Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend (2/4 stars)

They had to turn it into Resident Evil. Matheson’s novel is a meditation on what a man would become if he were all alone. This was captured very nicely by director Francis Lawrence and The Fresh Prince through the first half of the film. The eerie, empty sprawl of a deserted New York City. The [...]

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Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Carribean 2 (2.5 out of 4 stars)

No, I’m not hating on a film that’s proven to be very popular. Dead Man’s Chest (DMC, no I’m not typing that ludicrous monstrosity of a title out) is a long-winded, self-indulgent poorly-paced second installment to Disney’s new moneymaking franchise. It suffers from the second installment sickness of having no beginning and no end, and [...]

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A Celluloid Three-bagger

Baseball season just kicked off, and I’m marking this event by revisiting some of the baseball films in my library. The first three I picked are fairly well-known and in the case of at least one of them, much-loved. Strangely, only one of these three films is *really* about baseball, and it’s the one that’s [...]

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Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (3 out of 4 stars)

It’s a testament to how underwhelmed I was with this year’s Academy Awards class that I didn’t bother to do my usual picks. I had very little interest in The Queen and The Last King of Scotland, and having seen the other three contenders, decided that I didn’t really give a shit this year. That [...]

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Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale (3 out of 4 stars)

I always take crap from my friends when I claim that Timothy Dalton played the best Bond. I might as well have claimed that George Lazenby was the definitive Bond. I always appreciated the no-nonsense sense of menace that Dalton came closest to projecting. Brosnan as Bond was as intimidating was Roger Moore. He wasn’t. [...]

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Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (0.5 out of 4 stars)

I could NOT believe it. How could the person responsible for the sublime Lost in Translation be behind THIS steaming turd? It was so bad, it took me months to complete this review. DECENT: I awarded a half star for the set. If they weren’t actually shooting in Versailles, they came up with a reasonable [...]

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Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale (2.5/4 stars)

Battle Royale (or Batoru rowaiaru for the purists out there) is one of the cult classic films that you hear about once in a while. It’s got many of the hallmarks of cult classics – it’s in a foreign language (Japanese), it stars a foreign “name” actor (in this case ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano, and it’s [...]

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The Rewind Reel

The past couple of weeks have been all about seeing films again. It’s a mood that strikes me once in a while. This is when a film library of 1,000+ titles comes in handy. No big reviews here, just the title, a rating and a few lines. Die Hard – 3.5/4 stars – Holds up [...]

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Not so Super: Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns (2.5/4 stars)

I first need to state that Superman is a bitch of a character to write for. Depending on which incarnation of Supes is under discussion, his powers range from demigod-like to limitless. He has three known weaknesses – kryptonite (well-known), magic (less known) and aliens just as, if not more, powerful than himself (the three [...]

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John Lasseter’s Cars (3.5/4 stars)

Yes, it was good. Very, very good. Part of this reaction may be due to the cinematic sewage that I have been subjected to lately. However, my faith in John Lasseter and his team at Pixar continues to be affirmed. They can tell a good story, the can write good characters, and Lasseter can compose [...]

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