Fido’s premise is a unique one; take the 1950’s suburban era and add flesh-eating zombies. You would think that the idea itself would give all sorts of opportunities for great social satire. Sadly, this is not the case. Perhaps if the movie was an animated cartoon, the laughs would have occurred more often; I only found myself merely chuckling every once in a while. Upon more thought, Fido, simply takes the last 30 seconds of Shaun of the Dead (a much superior film) and struggles to extend it to 90 minutes.
Continue reading…

When I first saw the trailers for Wanted, I wasn’t excited to see CGI bullets spinning in slow motion, but the cast alone is worthy of checking out the film. In addition, the film is under the direction of Timur Bekmambetov, best known for the Nightwatch horror-action film series out of Russia. It’s alright if you haven’t seen his past work before, but even if you have, a good chunk of Wanted screams stylist to and fro; it’s one of those films where nothing really makes sense, and maybe it isn’t supposed to. It’s also a film that is too big, and overpraised for its britches.
Continue reading…

The trailer for Miss Potter did not do the film justice at all. It seemed to imply a portrayal of Beatrix Potter as a mad woman. It showed her talking to her animal drawings as though they were real people and it did not manage to convey the film’s appealing features. I think this may be the reason the film did not do as well as it should have done on its release, as it did not do its job in attracting viewers. I am happy to say that Miss Potter is actually a charming film which beautifully tells the story of the famous children’s author Beatrix Potter (Renee Zellweger). She does not come across as crazy, but actually seems to be a highly intelligent woman who was born years ahead of her time.
Continue reading…

Unlike many other people, I am not going to jump on the bandwagon and tell you how historically inaccurate this film is. My reasons are simply this : 1) marco evolution is still a theory, 2) this film is pure popcorn fantasy anyway and should not be taken too seriously and 3) it’s directed by Roland Emmerich, a talented filmmaker who usually sells himself short and is more likely to have a good vision and a ton of overused ideas that tend to sabotage whatever story there is. There is no mistaking that Emmerich is good with a huge cast, and will usually bring out dramatic, yet sometimes cliched themes, and most of the time he can make them work. Because of that, his films tend to be surprising successes. Since the two leads in BC are of good looking stock (especially Camilla Belle), the cheese factor should be on high dosage. So what went wrong here?
Continue reading…

When we last left our heroic green giant back in the 2003 film, Bruce Banner (Eric Bana) was on the run somewhere in South America and hiding away from Thunderbolt Ross and the U.S. Army. Five years later, a lot has changed. For starters, the Ang Lee film has nothing to do with the new one. Oddly, the new film opens with…huh, guess what? Bruce Banner (now Ed Norton) on the lam somewhere in Brazil, hiding away from General George ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross and the U.S. Army. In any case, aside from Lou Ferrigno’s cameo as another security guard, that’s where any and all likeness to the previous film ends. I loved the 2003 film’s cerebral/internal character study.

I loved this film, directed by Transporter 2‘s Louis Leterrier even better.
Continue reading…

While I was not a big fan of James Gray’s The Yards a number of years ago, I did, at the time, mildly liked the performances of two actors in that film, Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix. In 2007, there was a bit of reunion of the Yards talent, in the form of We Own The Night, which in my opinion was one of the best made pictures of last year. Between the time of the two pictures, the two leads have grown as actors, especially Joaquin Phoenix -who also gave an underrated performance in another 2007 film, Reservation Road- and this film also gives a surprise in Eva Mendes, as well.
Continue reading…