I don’t know about “fairest”, but this Snow White was by far the dullest and most disappointing movie I’ve seen all year. It may be difficult to give a new spin to a classic story that everyone already knows, but it’s not enough to simply throw familiar actors, fancy costumes and special effects at it…
Category: Reviews
Men In Black III – Movie Review
Does the role of Agent J allow Will Smith to be cool, or is it Smith’s coolness that makes the role? Either way, Smith’s reprising his role as Agent J seems to have restored some of the Fresh Prince mojo that seems to have been lacking from recent roles (which have tended to be on…
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern – Capsule Book Review
All over the tents, small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. The waiting crowd quiets as it watches this display of illumination. Someone near you gasps. A small child claps his hands with glee at the sight. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling…
The Avengers – Movie Review
When I heard that Marvel Entertainment was planning to do individual superhero movies that would culminate in The Avengers bringing all the characters and cast together in a superhero team movie, it seemed ambitious to say the least. Thank goodness they got a capable director like Joss Whedon, who’s also a genre/comic book fan himself….
Cabin In The Woods – Movie Review
Most of the hype around this movie is about two things: how it defies (or plays with) conventions of the horror movie genre; and how it took (courtesy of the fall of studios) three years to see the light of movie screens. I don’t have much to say about the second topic, but the first…
A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin – Book Review
Some of you fellow pop-culturists might be like me, enjoying the preparation for movie sequels or new TV seasons by re-watching past instalments or (better yet) reading the next book in an adapted series. I decided to prepare for Game of Thrones season two by reading the second book in George R.R. Martin’s epic series,…
Mirror, Mirror – Movie Review
Since Disney has long cornered the market on fairy tale adaptations, it’s actually hard to know what to expect from one that isn’t full of singing birds and pixie dust. After watching director Tarsem Singh take on Greek mythology with The Immortals, I was willing to bet that his adaptation of the Snow White story…
The Hunger Games – Movie Review
Happy Hunger Games! In adapting a book to screen, living up to the expectations of readers about how the characters look and act is not the only challenge. If you can make viewers tear up when a scene is moving, or jump when a scene is surprising even though they already know what’s coming, that’s…
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – Movie Review
In Lasse Hallstrom movies (like Chocolat, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, and now Salmon Fishing in the Yemen), special individuals originally thought of by normal society as outsiders eventually draw the so-called “normal” people in and help them bring imagination, passion, and joy to their staid lives. In this movie, it’s a super-wealthy Yemeni Sheikh Muhammed,…
