Detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and his stalwart partner Watson (Jude Law) engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis (Mark Strong) whose plot is a threat to all of England.

Can I just say, what a freakin’ relief this movie wasn’t a typical Guy Ritchie as the commercial trailers advertised. Though I enjoyed Ritchie’s other films (Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, RockNRolla), I did want his Holmes movie to be as authentic and rich as a period piece set in the late 19th century London should be. I just love period pieces set in this period because of the costumes and settings and the possibilities in story lines given the technological and cultural restrictions of the time. Anyway, Ritchie’s directorial eye and Robert Downey Jr.’s magnetic screen presence and wit make for a match made in movie heaven. Jude Law was also fantastic (and delicious) as Holmes’ sidekick, Watson.
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A day in the life of an American family who come together to put a beloved husband and father to rest. As mourners gather at the family home, shocking revelations, festering resentments, ugly threats, blackmail and a misdirected corpse unleash lethal mayhem.

Almost scene by scene faithful to the original British version (2007, directed by Frank Oz), remade with a mostly African American cast, this Amerjcan redux is fun, funny and thoughtful. A great movie to see in the theater with friends, on a date or on a weekend afternoon.
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Read the rest of Death at a Funeral is as funny and fun as the original (17 words)

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Post tags: chris rock, comedy, funeral, james marsden, martin lawrence, remake, Zoe Saldana

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Date Night starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell is the first movie I laughed out loud throughout since Tropic Thunder and perhaps for the same reason: talented comedians with spot-on comedic timing and sensibilities.
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Post tags: action comedy, comedy, romance, screwball comedy, SNL, steve carell, tina fey

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I like to call this current economic state of affairs the “new economy” because it seems like everything we do as far as how we spend our money, especially when it comes to how we spend our money on entertainment, is very different than how we did 10-15 years ago. Going to see a movie is no different than trying to decide which bar doesn’t charge a cover, what online games are free, which phone to buy for the best apps and what phone service to go with that won’t make you want to scream bloody murder because you have more drop calls then successful ones, and so on.

These days, it’s not just hard to decide what movie to watch, but whether to venture out at all to a movie theater to see a movie rather than watching one on TV, on Hulu, downloaded from a torrent site, from Netflix, and so forth. The decision on whether to stay in or go out is not just about laziness (let’s be real), but also about how not to drop $30 on one movie going experience without being certain it’ll be worth it in the end. The movie could suck, or the theater could be filled with high-pitched teeny-boppers or ghetto SOBs – of any race, shape, or size – who are as loud as they are embarrassing.
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Read the rest of #31 : Top 5 Cost Saving Tips to Going to A Movie Theater (1,393 words)

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In a loose adaptation from Greek mythology, Perseus (Worthington) who was born a god but raised as a man, sets off on an epic mission to combat Hades (Fiennes) before he can seize power from Zeus (Neeson) and unleash hell on earth.

The recent remake of Clash of the Titans is a well done, fun and genuinely entertaining film. After seeing Sam Worthington’s painfully, poorly acted performance in Terminator Salvation, I was really reluctant to see Clash of the Titans. But, I figured if Liam Neeson’s in it – and playing Zeus, there’s something to look forward to. Plus, I just love a good action film (loosely) based on Greek mythology!
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Post tags: action, fantasy, greek mythology, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Sam Worthington

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Set in a world where artificial organs are readily available for purchase, a man (Law) who makes his living repossessing organs from those who fail to make their payments first finds himself outfitted with a new heart, then forced to go on the run when he falls on hard financial times.

At first, when watching the film I categorized this movie as another hot white guy saves the world and gets the girl, but by the end it’s your typical dystopia. Not necessarily typical and uninteresting but that Repo Men is a what-if film about the dangers of privatization of the medical industry. What if the transplanted organ that saves your life only continues to do so if you keep up with your medical bills?
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Post tags: action thriller, dystopia, forest whitaker, jude law, liev schreiber, political, sci-fi

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Watching a movie in a movie theater will never go out of style in favor of social media entertainment on the Internet and despite an economic recession. Why? Because there’s something to be said about “escaping” or “engaging” in a dark, large room, with comfortable seating, snacks, and larger than our lives characters moving through story lines that make us feel and experience differently than what we think we could feel or experience in our everyday lives.

Watching movies, like letter writing sometimes seems archaic in this new world of quick and easily accessible electronic entertainment. However, unlike letter writing – which I wish would find it’s way back into our many modes of communication – watching movies hasn’t yet, thank bloody goodness, lost it’s potent effect on our ability to be moved by words. Probably because these words are strung together to tell amazing stories -whether well written or not – with characters whose shoes we want to walk in or burn with them in it. These stories are brought to life in largess and makeup and tricks of lighting, imagination, half truths or blatant lies.

Movies are spectacular still because they are spectacles. Like a fiction novel, the writing can’t always be great, or the characters three dimensional, or even the setting ideal. It’s the story, it’s the presentation, it’s the spectacle of dreams. It’s the way a really good movie, like a really good book can transport us into a world that’s not in anyway extraordinary, or whose characters are not simply villains or heroes. A really good film about a story we can each feel drawn to in our own relative ways. A story that is extraordinary to us, with characters who are villainous and heroic for us, for different reasons.

I think movies aren’t always about escape and disengaging, but reengaging with parts of ourselves, or maybe reimagining possibilities, or shifting our perspectives toward illuminationing and sometimes darker truths.

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Post tags: economy, internet, recession, social media

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Set in an alternate vision of the year 1985, the murder of an ex-superhero causes a vigilante named Rorshach (Haley) to look into the matter, an investigation that reunites him with his surviving old colleagues — all of them former superheroes themselves — and gradually unveils a conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future.

I was watching a review today on television about Watchmen. One commentator commented that unlike Spiderman and Superman, and other such pedantic superhero series, it would be hard for people who have not read the Watchmen comics or know the stories or the characters, to fully enjoy or follow the film. Well, that may be so for someone who’s not looking for any meat in their film going experience. Unlike Spiderman, Superman and such predictable and yawn inducing comic to film adaptations (with the exception of Singer’s recent Superman remake), Watchmen is very much a film anyone who loves films can watch without any backstory of the characters or the comic series.
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Post tags: comic adaptation, sci-fi, science fiction

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This is one of those films Netflix had suggested for me and I was very pleasantly surprised and delighted by it. Ballet Shoes is about a three young girls, orphans, who are adopted by an eccentric explorer who disappears for twelve years. In his absence they search for and ultimately find their source for inspiration and ambition.
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Post tags: dance, period piece

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Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) was born under unusual circumstances. As everyone around him grew older, he aged backwards, making the challenges of life such as creating friendships, finding a job and falling in love all the more difficult and heartbreaking.

In spite of the hype, I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on opening day. The beginning sucked, the middle was ok, the end was too long. However, as always it was great watching Cate Blanchett on screen. She’s one of those actresses who can turn coal into diamonds in seconds just by being present. Brad Pitt was also very endearing as Button. Perhaps one his best performances yet.(...)
Read the rest of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, made me not so interested (194 words)

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Post tags: brad pitt, cate blanchett, period piece

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