With a cast that boasts three Oscar winners and a director who won an Oscar himself, I would have expected more from State of Play. The movie gives us some pretty good performances and a serviceable script with some twists, but overall nothing too memorable. Oscar-winner Russell Crowe plays Cal McCaffrey, a veteran reporter at…
Category: Movies
Monsters vs. Aliens – Movie Review
After having seen Monsters vs. Aliens in full IMAX 3-D, probably the worst thing I could say about it is that it’s ordinary. Don’t get me wrong, the animation is top-notch. Everything looks very impressive: from the cavernous spacecraft down to the fabric and textures of the main character’s outfit, there is an amazing attention…
Duplicity – Movie Review
When you watch the trailer, you know this movie’s going to be fun. You’ve got Julia Roberts and Clive Owen as a pair of corporate spies, dancing a romantic tango while play both sides of a con job on two competing Proctor & Gamble-sized mega-corporations. This movie could have been a cakewalk for both the…
Knowing – Movie Review
I should have listened to the voices in my own head. I saw a clever, quasi-sci-fi premise in the movie trailer, but I told myself that like others before it (See also Number 23, or The Happening), the writers will not be able to carry the premise to an interesting conclusion. Add to that Nicolas…
Watchmen — Movie review
In the geek universe, there is no more anticipated film this year than Watchmen. The complex story is set in an alternate 1980s where someone is killing off costumed superheroes, an omnipotent nuclear man wrestles with his humanity, and the world lies at the brink of Armageddon. Adapting the widely-acclaimed graphic novel masterpiece to the…
The International – Movie Review
It’s no big insight that action movies tend to take our societal boogey-men and make them into villains. In times like these, when the downfall of global banks is so acutely felt, it should come as no surprise that The International pits our hero against a corrupt multi-national banking magnate. Clive Owen seems to have…
Books come to life: Coraline and Inkheart – Movie Reviews
I really like the trend to bring books to the screen. I especially like it when they bring fantasy books to life because the technology has reached the point where they can really make magical elements look convincingly real. That hurdle out of the way, fantasy books (especially children and young adult fantasy) have so…
Oscar, Schmoscar 2009
Last year’s Oscars are pretty dead to me. Even to this day I have not watched any of the big winners (I didn’t even do an “Oscar, Schmoscar” post in ’08). This year is a whole other story. I was excited about many of the movies before they even got nominated. I’ve already reviewed The…
The Reader – Movie Review
Kate Winslet stars as Hanna Schmitz, a woman who has an affair with a teenage boy in Germany. After a few summer months, she moves away and disappears from his life. Years later, that same young man, Michael Berg (played by newcomer David Koss), attends a trial as a law student and sees Hanna again….
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 