A self-taught critic and genuine movie geek
This didn’t quite seem like a kids’ movie, despite being animated — after all, it’s about people dying and going to the afterlife — but kids’ movie it was, and again I felt a little weird about being in the theatre. I really think it would have freaked me out a little when I was a kid, though of course I’m a coward.
Continue reading “The Book of Life”
I’ll admit, the previews for this made me a bit nervous. For one thing, the whole idea seemed like an odd choice for the next Marvel movie, since Guardians of the Galaxy was never a hugely popular title. I vaguely remembered the angry talking raccoon and the green woman, but that was about it, so I wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. Also, John C.
Continue reading “Guardians of the Galaxy”
Once, long ago, someone spoiled the twist ending of The Sixth Sense for me, and ever since then I’ve tried hard not to be That Person. So this review will be very carefully worded, and I refuse to confirm or deny any theories you and your friends may have formulated based on the previews. But the whole crew is back, which was nice to see, and I’ll just take this opportunity to link to the first movie in the new series so I don’t have to worry about it later.
I always try to avoid learning too much about a film before I see it. Reading other critics’ reviews is out — I’m the Movie Critic Next Door because I’m not a professional and I don’t know what I’m doing. Wait, that didn’t come out right. I mean I’m not supposed to sound like every other film critic out there… and, well, I’m pretty sure I’ve succeeded at that, for better or for worse.
Continue reading “Avatar”
This is a reboot. I really can’t emphasize that enough. This is not your father’s Star Trek. The writers here took all the main characters you remember from the original series, many of the most famous lines, various alien races (most humanoid, a few very much not humanoid), and a few little in-jokes referring back to previous movies and shows, threw them all into a blender, mixed them up for a while, and served up something that’s almost Star Trek, but different.
Matt Dillon must be getting tired of being in movies about armored car heists. At least this time he’s on the other side, playing Jack Welles, the semi-renegade cop who knows some huge criminal plot is in the works, but he can’t get anyone else to believe him.
You know, movies based on comic books are hard to review, too. I like comic books, graphic novels, all that kind of stuff, so I suspect I probably tend to like movies based on them a little more than the average non-comic-reader. I think it makes me second-guess myself when I’m trying to rate them. As usual, I tried my best to avoid reading other people’s ratings, but sometimes things sneak past me and I catch a phrase like “very mixed reviews” that leaves me wondering if I’m being too generous.