Like many film fans, I have a love/hate relationship with Tom Cruise. He’s been in a lot of great movies, but he’s also one of the most narcissistic people in Hollywood, and that’s saying something in an industry where just about everyone spends more time gazing in the mirror than anything else. Even with the Mission: Impossible movies, based on a beloved TV series from my childhood, the same problem has surfaced. Certainly Mission: Impossible…Read More
Review: The BoxTrolls
Children’s films are generally pretty darn benign, with little tension and few intense visual effects or scenes. Yeah, sure, the hero’s in peril from the monster or bad guy, but most children’s films take the Disney way out of 95% sweet, fun, light and 5% tension. Don’t want to scare the kiddies, after all. Except drama is all about tensions, and great storytelling is all about the protagonist being threatened and having to figure out…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: Paul
Most modern comedies end up being so stupid that it’s painful to watch the actors embarrass themselves on the big screen. There are also comic actors who seem to have a string of box office successes even as their films are stupid and only barely entertaining. That’s why it’s a pleasure to see the terrific comic team of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost skewer the alien conspiracy genre in the consistently funny Paul. Graeme (Simon…Read More
Review: Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
I’m a father of three pre-teen children, but when I go to see children’s fare in the movie theater, I generally see it by myself. There are too many movies that are marketed as children’s fare, but that I feel contains themes, language or situations that are inappropriate for my own children (like Land of the Lost, see my review for more details). I am careful not to judge other parents for exposing their children to material I feel…Read More