Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time

Prometheus is a film abnormally resistant to definitive statements, and movie reviewing is a form that lives and breathes definitive statements, and this brings us to a pretty pass. I will, anyway, begin with what might well be the only absolute judgment on the film that I’m willing to pass, and it is this: the […]

Wrath of the Titans is a better film than 2010’s Clash of the Titans: I was going to say “a better film in all respects”, but that is not true. In the intervening years, and without any gonzo CGI popcorn epics to keep him sharp, Sam Worthington has become an even greater liability as an […]

The most inessential and unlooked-for sequel in, arguably, the whole history of motion pictures – or anyway, since 2010’s Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore – Journey 2: The Mysterious Island continues the epic saga of Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson), the adventuresome teen introduced in 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, […]

Sometimes, we compare movies to fast food: usually McDonald’s and usually in the context, “Some entertainment is like McDonald’s – no damn good, but it’s comforting to know what you’re getting”. This is a lazy comparison, but it has the benefit of being a really poppy image that anybody who’s ever eaten at a McDonald’s, […]

The current printing of the DVD box calls it Jaws 3, while the onscreen title of the same is Jaws III. Ignore these lies! They are only feeble attempts to hide a secret shame, for make no mistake, the title of the thing is Jaws 3-D. For it came during the enthusiastic flurry of 3-D […]

It’s not at all reasonable to say of something that’s as blissfully enjoyable for as much of its running time as The Adventures of Tintin is, “I was completely disappointed’; but that film’s director, Steven Spielberg, has set the bar about as high as anyone could for adventure films that marry the narrative innocence of […]

There are two ways we can think of Immortals. The more satisfying is to compare it to its two most obvious antecedents, 300 and Clash of the Titans, and think to oneself, “Holy balls! That was made by a filmmaker who doesn’t fumble about like a goddamn rodeo clown! GENIUS!” The other way is to […]

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas doesn’t take very long to let us know its intentions: within the first five minutes, we have encountered a scene in which a heavily bearded and altogether worn-out Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) and a mall Santa Claus (Patton Oswalt, the first of many immaculately-placed cameos in the movie) […]

Screens at CIFF: 10/18World premiere: 13 February, 2011, Berlin Film Festival Pina Bausch was a woman who was, until very recently indeed, completely unknown to me; and it’s maybe the most concise way to explain just how good Wim Wender’s film about her work is, if I simply say that Pina – for that is […]

The best one could hope from a movie titled Shark Night 3D is that it be gleefully crass, with a plethora of sharks lashing out at the camera. Indeed, in my boundless innocence and optimism, I would go so far as to say that there is no other possible reason to give a movie the […]

So, I was watching Final Destination 5, and as one will at such times, wound up thinking about KieÅ›lowski’s Three Colors: Red. Specifically, about the final scene, so if you haven’t seen the Three Colors trilogy, be wary of spoilers.* Though you should really already be on your guard for that, this being a review […]

Apologies all ’round that it took me this long to post a review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. You see, I ran right out to see it when it opened three days ago, and it just now ended. At 157 minutes, Dark of the Moon is the longest of the now-three Transformers pictures – […]