reviews by genre
Poetry in 3D – A review of BEOWULF
December 4th, 2007
My cohort Aaron Webb penned this review of the recent computer-animated film… and as he knows the source material better than I, I’m posting his review first. I’ll post my own thoughts on the film next… Changes to Poem Render Computer Animated Film Less Potent by Aaron Webb Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf is a computer generated [...]
Read More...Third Time’s a DISMEMBERING Charm…
October 3rd, 2007
A Review of “Resident Evil: Extinction” (R) There is nothing new about the third installment in the Resident Evil series… though, for avid readers of Cinemagogue, you know that’s not necessarily harsh criticism. Still, while the film is enjoyable for fans of the genre, even I was surprised how unabashedly it borrowed from the themes [...]
Read More...Sci-Fi Season Premiere Scorecard
September 29th, 2007
The Invasion is over, everyone. and the science fiction occupation has begun. While “sci-fi” once remained relegated to the Area 51s of the FOX Network or the Sci-Fi Channel, it has now descended from the digital cable clouds and demanded that we take them to our major network. A quick look at the weekly listings [...]
Read More...3:10 To Yuma… Runs out of Steam
September 9th, 2007
I’m blessed to get into advance screenings and contribute movie reviews for Hollywood Jesus from time to time. This time it was precisely 3:10… the time a steam puffing train rolls into Yuma with actors Christian Bale and Russell Crowe in the newest release from Lion’s Gate Pictures. Bale is one of my favorite actors, and Crowe typically [...]
Read More...There’s No Place Like D’OH!!!
August 14th, 2007
The Simpsons Movie by James Harleman The funniest part of The Simpsons movie may be the opening, when frustrated father Homer Simpson groans over watching a movie that is essentially a big screen version of what you can see at home on TV. This self-awareness sets up the movie nicely, also setting the level of [...]
Read More...More than Meets the Eye…
July 5th, 2007
More than two decades after Hasbro, Takara, Sunbow and Marvel Comics combined forces, to unleash the most successful, holistic, cartoon/comic/vehicle/puzzle/robot marketing campaigns ever known to man, creating a towering titan of revenue that has ebbed and flowed for decades, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg have taken the steel-reinforced franchise one step further with a crowd-pleasing, comedic [...]
Read More...Sometimes Truth…
June 21st, 2007
Is your life a comedy or a tragedy? When Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) hears the narrator of his life while brushing his teeth, he panics with the realization that his fate may not be his own. What ensues is a fascinating character study of a tax collector looking at his life – his time, his [...]
Read More...Fantastic Chore
June 17th, 2007
In 2005, I subjected myself to the Fantastic Bore… watching Jessica Alba failing to act intelligent, while Ioan Gruffudd and Michael Chiklis looked around nervously, hoping no one would notice them as they collected a nice paycheck; the charming Julian McMahon smirked his way through a doomed role that was both poorly written and miscast, appearing [...]
Read More...Illusion of Good Intentions
June 7th, 2007
I keep expecting director Christopher Nolan to swing and miss. He gave us a stirring Memento, wrestled with Insomnia, ensured that Batman Begins, and capped things off with The Prestige, my pick for greatest film of 2006. (In 2008, he’ll give us the next Bat-installment with The Dark Knight.) This 37 year old Brit not only seems to [...]
Read More...The Story of Story…
April 14th, 2007
“I wanted to believe, more than most I wanted to be like a child again.” Cleveland Heep discovers that beyond the veil of his mundane and humdrum life is a world of myth and fantasy, a true myth that overlies his own, a spiritual world with great consequence to our lives, to our future. Overlooked [...]
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