Set in the early 1990’s, The Informant! has the feel of an Austin Powers movie, from the titles to the music (here supplied by über-composer Marvin Hamlish). It’s a movie about the evils of large corporations — in this case Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) — and what happens to whistleblowers who follow their conscience and help the gov’t build a case against evildoers, even when they’re your coworkers. Or is it? The Informant! tells the story…Read More
Review: Whiteout
Here’s a really cool idea for a film: you’re a US Marshall working at the United States Antarctica station research facility, helping keep the peace. Like a campus cop, your primary job is dealing with drunks and minor thefts, but you’re hoping that a major crime will occur so you can remember what it is to be a “real” cop. Now, because you’re in the coldest, most remote place on Earth, you’ve got another level…Read More
Review: Gamer
This is a guest review by my friend Tom Frey… Gamer is a new low for the tech trashing genre My wife Deb and I are always up for a good sci-fi action film and the new Gamer movie seemed to fits in most of the categories of a movie we’d enjoy. Before a movie starts, quite often the previews will tip you off as to what kind of film you are about to see. Deb picked…Read More
Review: Extract
Can an entirely predictable storyline with snappy dialog and an amusing setup produce a film that’s worth watching? With most directors, the answer would be no, but Mike Judge, who mastered the nuances of everyday conversation and situations with the hit Office Space, has accomplished just that in the new comedy Extract. Part of what I like to see in movies is the gradual unveiling of the story, where the true allegiance of characters is…Read More
Review: Delgo vs Avatar
There’s been a lot of buzz in the geek world about how James Cameron’s upcoming film Avatar looks like it’s a rip-off of a 2008 animated film release called Delgo, from Electric Eye Entertainment. I grabbed a copy of Delgo and watched it, both looking at the storyline and comparing it as I went with the fifteen minutes of Avatar footage I’ve seen (see my review of Avatar Day footage for details). To be honest,…Read More
Review: Taking Woodstock
You’d have to be hiding under a rock not to know that August was the fortieth anniversary of a little outdoor concert in upstate New York called Woodstock. On August 15,16, and 17 of 1969, an incredible lineup of over thirty folk and rock groups ranging from Ravi Shankar to Arlo Guthrie, The Grateful Dead to Joe Cocker, jefferson Airplane, The Who, Janis Joplin, Santana, and, of course, Jimi Hendrix entertained a huge crowd. With…Read More
Review: Inglourious Basterds
It’s wonderful to watch a talented professional mature in their skills and with the release of Inglourious Basterds that’s what’s clearly happened with wunderkind director and film biz bad boy Quentin Tarantino. His earlier works are best typified by Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, interesting stories that are so extraordinarily violent that the graphic violence appears in lieu of story or character development. Let me put this another way: Inglorious Basterds is the first Tarantino…Read More
Review: Avatar (Avatar Day footage)
Note: My full Avatar review can be found in a different entry, this is just a writeup from when I saw the 15-minute preview of the film in mid-2009. For the full review of the movie, please go here: Dave On Film Review: Avatar Along with what was apparently a smaller number of film geeks than was expected, I dutifully showed up at the local RealIMAX “quasi-IMAX” screen (see my earlier article on RealIMAX versus…Read More
Review: Shorts
If you’ve seen any of the Spy Kids movies, you already know that director Robert Rodriguez has a knack for making frenetic kids films that have extraordinary, wacky special effects, all harnessed — often loosely — into telling a story that’s exciting and a bit goofy. There’s a certain glossy sheen to his films, an extruded plastic sort of sense that’s uniquely his, and it’s delightful when it’s not too far over the top. His…Read More
Review: Ponyo
The original story of The Little Mermaid is about a mermaid who dreams of some day becoming a human. Ponyo is based on the same theme, but this time it’s a goldfish called Brunhilde who dreams of becoming human. This isn’t Disney computer-assisted animation as usual, however, but rather the amazing hand-animated world of Japanese legend Hayao Miyazaki. You’ve probably heard of Miyazaki, he’s had three films in relatively wide distribution here in the United States: Princess…Read More
Interview with Kevin Murphy of RiffTrax
This Thursday August 20th in theaters nationwide, the RiffTrax team is hosting a snark-a-thon live screening of the cheesy masterpiece Plan 9 from Outer Space. You can learn more at Fathom Events, or you can just show up at the Boulder screening, where I’ll probably be laughing hysterically throughout. I had a chance to ask a few questions of Rifftrax partner and former Mystery Science Theater 3000 co-creator Kevin Murphy. Who was Kevin in MST3K?…Read More
Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife
There are lots of movies about time travel, from the asinine Land of the Lost to the political The Time Machine and Sleepers, to the edgy Time Bandits and 12 Monkeys. Most of those have a gizmo or contraption that causes them to travel through time, but what if you just “hopped” without having any control over it? One minute you were in contemporary Manhattan then in the blink of an eye you were in Los…Read More
Review: District 9
Wow. That was the first word out of my mouth when this astonishing, intense hard sci-fi exploration on prejudice and apartheid ended. Director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson have crafted a fascinating film that, while flawed, is a significant new addition to the ranks of serious science fiction movies, along with Alien, Blade Runner, The Matrix, and the like. Bookended with opening and closing documentary-style footage, District 9 posits a race of extraterrestrials having their…Read More
Review: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Let me end the suspense right up front: I liked G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. I didn’t expect it to be a deep, thoughtful war film, nor did I expect it to be a profound visual essay on the challenges of morality in a wartime setting: see Flags of our Fathers and The Hurt Locker (my review). Instead, I expected a loud, action-filled movie that had attractive actors, shiny toys, banal dialog and a…Read More
Review: Watchmen (The Director’s Cut)
It wasn’t until about 75% of the way through the original Watchmen graphic novel (written by Alan Moore, with art by Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins) that I started to really understand what was going on. Once I could see where they were going, however, I was hooked and ultimately found it to be a terrific story about the ambiguity of morality and the difficulty of being gifted with unusual abilities and the concomitant expectation that you’ll use…Read More
Is Blu-Ray Failing or a Success Story?
I can remember years ago when I went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and there were the high-def wars: some vendors were loudly proclaiming the merits of HD-DVD, while others were pushing the competing technology of Blu-Ray. Both looked beautiful on screen and both were a major jump from the resolution and capabilities of a standard DVD player. I was impressed. I wasn’t, however, impressed enough to buy either HD player when…Read More
Review: The Ugly Truth
Here’s a funny setup for a movie: take a beautiful control-freak of a woman and make her producer of a morning show at a small TV station. Then take a scroungy but devilishly handsome guy and have him be the crude-talking cynical relationship expert who says it like he sees it, good or bad. Now, let’s make this funny by having her produce his show, even as she finds him a boor and hates what…Read More
Review: (500) Days of Summer
There are few subjects that are more puzzling than love. What is it? How do you know when you find it? Will it last? Is there really “true love” and is there “the one” person out there who is your perfect match, someone who is your romantic destiny? That’s what (500) Days of Summer is about, and it’s a truly delightful, funny, heart-warming film. Summer, in the title, is not a season, but rather an…Read More
Interview: Protecting the King executive producer Gail Lynn
I met Gail at a non-film event and was surprised and intrigued when she started to share with me her involvement in the quasi-documentary “Protecting the King”, a behind-the-scenes look at Elvis Presley and his posse behind-the-scenes while on tour. She generously agreed to the following interview to help clarify what she did for the film and how it was created and produced. If you’re interested in it, it is for sale through Amazon: Protecting…Read More
Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Six films into the Harry Potter series, it seems like Harry, Ron and Hermione are old friends and family members. Between the books and the films, it seems that they’ve been part of contemporary culture for decades, certainly in my household. Turning the books into films has been a tricky task, however, and each film has had its own distinctive personality. It’s no coincidence that a number of different directors have been involved too, from…Read More
Review: Moon
Imagine you’ve screwed up your life enough that it’s time for a significant break. A really significant change from your day-to-day reality. For Sam Bell (played brilliantly by Sam Rockwell), that break involves being shipped to the far side of the moon by Lunar Industries, Inc. to work solo on a Helium-3 (HE3) mining facility. For three years. Moon starts out with Sam only having two weeks left on Mining Base Sarang before his three…Read More