Snark, Critic and Pop!

Re-posting one of Tom’s old reviews from the old Film Is Pwn days:

I skipped Mission Impossible 3 in theaters. I skipped it at the rental store. I skipped over buying it on several occasions. I had been told it was good, but I assumed it was all lies.

I had reason to think it was lies; I had, after all, seen Mission Impossible 2. I finally caved and sat down to watch it about a week ago. About five minutes in I started to think that perhaps M:I-2 had just been a bad memory, perhaps it never happened, because this sure felt like an extension of the first and very enjoyable Mission: Impossible. The question really is … what happened?

For a good film one usually starts with a good script or screenplay. A director may make adjustments along the way to fit with their vision, but a good screenplay is critical. For Mission: Impossible 2 however this just didn’t happen. Robert Towne, the writer credited with the screenplay, comments that a majority of the script was centered around action sequences requested by John Woo, long time fun-bad movie maker. Fortunately, John Woo didn’t make Mission: Impossible 3, JJ Abrams of the TV show Lost did. (continue reading…)

I wish there were more movies like this. However, I hope that no movie ever has another story like this.

I really find myself torn about this movie. I find it both wonderful and terrible, but to be honest I felt much the same about a previous film that it felt so much like, Love Actually.

To start from the beginning Definitely, Maybe is the story of a man who’s daughter is introduced to sex haphazardly and in agonizing detail by her school. A man who we found out moments earlier is getting a divorce is picking up that daughter only to be met with this surprise as his daughter shouts words no one should shout in public, let alone an eight year old. (continue reading…)

If this isn’t in Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary, it should be.

The Inherited House Rule: When you are left a house (it’s usually incredibly large and probably worth twice the national average) by a family member, they either died crazy and alone in the house or they died in or were recently sent to an insane asylum. Also, unexpected secrets no doubt will be experienced and overcome in the first two weeks to three months inside the house. (continue reading…)

In 2005 Peter Jackson decided to take on his favorite childhood film, King Kong. Right on the coat tails of his Lord of the Rings success Jackson goes for what I know we’ve all been waiting for: the epic story about an oversized lovestarved monkey. Naomi Watts has a solid set of lungs and dewy eyes as the female lead. Jack Black is serious as an underhanded and short sighted movie producer and Adrien Brody is an “unexpected” hero.

I’ll come out and say it first, then I’ll explain.

I hated this movie. (continue reading…)

This film comes as close to perfect as anything I’ve seen in 3 years, perhaps longer. If you’ve never heard of this movie: stop reading now and go see it.

As I tried to write this review I stopped to watch the beginning of the movie again. I often do that. It helps to keep my memory (about the dialogue, the feel, the directing) nice and fresh. I couldn’t watch it now though, I would never have gotten this written and I have a feeling it would be a good four or five more viewings before I would find myself able to divert my attention from the movie at all. Within two minutes I was so engaged even after having just watched it I found myself glued to the screen. (continue reading…)

Alone In the Dark is rated by RottenTomatoes.com to be the second worst movie of all time. Second to, the recently reviewed by me, Ballistics: Ecks vs Sever. My first reaction to this was anger, there are movies I’ve enjoyed watching less than either of these, Babel for example. Let’s break this down:

Alone In The Dark: action movie about an ancient native American race that open the gates to hell, found a way to close them and then in proper ancient civilization form hid (rather than destroyed) the key to open the gate in remote parts of the world where conspiracy theorists could track them down thousands of years later and open the gate. (continue reading…)

Normally I like to let the reader know the year a movie came out. I think it’s important, it gives you a lot of background with a single number. The year helps you to understand what else was going on – what the culture was like at the time. For example, mentioning that The Hulk came out in 2003, the beginning of the Comic Book Movie frenzy, a time it was thought that no comic book movie could fail (which is the only possible explanation for a green light on Ang Lee as the director).

However for Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever I’m not going to tell you when it came out. To be honest, I can’t be bothered to look. With this movie, time frame simply won’t help – although I imagine it must have come out between 1999 and 2001 due to the name Ecks (pronounced X) being used. Of course given the quality of this movie I can imagine it being made more recently only they were too slow to realize that using X doesn’t automatically make your product or movie cool anymore. (continue reading…)

There is undeniably a type of person in the world that takes things most people consider unimportant very seriously. This type of person could be split into many groups because there is simply such a large breadth of useless things to take far too seriously, for example, movies. I take movies very seriously. In fact, I often drive my wife crazy because a movie must be watched from the beginning. I don’t talk during movies, except for the situation of one I’ve set out specifically to mock. The process is very purposeful for me and as I’ve taken on the task of writing for this site, movies have become even more serious. At times you’ll see me planted in front of my TV notebook and remote in hand, rewinds are frequent and re-watches of the same movie within a couple of days is common. (continue reading…)

Editor’s Note: This is a re-post from out old site Film Is Pwn covering the 2009 Charlotte Film Festival, as we look forward to the 2010 CFF later this month:

Bronson is the story of a man. A man completely detached from the realities of the world and what it means to be human. He’s not nice, good or really evil in the typical sense of the word. What he does is evil but to him it appears that it’s nothing more than a game, a foray into the woods rather than being the very real actions with tangible consequences that they are.

I don’t believe I’ve enjoyed watching a movie more in a very long time. It seems clear to me that Director Nicolas Winding Refn had a clear vision when he chose to venture into this film. He was determined and he pulled together an outstanding cast and crew to see it into fruition. Tom Hardy as “England’s most violent criminal” is spot-on. His performance is dark and menacing, without remorse and completely insane. Exactly the type of man I rather imagine Bronson to be. There is no sanity to this film. No character to stabilize you. You feel constantly at odds against the main character, much, I imagine, like the prison guards must have felt these thirty years. (continue reading…)

Editor’s Note: With the 2010 Charlotte Film Festival nearly upon us, we’re re-posting this “classic” review from the 2009 CFF (originally posted on our previous Site Film Is Pwn last year):Walking into the theatre, press pass dangling around my neck and garnering stares and questioning glances, New York Lately was exactly the type of movie I hoped for and expected. Don’t take that to mean that it was good. This is a Film Festival, having never been to one, I sat in anticipation imagining what it would be like. I pondered my lack of skinny jeans and ironic t-shirts; both of which would no doubt be uniform for the event. Then I imagined the type of movie a person wearing skinny jeans and an ironic t-shirt would make.

I’m not making fun of this as much as it might seem. I wish I was cool enough to wear skinny jeans and clever enough to have ironic t-shirts, but instead I just wear normal jeans and a button down shirt. I wished I had shaved to have cool facial hair of some sort, but alas I had to just be me. Then as we arrived and looked around, I didn’t see a single pair of skinny jeans, and since most everyone was in a uniform for the festival the ironic t-shirts had been left in the closet. I was acceptable. (continue reading…)

When I walked into the theater for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, suspected it would be bad (but I held out hope).

I knew I already knew the whole story, much like the Iron Man trailer the Button trailer had given away too much. The difference of course is that with the Button trailer all it needed to do is mention that a man ages backward to give away the entire movie. (continue reading…)

What can one say about a movie like Paul Blart Mall Cop? For starters, it certainly delivers exactly what I felt was promised from the trailers. An absurd story about a security guard that’s wound a little too tight. A guy getting a girl that in real life he probably wouldn’t get (sad but true). And last but not least Kevin James not being funny.

I don’t really want to shoot down a movie that’s really at it’s heart trying to get across a good point. But this was terrible. Seriously, during the 90 minute marathon of viewing I didn’t laugh once, though I did actually squirm uncomfortably twice. You know the squirm I mean, the one that you got watching The Office when Michael Scott decided to kiss the gay guy to prove how “unhomophobic” he was. Yep, just like that. Watching the Office though, I know I’ll probably be laughing in a minute or two even if I’m just squirming right now. (continue reading…)