A good friend asked if I could recommend a few good films that were available through the Amazon Prime Video program, so I started digging. Now they specifically asked about whether the movies are available for downloading, a cool feature of the Prime program that’s available for some, though not all, movies you can watch through Prime Video. Unfortunately, there’s no list of movies that meet this criterion on the site so it’s up to…Read More
Review: Ghostbusters
Let’s start with the good news: The new Ghostbusters is funny and entertaining, the story moves along at a solid clip and has lots of cameos from the stars of the original 1986 Ghostbusters too. The story works just fine with four women in the lead roles instead of the four men in the original film. That’s not the problem with this remake. The problems arise when you ask whether it’s more than just amusing. Turns out that…Read More
Review: The Monuments Men
I’m a sucker for films set in World War II, whether the European front or the Pacific front. The list of good WWII films is endless, but I’ll highlight some of my favorites, including Saving Private Ryan, Flags of our Fathers, and Tora! Tora! Tora! along with a few comic films set in the same era: Catch-22 and How I Won The War. What they all have in common is a certain gravitas, even the comedies….Read More
Review: Source Code
When you die, the last eight minutes of your life remains electromagnetically imprinted in your brain. If you could inject someone into that persistent time memory and pull them back afterwards, you could send investigators into crises just before they happened and have them identify who committed the crime. It’s a fascinating premise for a sci-fi thriller and director Duncan Jones pulls it off splendidly in Source Code. Air Force chopper pilot Colter Stevens (Jake…Read More
Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox
In a world of children’s films increasingly characterized by technological accomplishment and sophisticated rendering in lieu of good old-fashioned storytelling, it was a breath of fresh air to enjoy the stop-motion Fantastic Mr. Fox. Tapping the considerable voice talents of George Clooney (Mr. Fox), Meryl Streep (Mrs. Fox), Bill Murray (Badger), Michael Gambon (Franklin Bean), Owen Wilson (Coach Skip), Willem Dafoe (Rat) and Jason Schwartzman (Ash), director Wes Anderson has managed to take the quirky…Read More
Review: Zombieland
It takes a certain sense of humor to enjoy a horror comedy film like Zombieland, but if you can laugh at graphic violence and can see the humor in parody, then this is a great movie for you to catch. Brilliantly funny, full of great lines, Zombieland offers a zombie film unlike any other I’ve seen, though perhaps the cult hit Shaun of the Dead comes somewhat close. The film is set in the present…Read More