Let’s get real here people, up until the last year, not a single person beyond black make up and death metal fandom knew who or what the Twilight series was. I mean at least with Harry Potter I had some sort of preamble leading in to viewing the first four movies, but “Twilight” snuck out nowhere in the cinema scene and was destined to be a hit in spite of the slight obscurity. Just gazing down at a large picture of emo females with black lipstick, black digital cameras, and their own fan club I knew that this cliché, clunky mess of a story would bring in the big bucks. Because regardless of how passionate and antipathetic I or other critics feel, the movie will break the box office because author Stephanie Meyer knows her audience better than we know ourselves, don’t they?
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
One-Day Seminar (2007)
I’m sorry but I just have to have respect for a man who creates a vision like “One-Day Seminar” and performs a trick where the crew pays homage to the show in the process. For a nineteen minute comedy short, director Binder kept me in near stitches by scenarios that were turned catastrophic thanks to stubbornness by main character Tommy Murray and the intense rudeness received by him when he decides to host a seminar.
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D (2008) (DVD)
I know that Brendan Fraser hasn’t had a great go of it this year thanks to the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, but for my money “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was a fun little adventure film in 2D and most especially in 3D. Finally being able to see what director Eric Brevig has in store with his 3D aspect, “Journey” is a fun event film that takes the 3D device and manages it in to a storytelling aspect that keeps the movie consistently fun. And if you think the movie is based only around 3D—well–you’re partly right, but “Journey 3D” is also a fun movie with some great sights and sounds to be had.
Zombie Girl: The Movie
As a kid I remember wanting to make movies; I found out how utterly horrible it was to get a film off the ground let alone make a movie, and “Zombie Girl” is that movie about the ultimate movie geek making a zombie movie. The zombies in this movie don’t run. It’s gory. It’s indie. And the director is twelve! “Zombie Girl” profiles not just Emily Hagins, the preteen filmmaker looking to create her own zombie movie, but it explores the budding interest of filmmaking with the convenience of the film technology in the tech era and what access its created for people like Hagins.
Dance of the Dead (2008)
Take the attempted humor and characterization of “Shaun of the Dead,” the central plot behind the second half of “Night of the Creeps” and team it with “Return of the Living Dead” and you have yourself a sick and rather amusing little hybrid known as “Dance of the Dead” yet another zombie movie that branches off from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s universe and tries for the same comedic momentum with a modicum of teen angst that doesn’t always work, but is nonetheless a fun indie romp. Let’s face it, the zombie genre is all but a skeleton of itself but that doesn’t mean director Gregg Bishop doesn’t give it the old school try by making his version of the Pegg-Wright romzomcom.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Two-Disc Special Edition) (2008)
So I keep coming back to that same question over and over: Was “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” really all that bad, or were more Lucas retractors just exaggerating because they grew up and Spielberg’s story didn’t? And I keep coming back to that same answer: No. “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” really isn’t a bad movie; in fact it’s one of the better Indiana Jones entries I’ve seen that’s been grossly skewered by fans as the “Phantom Menace” of the Indiana Jones franchise, when really, it’s not bad. It’s actually quite good.
Shutter (2008)
Here’s what I learned from watching the remake of “Shutter”:
1. Even purely Asian women look Caucasian only because they should.
2. There are such things as spirit photography magazines.
3. There are experts in spirit photography.
4. Ghosts love a good game of piggyback!
5. And Maya Hazen is a stone cold fox.