I may not remember everything from when I read Jane Eyre as a young English major, but I don’t remember it being so lifeless. While I can understand that the filmmakers need to abbreviate certain parts (such as most of Jane’s early life as an orphan) in order to fit the important parts into the…
Category: Reviews
Sucker Punch – Movie Review
Why does everyone hate Sucker Punch? Was it the giant samurai robots toting artillery guns? Was it the WWI steampunk German zombies? Was it the fire-breathing dragons or the armies of orcs? Or was it the emphasis on over-the-top, stylized visuals over a bleak and irrelevant storyline? Does anyone really care about the depressing fable…
Frankenstein – Theatre Review (National Theatre Live @ Cineplex)
This production of Frankenstein has a lot going for it that’s right up my alley. It’s in London (and despite my love for the city, I’m not in London right now, but I can attend this show thanks to the magic of the National Theatre Live series of broadcasts in movie theatres around the world…
Win Win – Movie Review
I didn’t realize that writer-director Thomas McCarthy was one of my favourites until I looked up his latest movie, Win Win. As an actor, I’d seen him as Mr. Riley on the David E. Kelley tv series about teachers, Boston Public. As a writer-director, I loved his first movie (The Station Agent) and his second…
Paul – Movie Review
Has the pop cultural marketplace become over-saturated by geek-chic? How else can you explain how a comedy from popcult satirists Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (who brought us such great send-ups as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) can take aim at sci-fi geekdom and produce something so unfunny and cliche? (Perhaps it’s the…
The Adjustment Bureau – Movie Review
When I saw the trailer for The Adjustment Bureau, I saw similarities to two other rather different movies and I wondered which one was closer. With mysterious men-in-hats who secretly manipulate the world, is it going to be a mind-bending proto-film-noir like Dark City? Or when boy meets girl and they are kept apart by…
Rango – Movie Review
Rango is weird. He has surreal dreams, wears a Hawaiian shirt, puts on little dramas in his terrarium with a windup toy fish, and has a chorus of mariachi owls singing a lament of his demise. The animated movie from Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski is quirky to say the least. Nevertheless, the…
Midseason TV 2011
I confess I’ve been a bit slow on the draw this year to talk about midseason TV. I guess I’ve been too caught up with my pre-Oscar movie-watching. However, I’ve still found the time to enjoy many of the series which have debuted or returned since the start of 2011. What’s more, many if them…
Oscar, Schmoscar 2011
When I first started my “Oscar Schmoscar” posts a few years ago, I was tired of the kinds of nominees that Oscar was coming up with. I lumped together some mini-reviews to let readers know what I thought of some of the nominated movies, but it was meant to be kind of dismissive. A few…
