The publishing industry often looks down its elitist nose at so-called “young adult” literature, but writers aiming at a teen audience have given us a lot of our most beloved stories and characters. Not just Harry Potter and his wonderful Hogwarts, but The Hobbit, The Wizard of Oz, Huckleberry Finn, The Chronicles of Narnia and so many more. And add to that the delightful trilogy that starts with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom…Read More
Review: Side Effects
A miracle drug to help manage anxiety prescribed by a psychiatrist who might be just a bit more interested in receiving payment for helping test it out than in the welfare of their patient. What could go wrong? In Side Effects, turns out that quite a bit goes wrong, and then unravels in layers with a complex “ah, you didn’t see that coming!” sequence of twists that reminded me of the brilliant Inception. Except it…Read More
Review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
I’m sick of the sparkly, romantic vampires that are haunting the cineplex. Twilight seems to have infected all horror films, actually, and now everyone in the film is young, handsome and charming, and their desire to kill you by sucking your blood? Well, that’s just an awkward bad habit that we should forgive because, well, they’re so darn sparkly. Blech. That’s why I really enjoyed the historical mashup Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Based on the…Read More
Review: Dark Shadows
A creepy goth tale of love and revenge, a 17th century vampire out of place in 1970’s Maine, a troubled family fallen on bad times. Based on a popular soap opera of the 1960s, the film version of Dark Shadows suffers from some horrible scenes and a story that gets increasingly incoherent as it proceeds to its predictable, though completely incomprehensible ending. Dark Shadows is the eighth collaboration between director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp,…Read More
Review: Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll’s immortal story Alice in Wonderland has been brought to the big screen many times, notably 1951’s animated Disney classic that memorialized the different characters in the story for many adults. With 61 title matches in the Internet Movie Database, it’s safe to say it’s a popular starting point for movie makers. That’s an intimidating challenge, especially for a director like Tim Burton who generally tackles stories that haven’t been shown in film before and…Read More
Review: Coraline
I’d heard from a couple of friends how wonderful the film Coraline is, but it took me a few months before I finally sat down and screened this movie. In a word: wow! I’m a fan of just about every type of film making, from the interpolated rotoscoping of the weird A Scanner Darkly to the stop-motion of Wallace and Gromit to the beautiful, distinctive animation of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away to the almost completely…Read More