Whoa, who knew Liam Neeson was such a hard ass, but then his parental tendency to kick ass and take names when his daughter is kidnapped is never an element that distracts viewers with the believability, mainly because it’s Liam Neeson, a man in his fifties who struts around the film as the hero who is a change of pace from young male models and wrestlers who normally dominating the big screen. Neeson is an antidote to all the barely past puberty action pukes and convinces us that he’ll kill anyone and everyone if you take from him. It’s a true testament that Neeson simply knocks this role out of the park.
Hulk Vs. (2009) (Two-Disc Special Edition DVD)
It only stands to reason that Marvel would create such an unusual pairing of short films based around two of Marvel’s flagship characters. What with the Hulk smashing the box office, the development of a “Thor” film, and Wolverine being granted the lead in a new series and a series of action movies, it suddenly comes to mind that these pairings aren’t so odd after all. Once you break it down to its core, it’s really Marvel testing the waters for the fan boys and girls yet again. And if you’re not over thinking things like moi, there’s always the possibility that Marvel just wanted to get three of the greatest Marvel heroes and make them go one, two smashing the Earth and spitting blood in a stand off that only exemplifies the appeal and why my local DVD store had to restock every week since these movies premiered on shelves across the nation.
Cinema Crazed's Top 10 of 2008
It’s been a long time coming but we finally singled out the best and worst of 2008 as chosen by Cinema Crazed. Please to enjoy.
Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) (2008)
There really isn’t much of anything directors can do with the vampire sub-genre anymore and that’s been a given for horror geeks for a long time. I’m repellent to any and all vampire fang films that come to the forefront and I’ve made it a rule to carefully dissect most fang films after constant turkeys passed my way. Thankfully “Let the Right One In” isn’t your average vampire movie. And while it’s trite to make such a declaration the truth remains: “Let the Right One In” is a different vampire film and one I loved with every aching horror geek bone inside me.
Cinema Crazed's Worst 10 of 2008
10. Space Chimps
You know, movie geeks make a lot of noise about films in theaters that are great and barely ever receive the attention crap like “Meet Dave” does, but every so often when a new movie scarcely gathers any kind of promotion at all, there’s a reason for it. A damn good reason. And “Space Chimps” is that prime example that some studios may hold films back because they’re just terrible and barely watchable. Cheap animation and a virtually non-existent plot pretty much destroy any semblance of potential this one-note premise has from the starting gates, as “Space Chimps” only clocks in at a lean eighty minutes and feels endless with its horrible voice acting, lame gags, and a twist in the second half that is not only surprising but clumsy in its delivery as if the writers just didn’t know where to go creatively after the chimps were actually in space. I always enter in to an animated film with a healthy sense of optimism (I even gave “Doogal” a chance!) but in a summer that brought us “Wall-E,” talking chimps and NASA propaganda simply doesn’t cut it for me.
Religulous (2008)
It took me eighteen years to finally discover what a crock religion is. There it is, all of my explanation I feel I owe anyone who questions my belief system. While lampooning religion can be fun for only so long, “Religulous” is a film I think should be seen mainly because whether you like it or not spawns truths and puts the religious in the hot seat to discover what god and or religion is. What is god? How did he come to be? I’ve never a response without some sort of unsure rhetoric or descent in to the old clichés about his coming to be without ever providing a solid answer.
Wall-E (Single-disc Edition) (DVD): Widescreen Edition : Disney Eco-friendly Packaging
Before you start in on what the best movie of our year has been so far, I’ll just declare straight that “Wall E” may not only be the best movie of the year, but also one of the finest PIXAR has ever created. Intelligent and bold without alienating its target audience, “Wall E” is that movie that dwarves talking animals flicks blowing away the likes of chimps in space and a kung fu panda. “Wall E” is a magnificent global conscious adventure about the utterly adorable helper robot who doesn’t know that he doesn’t have to clean up what was once considered our home planet.