Archives: Movie Reviews

James Franco leads a a broad selection of modern comedy actors on a tour up Hollywood's ass.

It's extremely well-directed, with fantastic production values, and a cast with more plusses than minuses, and yet, that can't save it. Franco plays a dyspeptic Hollywood Forrest Gump, finding himself coincidentally involved with a series of the most important directors and film productions between 1970-1982, plus catching Patti Smith at CBGBs, in an aimless and episodic romance revolving around an actress played by Megan Fox, of all people. Arthouse pretensions sink the whole endeavor, and occasional touches of Charlie Kaufman-like throwaway unjustified weirdness, such as Franco philosophizing about "...a secret movie, hidden in every other movie ever made. Who made it? Who put it there?" just make it worse.

Too bad because the production and direction a great. I guess they forgot that if you're going to make a love love…

Zero budget but still somewhat entertaining slice-of-life about a crack-addicted photographer just getting by in LA. Not much plot, and some of the acting is flat-out terrible, but actually kind of manages somehow to be just gritty enough that it wasn't totally terrible. Which, for this kind of movie, is actually kind of an accomplishment. For this kind of movie.

Not terribly thrilling captivity thriller. Weird high-concept background that doesn't really come into play, as children are being put into camps for carrying a zombie cannibal virus, and a group of teens trying to make it to the border stop by Michelle Dockery's rural house, where she poisons and imprisons them. Meh.

Barbie and Ken travel back and forth between Barbie land and the real world, with fairly predictable results, in a feminist spoof on the toy dolls and their immense world of merchandising. I'd been curious to see it because it was very well-reviewed, but ultimately my curiosity wasn't justified.

It starts off cute enough, with a fair bit of sly wit and fourth-wall humor, but eventually settles into just-slightly-above-average, too-saccharine Hollywood fare. Lots of positive messages here for girls, which is hard to argue with, and a fair dose of mild misandry, also hard to argue with as it's absolutely no worse than women regularly get treated with in mass media (which may be the point), but also wore a little thin on me personally, because I need more than that in a movie. A plot as clever as the passing jokes would have saved it.

David Cross in a dramedy biopic of a lepidopterist who gets lost on a hiking trip in the woods near Mr. Ranier. A little saccharine and not really funny but not terrible. I've seen worse.

Resonably amusing comedy about a deranged fan stalking a pop star. Samara Weaving. Soundtrack is faintly interesting.

Alcoholic singer comes home to her just-slightly-quirky family in rural Michigan after her dad dies while looking for UFOs in this actually-not-bad-for-a-terrible-Christian-movie flick. Stars Donnie Most and Victoria Jackson, who are, surprisingly, not bad, and most of the production values and acting are better than this sort of fare usually is, possibly owing to this seeming, oddly, to have a budget.

However, I should add that some movies just kind of sit on in the background while I surf the web. This was one of those. The Christian stuff might have been much more annoying had I been paying more attention, I don't know.

Tediously slow, talky folk horror. People out in the woods are stalked by some sort of demonic entity or cult, I'm not sure because I kept zoning out.

The rare snoozer from Terry Gilliam. A 10 year old girl, her odd-duck neighbors, and the corpse of Jeff Bridges inhabit an abandoned rural house. All the gorgeous cinematography you'd expect, and the requisite occasional fantasy sequences, but the plot doesn't, well, the story just doesn't seem to be there. She amuses herself playing with doll heads, interacts with weird characters, and that's about it, for two hours. I hate to pan a Terry Gilliam movie, and, I mean, it wasn't bad, it just didn't have enough story to sustain it for 30 minutes, let alone 2 hours.

Serious but kind of dull ostensible horror about a young girl kidnapped and put to work in a brothel in a war-torn eastern European country. Plays more like a drama than horror, but I guess they spend a lot of the movie chasing her, so it's a pursuit/captivity flick. Seemed well-made but just didn't hold my attention.

Forgettable Hollywood B-movie pop horror flick featuring Mischa Barton. People trapped and hunted in a storage facility.

Utterly incomprehensible foreign horror.