One of the cool things about internationally-made movies is that their makers don’t feel the need to have to explain every little thing in them. Hollywood movies too often over-explain, mostly through dialogue, perhaps because the movie-going public is considered […]
Continue reading »Category: Recent Releases
Oblivion (2013) ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Every once in a while comes a movie that makes me love the format all over again, and suddenly excited to see even more. Such a movie is Oblivion. I’ve loved sci-fi films forever, and am always on the lookout […]
Continue reading »The Croods (2013) ☆ ☆ ☆
The animated cave-people comedy The Croods is a fun, enjoyable, visually intriguing movie that was better than I figured it to be. Because of its scope — depicting the very abrupt, incredibly destructive tectonic plate shifts changing the prehistoric world — […]
Continue reading »G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) ☆ 1/2, and G. I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) ☆ ☆
This is my first dual-movie review in this format. I had not seen the first G. I. Joe film, which was made in 2009, because I thought its preview looked ridiculous. But once I decided to see its sequel this week, […]
Continue reading »Lore (2012) ☆ ☆
This German – Australian co-production regarding a German family trying to survive the end of World War II takes a different approach to its subject, telling the story from the kids’ perspective as they walk away from their former, comfortable […]
Continue reading »Oz The Great and Powerful (2013) ☆ ☆
Is it too soon for a prequel to the classic 1939 musical fantasy The Wizard of Oz? It’s only been seventy-four years! Although technically the film is not related to the 1939 classic (different studios, fights over rights), in all […]
Continue reading »The Host (2013) ☆ ☆ ☆
This surprisingly old-fashioned (and slowly paced) science-fiction drama has a lot of heart, even if it is aimed at a teenage and post-teenage audience (it has a heavy emphasis on kissing). Much of its success has to do with two […]
Continue reading »Admission (2013) ☆ 1/2
Admission is a strange movie and difficult for me to evaluate. Its major strength is the look it provides into the world of college recruitment, with dedicated admission counselors (such as Tina Fey, Gloria Reuben and Wallace Shawn) evaluating and sometimes […]
Continue reading »Olympus Has Fallen (2013) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
While I sincerely hope that nothing like what occurs in Olympus Has Fallen ever takes place on American soil, I must admit that I like movies like this, and I really, really like this one. Antoine Fuqua’s thriller is plausible, dramatic, […]
Continue reading »The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) ☆ ☆ 1/2
Magic (as it is performed) is a hard sell for me; I’ve never loved either the illusions themselves nor the showmanship required to distract the audience from perceiving those illusions. It is difficult for me to appreciate such trickery and […]
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