Tag: Film

Movie Review: Oblivion

IMDB, Oblivion“Oblivion” on IMDB

Sci-fi, 124 Minutes, 2013

This is a good sci-fi movie.  Tom Cruise [IMDB] is still good enough to make you forget that he’s pants-crapping crazy.  Morgan Freeman [IMDB] is Morgan Freeman.  The effects are gorgeous.  The pacing is effective and the cinematography stunning.

It’s a good movie.  You’ll enjoy it.  Are we clear on that?  Good, because the movie was also really fucking stupid.

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Movie Review: The Conspirator

IMDB, The Conspirator“The Conspirator” on IMDB

Historical Drama, 122 Minutes, 2009

Since we covered “Lincoln” [our review] recently this seemed like a reasonable follow-up.  The movie covers the trial of Mary Surratt, the lone woman accused of conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

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Movie Review: Lincoln

IMDB, Lincoln“Lincoln” on IMDB

Historical Drama, 150 Minutes, 2012:

This is an excellent historical drama.  There are some amazing performances, notably by Daniel Day-Lewis [IMDB] and Tommy Lee Jones [IMDB].  Focusing almost exclusively on the little understood, but intensely interesting, fight to pass the 13th amendment it’s a movie that every American should watch and understand.

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Movie Review: Dead Cert

IMDB, Dead Cert“Dead Cert” on IMDB

Action/Horror, 91 Minutes, 2010

The tagline for this one is “You Think You Know Vampires?  Think Again.”  I’m not sure if that’s a dig at sparkly vampires or not but these vampires, here?  Pretty damn average if you ask me.

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Movie Review: Movie 43

Movie 43“Movie 43” on IMDB

Comedy, 94 Minutes, 2013

Movies like this collect well-known celebrities and, probably by intimating that they lack of a sense of humor if they won’t, convince them to spend a day or two creating often raunchy, but generally below average, short comedy films.  These are then thrown together with a loose wrapper story and tossed out to the public.

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Movie Review: Demon Hunter

IMDB, Demon Hunter“Demon Hunter” on IMDB

Horror, 90 Minutes, 2012

This isn’t a good movie.  In fact it’s a bad movie.  Bad movie!  Bad movie!  (Like most of the movies in the class it has an identity crisis.  It’s listed on IMBD as “Demon Hunter” but the available poster calls it “Obsidian Hearts”.)

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RiffTrax Live: Starship Troopers!

RiffTrax Live: Starship Troopers

We’re huge RiffTrax fans here and when they did their first KickStarter campaign back in February we backed them.  Backed them hard!  They were trying to earn enough to Riff “Twilight”.  Apparently, since the movie is still busy printing money like Guttenberg on Meth, there isn’t enough for that.  So they did “Starship Troopers” instead.

Broadcast by Fathom Events to hundreds of theaters (and, for the first time, Canada) this is the fifth live RiffTrax event and the first using a major studio film.  The prior events, “Plan Nine from Outer Space”, “Manos: The Hands of Fate”. “Reefer Madness” and the modern turkey classic, “Birdemic”, were some of the best times we’ve had in a theater and this one didn’t disappoint.

“Starship Troopers” is actually a decent film on its own.  Campy, clichéd and over-the-top, but also fun, well-paced and visually impressive.  I prefer it when the guys riff truly terrible films so I can’t say this was my favorite live event.  It was still worlds better than any of the comedies I’ve seen this year.

RiffTrax never disappoints!

Movie Review: The Whole Damn Hellraiser Franchise

Hellraiser, Puzzle box[This is the twenty-first through twenty-ninth selection in my irregular, “My Wife and Kids are Visiting Relatives and I’m Home Watching Movies” film festival. Yes, I watched all of these. In a row. In a day. More than 13 hours. Do you people see the lengths to which I will go to prevent myself from making an actual contribution to society?]

I was 16 years-old in 1987 when the first “Hellraiser” movie came out.  Back then the only thing approaching what we now know as “the Internet” existing solely in the minds of schizophrenics so I was forced to wait for the VHS release of the movie to see it.  I had just recently gotten into horror in a big way based on the recommendations of a friend and was a fan of Clive Barker [Wikipedia].  The movie, written and directed by Barker and based on his novella, “The Hellbound Heart” [Wikipedia], was twisted, gruesome and most importantly, different.

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Movie Review: The Frankenstein Theory

IMDB, The Frankenstein Theory“The Frankenstein Theory” on IMDB

Horror, 87 Minutes, 2013

[This is the twentieth selection in my irregular, “My Wife and Kids are Visiting Relatives and I’m Home Watching Movies” film festival.]

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