As a lifelong fan, I so wanted to love this latest Star Trek film. I’ve been hooked on the optimistic future, melodrama and visual effects of the show since William Shatner was helming the original Starship Enterprise. When J.J.Abrams brought his flair and action sensibilities to the reboot of the franchise after ten increasingly dull films, I loved it. The 2009 reinvention of the entire mythos was excellent, from its gripping opening scene to the…Read More
Review: Into the Woods
It’s tricky to translate musicals onto the big screen for a modern audience, which is why we rarely see them at the local cineplex. Les Miserables was an exception and surprised a lot of people with its strong box office performance, but it’s hard to think about another recent live action musical that was worth watching. Following its previous hit, the Disney musical Into the Woods is unsurprisingly similar to Les Miserables with its superb sets and star-studded cast. The…Read More
Review: Star Trek Into Darkness
The Star Trek TV show was an important step in the evolution of science fiction, a post-Cold War series that offered a hopeful future, a future where race, creed, religion and gender were irrelevant and that even aliens from other planets were accepted as equals. The TV show spawned additional series, along with ten feature films, but things had become rather grim and the campy humor and brash personalities of the Star Trek universe had…Read More
Review: Unstoppable
After directing films like Deja Vu, Spy Game, Enemy of the State and Crimson Tide, it’s clear that Tony Scott knows the formula for an exciting action film. His pacing prowess is the heart of the new thriller Unstoppable, a film that has so many plot holes that it resembles a block of Swiss cheese. Scott has cast Denzel Washington in quite a few of his films, including The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,…Read More
The Best Films of 2009
I’ve spent the time to rant about the films I saw last year that I thought were the worst of the bunch, not just middling experiences, but genuinely “how on Earth did they ever raise the money to make this abomination?” movies where they either started out okay and slowly collapsed on their own weight (like Knowing) or were daft from the get-go (like Transformers 2). The worst of the bunch, though, must have been…Read More