Tron Legacy is the sort of movie that, in my opinion, requires a disclosure of a reviewer’s perspective up front.  So to that end, I feel compelled to admit that I have only seen Tron once, and that I saw it about three days ago with the specific end of watching the original before I… Continue reading Tron Legacy – Review

I could review The Black Swan with one word:  amazing.  The film is dark and shifting, conflating dreams and obsessions into a terrifying reality where nothing is certain.  Natalie Portman stars as Nina, a ballerina dedicated to achieving perfection whose first starring role is threatened by a new member of the troupe, the restless and… Continue reading The Black Swan review from the New Orleans Film Festival

Danny Boyle’s latest movie is based on a true story (chronicled in the memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston), and it would be a disservice to the story and the film for me not to be open about all of it.  So if you are looking to watch this movie… Continue reading 127 Hours | movie review from the New Orleans Film Festival

Never Let Me Go is adapted from a book that I have not read.  So if you are looking for a book to film comparison, sorry, I can’t give you that—all I can judge is the story as presented in the movie.  And while I walked out of this film overwhelmed by emotion and feeling… Continue reading Never Let Me Go | movie review

0.  Terms of Engagement Welcome, Brothers and Sisters, to the third weekly meeting of the Church of The Hermeneutic Christ.  Blessed be the name of Sherlock and peace be upon his prophets Nero Wolfe, Jane Marple and Adrian Monk. Come, let us pray…

0. Terms of Engagement ydoan yunnuhstan ydoan o yunnuhstand dem yguduh ged yunnuhstan dem doidee yguduh ged riduh ydoan o nudn LISN bud LISN dem gud am lidl yelluh bas tuds weer goin duhSIVILEYEzum So wrote E. E. Cummings in 1944. The poem, entitled “ygUDuh”, appeared in Cummings’ collection 1 x 1 and it is… Continue reading Sherlock’s Little Mistakes 2: The Blind Banker

Now this is what a documentary should be!  After my disappointment with Restrepo a couple weeks ago, I was thrilled to realize, after popping in this DVD, that The Art of the Steal was reminding me why I love documentary films in the first place.  It takes an important but relatively obscure conflict, lays out the… Continue reading The Art of the Steal – Review

0. Terms of Engagement Mystery fiction is a profoundly consolatory genre.  Whether it is set in a Loamshire country house, a snow-bound train or the streets of Victorian London, the mystery novel is all about fashioning order from the chaos and misery of our daily lives.  Grisly accidents and unexpected deaths may appear to be… Continue reading Sherlock’s Little Mistakes 1 : A Study in Pink

Winter’s Bone is about a rural Missouri teenager whose drug-manufacturing father left her between a rock and a hard place when he put their property up to post his bond and then failed to make his court date.  Ree, the teenage daughter holding together the family for her “sick” (read:  withdrawn and broken) mother and… Continue reading Winter’s Bone | movie review

Inception is probably the first movie of 2010 that movie lovers have been legitimately anticipating—that is, looking forward to since that very first preview back in February.  Certainly I was.  Sometimes that anticipation is a bad thing, as when your hopes are dashed against a mediocre production; sometimes it makes a movie even better, when… Continue reading Inception | movie review

Don’t believe all of the inexplicably great reviews for Predators; it is a seriously stupid movie.  Billed as a return to the greatness of the original Predator movie, this sequel comes off as a second-rate Avatar, where once entitled actors are brought low, and give bizarre and entertaining performances.  Adrien Brody is no Schwarzenegger; hell, he… Continue reading Predators | movie review

Repo Men is a movie I wish someone could repo from my memory banks.  It was the biggest waste of two hours of my life since Avatar (and possibly longer, since it’s not a film that has the cultural valence of James Cameron’s mega-hit), and I damn near walked out on it.  Ultimately I’m glad I… Continue reading Repo Men | Movie Review

Um. Wow. I am really not sure how to approach this one. First of all, this movie was not what I expected.  It looked from the previews like a love story, possibly happy and possibly bittersweet, but a fairly straightforward story about a boy who starts seeing the daughter of a policeman he had a… Continue reading Robert Pattinson’s Remember Me | movie review

The Book of Eli is really great:  it’s got the apocalypse, it’s got all kinds of murder and death with blood and rolling heads, and it’s got Denzel Washington saying profound things and threats from the Bible.  Denzel is the titular Eli, roaming the wasted deserts of America with the last copy of the Bible in… Continue reading The Book of Eli – review

Daybreakers, AKA 2010’s first vampire movie, is a pretty solid movie-going experience.  It delivers on its trailers, presenting an eerie future where almost all the humans on earth have been changed into vampires–and in having done so not just not solved but actually worsened all of the problems and injustices in the world.  The blood supply is on the… Continue reading Daybreakers | movie review

Avatar is a great film.  Here is a movie that will actually surprise you and offer things you have never seen before.  James Cameron has delivered a special effects powerhouse that is actually an extended acid trip in the jungle.  The human tech is underwhelming, so is the heavy-handed theme, but consider these as elements… Continue reading James Cameron’s Avatar | movie review

Brad Pitt called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button “a love letter to New Orleans.”  Well.  If Button was a love letter, then Disney’s The Princess and the Frog was a Homeric poem in the grand lady’s honor, because it caught the culture and flavor of New Orleans and southern Louisiana far better than the… Continue reading The Princess and the Frog – movie review

The Road is, unfortunately, a boring movie, and the title might as well be Sittin’ Round the Campfire. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, is one of the very best books of the decade, and this adaptation falls flat for about half the running time. There are good actors, moments, and visuals, but the whole isn’t… Continue reading The Road | movie review

Disney Channel viewers will be able to vote for the New Year’s Eve programming lineup at DisneyChannel.com beginning Friday.  After all the voting is done, the programs that have won will air on December 31st from 6 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.  This will all be done in a special block of programs titled “New Year’s… Continue reading Disney Channel New Year’s Eve programming – I vote Selena Gomez

Going to a midnight movie is an experience that has to be included in the review of the film.  First, who was there?  Mostly female–about 1 in 10 people were male–and not as many shrieking junior high girls as I expected.  The audience was mostly high school/early college kids and adult women.  Didn’t see any… Continue reading Twilight New Moon | movie review

The best romantic comedy of the year! I make that claim with only about 5% facetiousness. Zombieland, despite its name and premise (a pair of unlikely allies making their way through an America overrun with zombies) is much closer to a romantic comedy formula than a zombie movie formula.

Shane Acker’s 9 is a movie that has been much anticipated around BSCReview.  We pretty thoroughly covered the media blitz for this movie, all of which I found intriguing and enticing:  the date tie-in, “9/9/9:  9.”  The taglines—“When our world ended, their world began,” and, “This isn’t your little brother’s animated movie.”  The previews that… Continue reading Elena’s World – My Thoughts on Shane Acker’s 9

On Monday night Nickelodeon’s network new family plan will begin and Glenn Martin DDS will be leading the way as the only original series ordered for the new Nick at Nite schedule.  This will be an animated series with Kevin Nealon doing the voiceover for the lead character, which we can assume will be Glenn… Continue reading Glenn Martin DDS with Kevin Nealon on Nick at Nite

District 9 is a revival of the good old days of R rated 80s and early 90s sci-fi action films.  This is a great movie, showing true originality, and delivering on its entertainment mandate.  District 9 avoids the pitfalls that rob many sci-fi flicks of their potential, including the poisonous PG-13 rating, the ubiquitous bad… Continue reading District 9 | Eli’s Plot Twist

Don’t watch G.I. Joe, it’s about as appealing as an abortion.  This isn’t realistic/serious G.I. Joe, and it isn’t pure cartoon fun G.I. Joe.  No, this is a third variety; this is pure, unadulterated shit.  It’s hard to imagine how, with such a wealth of source material to cull from, a person could create something… Continue reading G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra | Eli’s Plot Twist

“Dom, your engine is throbbing!”  Fast and Furious is out on DVD, a trip back in time, to a simpler time, a time when Limp Bizkit was popular, and import racing was fresh and exciting and new!  The Fast and the Furious started an epic love story, between two men who were too fast to… Continue reading Fast and Furious | DVD Review

To be completely honest, I am aware of the The Last Airbender in general because of this film, and I am aware of this film because it’s directed by M. Night Shyamalan.  Now we have some mugshots of some of players. I’m hoping this scores big for M. Night Shyamalan because I think the guy… Continue reading Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender – Cast Images

Michael Mann is the de facto king of cops and robbers city street shootouts. Public Enemies makes a nice shift to period piece old timey stuff with no loss in crisp edge. Few people can argue that Miami Vice was a misfire of epic proportion. The only bad thing left over from Vice is the… Continue reading Public Enemies | Eli’s Plot Twist

Virtuality is a new original program that Fox premiered last night.  It was unclear to me whether it was a TV movie or the pilot for a new series that may or may not actually advance into further episodes.  The brief description I saw that made me tune it was that it is about a group of astronauts in space… Continue reading EVirtuality | TV (FOX) review

Michael Bay is the mad hatter. Truly bizarre visions and creatures rule the screen for nearly two and a half hours. Also on display; epic scope, true summer blockbuster scale; Transformers 2 has everything, and delivers everything in a steady and rapid flash. Transformers’ commitment to portraying the U.S. Military as unerring heroes allows the… Continue reading Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen | Eli’s Plot Twist

Pixar consistently delivers, to the point that any review of Up is more a measure of greatness, rather than a critique. Up matches the great craftsmanship and thoughtfulness Pixar is known for, upping the ante with seamless 3D integration and well framed daydreams. There is a heavier tone and theme this time around, and kids… Continue reading Pixar’s ‘Up’ | Movie Review

J.J. Abrams takes his place among the likes of James Cameron and Steven Spielberg to deliver the first true blockbuster of the summer. Top shelf special effects, epic space battles, and electric momentum make this a sci-fi classic in its own right, even outside the Star Trek canon. Abrams has real respect for Star Trek… Continue reading Star Trek (2009) | Movie Review