted by thousands of balloons is an utterly ridiculous premise,...
View Article“Up” Date
One last, more personal, note about Up. Spoilers ahead in case you haven’t seen the film. The opening montage of the film in which we see how the disappointment’s in Carl’s life shaping him into a...
View ArticleHarry Potter VI
Last Sunday we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the new film in the series. My expectations for the films at this point are moderate at best: The book series bottomed out with the...
View ArticleChangeling
I was interesting in seeing Changeling when it hit the theaters last fall, but somehow ended up missing it. Thanks to the wonder of On Demand television (which I imagine will put video rental places...
View ArticleThe Seven Samurai
It’s been a lo-o-ong time since we’d been to see anything at the Stanford Theatre, but when I saw they were doing an Akira Kurosawa film festival, I persuaded Debbi to go with me to see the classic...
View ArticleToy Story 3
11 years after the second film, Pixar gives us Toy Story 3. Although, as my Dad commented, the premise wears a little thin the third time around, it’s still quite a good film, thoughtful and clever,...
View ArticleScott Pilgrim vs. The World
It had me at “An epic tale of epic epicness.” Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the film adaptation of the graphic novel series by Brian Lee O’Malley (first volume here), lived up to my hopes, being a good...
View ArticleCaptain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The First Avenger might be the perfect superhero movie (so far, anyway): It’s exciting, fun, has a hero who’s heroic but not perfect, and makes you feel for the characters. And it...
View ArticleWhy I Don’t Like Stanley Kubrick’s Films
At lunch the other day we somehow went from talking about Pixar films to talking about those of director Stanley Kubrick. Some people love Kubrick’s films, but I don’t, having seen five and not enjoyed...
View ArticleAlien
A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that Alien is his “favorite movie of all time”. This was coincidental, since during our lunch conversation the other day about Stanley Kubrick, someone...
View ArticleHugo
We finally made it out to see Hugo (2011) on Sunday. Despite seeing it in a theater with a really crappy sound system, it was still a fun film, though not quite as enjoyable as I’d hoped. (We didn’t...
View ArticleThe Avengers
If you, like me, don’t understand what all the fuss is over Joss Whedon, then be assured that his summer blockbuster film The Avengers (2012) will do nothing at all to enlighten you. It’s near the top...
View ArticleIron Men
Last weekend we watched the two Iron Man films that came out. They’re both enjoyable films, with the first one being the better of the two, and the second maybe a couple of ticks above The Avengers....
View ArticleThe Dark Knight Rises
Critics gushed over The Dark Knight, I think not entirely justifiably. While Heath Ledger’s performance was a revelation, the script was a little weak, full of gimmicks and with a disappointing climax....
View ArticleStar Trek Into Darkness
Before I saw Star Trek Into Darkness I saw someone sum up the film as “A fun film. Not a good film, but fun.” While I tried to avoid learning too much about it before seeing it, I learned things here...
View ArticleLooking Back at Star Wars
I saw the original Star Wars when it first came out in the theater. I was 8. Years later my Dad told me that his reaction to the Imperial ship that appears in the first scene was that “it just kept...
View ArticleCaptain America: The Winter Soldier
The first Captain America film was my favorite superhero film to date, but its sequel, The Winter Soldier, has been getting great reviews, and finally we were able to go see it today. Spoilers ahoy!...
View ArticleThree Disney Films
Recently we watched the three most recent Disney animated films, and I wanted to write a few words about them. The Princess and the Frog (2009), based on the fairy tale “The Frog Prince”, takes place...
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