‘Alice in Wonderland’, for all the hype, the marketing, the trailers, and the buzz, is shockingly…average? Normal? An obvious attempt to spurn yet another Disney franchise? And perhaps most offensive of all…boring? I wish I could praise Tim Burton’s latest fantasy, but it’s just so bland that I can’t really bring myself to do it. [...]
Hey everyone, it’s Ryan. So, the Oscars are approaching (March 7 on ABC), and I’ve opted to make predictions for all the major categories. So without further ado, here’s my picks. (PS: I intentionally misspelled “The Blind Side”.)
Best Picture:
Will Win: The Hurt Locker
Should Win: Inglourious Basterds
Could Win: Inglourious Basterds
Best Director:
Will Win: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt [...]
The finest of American directors, Martin Scorsese, directs the new thriller ‘Shutter Island’, and it’s the finest film in several months. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a U.S. marshal, Teddy Daniels. Daniels is sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient on an island solely for holding the criminally insane. However, when a hurricane hits the island [...]
There is no genre in the medium of film as cliched, as boring, or as insipid as the romantic comedy. In theory, blending the element of love with humor should be a much more interesting, enlightening experience than what modern audiences are generally being offered these days. But charmless, humorless, generally boring scripts are often [...]
Nicholas Sparks makes teenage girls cry for a living: Look no further than the films inspired by his books, ‘The Notebook’ and ‘Walk to Remember’ for shameless tearjerkers. The latest film based on one of his novels, ‘Dear John’, pulls some fairly decent performances out of its young lead actors. That said, its a dull, [...]
To avoid a big, long, pretentious speech about what the year 2009 meant for film, here’s my favorites of the year.
First up, several honorable mentions. “Adventureland”, “Anvil! The Story of Anvil”, “Brothers”, “Bruno”, “500 Days of Summer”, “Food, Inc.”, “The Hangover”, “Julie and Julia“, “The Messenger”, “Moon”, “Paranormal Activity”, the directors cut of “Watchmen”, “Zombieland”, [...]
Hollywood has had a slight obsession with the apocalypse in recent months, with ‘Zombieland’, ‘2012′, ‘Knowing’, and ‘The Road’. Denzel Washington stars in the thriller ‘The Book of Eli’. In it, he portrays Eli, a man who walks across a post-apocalyptic America with only cannibals, thieves, and beggars left. He carries the last surviving copy [...]
Before ‘Leap Year’, Amy Adams had never been in a bad film. Sure, the parts ‘Julie and Julia’ starring her sucked, but the half with Meryl Streep was exceptional enough to lift it up. Sure ‘Underdog’ was an epic fest of crap, but she technically only voiced a character, and didn’t fully appear in it. [...]
Director Peter Jackson has, in the past several years, basically conquered Hollywood. He’s made some of the highest-grossing films of all time, including an 11-hour fantasy epic. His last 4 films have won a combined total of 20 Academy Awards and over $3 billion. Yet somehow, Peter cannot direct a cohesive story on a [...]
Hey. Soon this site will be flooded with lists of mine, including my picks for best of ‘09, worst of ‘09, the worst of the decade, and ultimately the best. But first, I’ll put out the films I want to see most this year.
10: The Social Network. One of my favorite directors, David Fincher (Fight [...]