recent product reviews
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
More of the same. Heavy CGI action with lots of cute little lines, with layer upon layer of storylines and histories and character names that are difficult to keep straight for the casual fan. The formula is getting old. I’d love to see the superhero genre come up with something…
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Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
An escapist delight. Visually stunning, should win at least a few Oscars for that alone. The photography, coloring, effects, costumes, and make-up are all beautiful. It all has a very steampunk, Burning Man feel. Action is non-stop and well-shot. Great stunts. Miller uses many of the same camera tricks that…
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Road Hard (2015)
Like The Hammer, here’s another autobiographical movie from Carolla. A lot of references and metaphors (Jay Mohr for Jimmy Kimmel, “Bro Show” for “Man Show”) which are distractingly obvious. Couldn’t we have really fictionalized some of this stuff? This is not supposed to be a documentary of Carolla’s life. Some…
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Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Heavy on character and dialogue and with limited sets, this one definitely feels novelesque or theatrical. Like a lot of movies before the 80’s, not much happens. The climax of the movie is Luke eating eggs? Or Luke digging a ditch? Parallels with The Shawshank Redemption. Prisoner wins over the…
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Ip Man 2 (2010)
Yen is still cool, and the photography is as polished as the first. But the story’s not really there. The boxing storyline and scenes are ridiculous. Out of nowhere, this movie became Rocky IV. Action is OK, but there’s not enough of it. Some of these old guys can really…
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Zero Effect (1998)
Kind of interesting how Zero pieces things together like Sherlock Holmes, but is that all there is? What’s the story here? Zero is trying to make some money solving a case? Not sure that’s enough. But wait a minute, maybe this isn’t supposed to be a drama. Maybe it’s supposed…
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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
A lot of talk, but not much happens and the characters aren’t very interesting. Boring. Newman’s a good-looking guy but a little flat. Brick is little more than a surly drunk staring at the wall holding a drink while Maggie rambles. Taylor is reminiscent of Gone With the Wind’s Vivien…
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Gates of Heaven (1978)
Morris is 50% telling a story and 50% laughing at these people in a way that hints of Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries. You can tell he’s goofing off by the some of the footage that he left in there. I wonder at which point he realized his subject matter was so…
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I'm a photographer, web developer, travel enthusiast, and movie buff living in Alexandria, Virginia, USA.In the summer of 1993, I started writing reviews for every movie I saw and haven't looked back. I'm up to 2,374 reviews now. This makes me cool or a complete dork, depending on your perspective.
Some of these reviews contain spoilers, so if that bothers you, don't read!
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