Archives: Movie Reviews

Elijah Wood, whom I always seem to like, goes to visit the father he's never known (Canadian character actor Stephen McHattie from Pontypool and a whole lot more) at his remote coastal Oregon cabin, and after somewhat of a slow start, what seems like it's going to be a horror movie turns into a low-grade but somewhat fun, twisted neo-noir in the post-Tarantino tradition. I liked it fine, no regrets about watching it. I believe neither Wood nor McHattie have yet let me down at this point.

This is not a very good movie, but, I will say, it's about ten times better than I expected it to be. I never like Kevin James nor the track record of Adam Sandler's production company, that made this, but rather than being the truly stupid pile of garbage I expected, it's actually—once it gets going, which takes quite a while—a moderately watchable B-grade action comedy, if you don't go into it expecting more than that.

I'm really surprised. Never imagined I'd think anywhere nearly that highly of it.

Decent drama about the politics behind a morning news show and the network that puts it on. It's not top-flight entertainment like "The Larry Sanders Show", nor is it a classic behind-the-scenes drama series with memorable characters like "Mad Men" or "The Sopranos"—and it sure isn't even anywhere near in the same league as "Network"—but the acting is good, and the writing is fairly gripping, every time a season ended I wanted it to go on.

Alright sci-fi action thriller about a spectacularly gorgeous model (Grace Van Dien, great-granddaughter of Robert Mitchum) who ingests an experimental drug, intended to protect humanity from the increasingly toxic atmosphere, that causes her to undergo strange mutations. Soon the scientists are after her. There's guys with guns, lots of running and jumping.

Surprisingly not bad. Visually well-done, high production values without going too far over the top, and adequate acting to pull it off. Deserves better than the 4.7 stars it has on IMDB, at any rate.

Gritty fantasy show based on a Nail Gaiman about ancient gods fighting it out in modern-day American with the "new gods" of commercialism and technology. A very strong start to this Bryan Fuller adaptation, including a smattering of topnotch actors and some really well-cast cameos, disappointingly doesn't pan out as the season wears on. Never worse than good, the show nonetheless loses the first few episodes' tight plotting and gritty tone, gets talkier and more meandering, as what I hoped would be a tight miniseries turns out to be an ongoing series and kind of loses momentum. Tubi's run frustratingly only includes season 1 for now, ending on a cliffhanger, and worse, I understand Bryan Fuller left after that season and subsequent seasons aren't as positively reviewed. Color me all around kind of disappointed. It started really strong. If this had been a solid 6 or maybe 8 episodes of…

Gritty (for Hollywood) tale of a day in the life of speed freaks. I suppose this movie is alright. Despite being cast full of actors I don't like much (Jason Schwartzman, John Leguizamo, Brittany Murphy, Mickey Rourke) it pretty much catches them all at their relative best, doing a pretty good job at bringing full lives to the kind of sketchy characters we've all seen out of the corner of our eyes once in a while, and mostly avoided interacting with. The Hollywood attempt at "gritty" is better than most such. Also, short cameos from the always disturbing Peter Stormare and Debby Harry as a tough-as-nails lesbian liven things up.

I watched this once before, long ago, and recalled liking it, and though it's up and down I came out of it once again thinking I kinda liked it.

Another in a long line of "first contact" films that owe a debt to "2001: A Space Odyssey", but a decent entry in the arena. A lone astronaut on a 10-year-mission to find what's been broadcasting mysterious signals from Neptune. Not bad, it was an alright watch even if conceptually a touch derivative.

Amusingly, "Neptune" appears to have been filmed at Pyramid Lake.