recent product reviews
This Means War (2012)
Light and fun. Pine and Hardy play well off each other, and Witherspoon keeps up. Awkward ending. Didn’t need that last scene.
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Cloud Atlas (2012)
What the fuck. Actors playing different characters in different stories in different times. It’s all a bit too much for me. Some of the characters and stories are interesting, but I couldn’t piece it all together. If you need to have read the book or a cheat sheet to make…
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Man of Steel (2013)
It’s a Zack Snyder movie. Wonderfully visual and violent, with lots of perfectly shot battles and explosions and destruction. Creative lighting, carefully timed slo-mo, and close-ups of Superman gritting his teeth enhance the action further. People like this kind of stuff, and Snyder’s got it down. But every confrontation is…
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The Hangover Part III (2013)
The worst of the bunch. There’s no raucous celebration, no hangover, no mystery, and not much comedy. Too much Chow. He’s irreverent but unfunny. When the sequence during the end credits is MUCH funnier than anything in the movie, it says something about the movie.
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The Great Gatsby (2013)
Wonderful period acting and dialogue and costumes, along with bold, wide effects that showcase 1920’s New York, provide rich fabric for the story. Unfortunately, every few minutes, Luhrmann’s anachronistic dance-beat musical choices take me out of the moment. It’s fun to watch, but things move slowly and the story never…
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Knuckleball! (2012)
An honorable attempt to honor the knuckleball, but it’s a bit sloppy. We start with Wakefield and then we go to Dickey and then the older guys and then back to Wakefield and Dicky? Bouncing around doesn’t add anything, it just makes us wonder why we’re bouncing around. Might have…
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Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
More of the same. Good action, amazing effects. The planetary effects are especially good, even during the closing credits. Again, Abrams overdoes it with the lens flare. Strange story arc. There’s no consistent enemy, so the story doesn’t build to a dramatic climax. Instead, we ride a dramatic plateau for…
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Mansome (2012)
Some comedy, but not enough. Some history, but not enough. If the film had taken the subject more seriously, or gone the other way and made it a big joke, it might have been a lot better. Fanciful graphics and music are typical of Spurlock, but it’s all a bit…
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Oblivion (2013)
Visionary sci-fi derived from, or perhaps in homage to, a long list of classic and recent sci-fi movies. We have the familiar plot twists and moral issues of cloning from Solaris and Moon. The pods are reminiscent of David Bowman’s module in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and there’s a creepy,…
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S&M: Short and Male (2008)
Are we supposed to be laughing at them? Or taking the subject matter seriously? Can’t be both. On one hand, there are heartfelt stories from a few of the short guys, the surgery segment is insane, and the voiceover seems to beg for sympathy and fairness. But then there’s circus…
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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 2,388 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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