Movies & Film Blog

DC Comics to movie conversions - reality or waste of time?

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:23:04 +0000

Written by Black Entertainment USA If you are a fan of comic books, or the flood of movies based on comic book characters, you probably have wondered “Are there any characters besides the Marvel line-up?” Comic book fans all know that this is an overstatement of the facts. There are a host of characters in movies these days. [...]

When girls must fend for themselves

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:45:57 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed The unseen backstory of “Treeless Mountain” involves a young woman who left her parents’ farm and headed for Seoul. There, she met a man, became involved and had two daughters. She probably loved him, but he may not have loved her. Eventually, the girls’ father split, leaving Mom to make it on [...]

Movie Preview: BULL

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:26:02 +0000

Written by Black Entertainment USA BULL is another film that caught my attention. The trailer is stylized and slick. It has a sun-washed look and gives an image of a darker Ocean’s Eleven. The most important thing to recall in this film is the first thing said in the trailer “Do you think that anybody actually tells [...]

An unparalleled passion for collecting

admin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:49:07 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed What a concept, buying art because you respond to it, not because you think it might be a smart investment. That’s what Herb & Dorothy Vogel do, and their approach has allowed a retired postal worker and a former librarian to amass one of the world’s most extensive private collections of contemporary [...]

Marking time with Harry — Potter, that is

admin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:11:53 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed Generally speaking, the Harry Potter movies have maintained a reasonable level of quality while being careful to remain as faithful to J. K. Rowling’s beloved books as possible. The huge fan base for Rowling’s massive series probably is enough to ensure financial success, and the sixth installment, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood [...]

Prepare for the arrival of Thor, and Natalie Portman

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:53:21 +0000

Written by Black Entertainment USA I was wondering, what is it you think of when you hear the name Thor? You know, the Norse god of Thunder. A mythological being that lives in Asgard, and is the source of the day of the week called Thursday. For those only slightly familiar with the mythology, you likely think [...]

Laughing at Bruno, but cringing, too

admin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:28:49 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed Here’s the thing about “Bruno,” the second film featuring one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s stock characters, an aggressively gay Austrian fashionista who hosts a TV program called “Funkyzeit.” Before you purchase a ticket, you need to know that Baron Cohen’s follow-up to “Borat” pushes the envelope in terms of its depictions of [...]

The Iraq war through a narrow lens

admin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:27:16 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed Kathryn Bigelow makes movies that guys tend to like, pictures such as “Blue Steel” and “Point Break.” Now Bigelow has ventured into waters that have spelled doom for most other directors. She has taken on the Iraq war, and to do it she has tightened her focus to the point where the [...]

Movie Preview: Blood:The Last Vampire

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:07:33 +0000

Written by Black Entertainment USA If you want to see something outside the usual Hollywood mega-explosion, action without plot, summer blockbusters I think there is another choice. It’s a film that most have likely not heard of, unless you happen to be into anime and/or manga. Blood: The Last Vampire is a live-action film based on [...]

It’s worth discovering ‘Secret of the Grain’

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:14:24 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed The final half hour of “The Secret of the Grain,” a film about a Tunisian family living in the French port city of Sete, contains some of the most agonizing footage I’ve seen. Murder? Hardly. Another form of criminal mayhem? Nope. In this case, the pain and frustration we feel involves nothing [...]

Three movies: Miserable in New York, lonely on the moon and disoriented in China

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:03:50 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed Teaming Woody Allen and Larry David suggests a quotient of unhappiness that could push any misery meter over the red line. On the surface, the combination seems like a natural. But differences in approach between the two comics keep them from forming the expected perfect union. Where Allen’s comedy has a philosophic slant, [...]

Movie Preview: Sherlock Holmes

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:26:19 +0000

Written by Black Entertainment USA As is wont of so many movies these days, the film Sherlock Holmes – starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law – is a physical take on an old theme. At least that is what the trailer is displaying at this moment. I find it odd that one of the more classic [...]

Movie Preview: Gamer

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:22:11 +0000

Written by Black Entertainment USA There is no question that video games are the wave of the future. The industry has steadily moved to become one of the leading forms of entertainment, and massively multiplayer online games have a firm grip in forging that path. But what will the future bring? That is the question posed in [...]

An ace bad man almost gets his due

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:57:39 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed When John Dillinger was shot outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago on a July night in 1934, Jack Lait of the International News service reported the event in the kind of pulpy prose that defined some of the day’s best journalism: “John Dillinger, ace bad man of the world, got his last [...]

‘Cheri’ misses an urgent edge

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:29:56 +0000

Submitted by Denerstein Unleashed A variety of failures — all of them mild — turn “Cheri,” an adaptation of two of Colette’s Parisian novels, into a surprisingly bloodless costume drama, a movie full of love and sex that never generates enough heat. Stephen Frears, who directed “Dangerous Liaisons” from a script by playwright Christopher Hampton, would seem [...]