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Earth Stood Still…Booo!
Day Earth Stood Still (2008) Review Here’s the pitch meeting for The Day the Earth Stood Still, as I imagine it: Studio exec: We need a tentpole picture for the winter season…I am Legend did pretty good, can we come up with somethin like that? Writer: I had an original idea… Studio exec: No originals!…
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It’s Kinda Like “Oklahoma”, Only Without the Dance Numbers
Australia Review Australia wants desperately to be the big sweeping romance it purports to be. It’s expensive, its long, its romantic…and its also kind of dull. Director Baz Luhrmann spared no expense making this epic about a cattle drive across the titular land, as the numerous lovely shots of nature and huge scenes of cattle…
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The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)–Review In Advance of Remake
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) Review This 1951 film is an eloquent plea for understanding and logic and most of all peace. Klaatu, an alien in humanoid form, arrives to Earth. He says as he exits his spaceship in front of an army something to the effect of, ‘We come in peace..and with…
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Lady Vengeance….Vicious
Lady Vengeance Review Park Chan Wook concluded his revenge trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy) with Lady Vengeance. This disturbing film is more stylistically assured than Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and closer in tone to Oldboy than to Mr. Vengeance. It tells the story of Geum-Ja (played by Yeong-ae Lee), imprisoned for kidnapping and killing…
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Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle Succeeds with Visuals and Story
Slumdog Millionaire Danny Boyle is one of my personal favorite filmmakers around, in fact right below this review posting on the main page should be a feature appreciating him. Visually, the guy is a really distinctive force. He has so much range of expression you can’t necessarily pick out a Danny Boyle film from a…
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Four Christmases-Five Groans
Representing the squandered talents of two (2) proven comic talents (Director Seth Gordon of “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” fame, and Vince Vaughn of “Wedding Crashers” fame), “Four Christmases” is the type of well-marketed, high-concept, assembly line dreck that makes money and reproduces to create more processed junk comedy. Vaugh generally has only…
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Bolt Barks at Pixar’s Shadow
In the documentary “The Pixar Story”, some of the commentators discuss their sadness that Pixar basically made obsolete Disney’s hand-drawn animation division. In much a similar way, it seems Disney has become second-banana to Pixar in the computer animation department. Sure the companies are affiliated, but it seems pretty clear when a film is a…
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Park Chan Wook’s “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance”
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance In my personal continuing quest to see all films by Park Chan Wook (Oldboy), I recently saw “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance”. It’s particularly interesting to see the contrast between this film and Park’s earlier film “J.S.A. Joint Security Area”. Stylistically as a director he clearly grew a lot from “J.S.A.”. In…