Geek For E!

Geek For E!

Creators of the TwitView! Reviews in 140 characters or less.

Movie Review: John Carter

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Oh Pixar.  How I love the things you’ve done.  Especially the films Monsters, Inc. and Wall*E.  Director Andrew Stanton rocked the house, y’all.  Now there’s Stanton’s first live-action film, John Carter, done while on loan to Disney studios.  Um.  When does he get back to Pixar?

John Carter is an intriguing story based on a series of books that were written almost 100 years ago.  This movie has a whole lot going on.  Pity all that action is so dreadfully dull.  I felt like I was watching the movie through plexiglass, as if a beautiful tale was unfolding in front of me that I couldn’t touch.  The start of a series?  Prolly not.

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Movie Review: Act of Valor

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Ever wonder what it must be like to be a part of the United States Navy’s SEALs (Sea, Air, and Land Teams)?  Act of Valor gives you an up-close and personal look at their life, in what the filmmakers are calling “cinematic nonfiction”.  Like television shows such as Law & Order, CSI and Body of Proof, Act of Valor is based on real-life events.  But unlike those shows, this film showcases real-life, currently active-duty SEALs in the storyline, doing what they do best.  It’s a riveting film that kept this “thought I’d seen it all” action-genre fan on the edge of her seat.  Is it top-notch storytelling and grade A acting?  No, but if you’re expecting award-winning performances from non-actors you be trippin’.  What it is, is a whole lot of fun that left me with a warm fuzzy feeling about being Amuuuurincan.  It also gave me even more respect for the men and women of today’s Armed Forces.  Hooyah!

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Movie Review: The Vow

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Valentine’s Day.  The time when all us chicks drag our poor, unsuspecting fellas to the multiplex so we can bond over a sappy love story.  Or rather, the time of year when gals drag their guys to the multiplex for a sappy love story on pain of not being able to watch March Madness in peace, let alone get a little Barry White time, knowwhatI’msayin?  I tend to be the weird chick that would rather head off to a slasher flick than subject myself to boo-hooey romance — except for Notting Hill and The Holiday, because they’re awesome and stop looking at me like that — so it was with great trepidation that I headed into the theater for The Vow.  I like Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls and Midnight in Paris are two favorite films of mine), I like Channing Tatum (uh, hello; Step Up is old school fun).  I like movies based on real events.  And I like The Vow.

It’s amazing that a movie based on a real-life couple’s struggle to find their way back to each other didn’t end up a complete schmoopfest.  Don’t get me wrong, this movie is firmly in the romance genre, and it may even be considered a graduate-level romance flick for die-hard romantics only.  But it’s also a well-crafted, beautifully acted piece of filmmaking that stands out in the pre-Summer Blockbuster wasteland of late Winter movie releases.  The Vow could have easily been a Lifetime Original Movie in multiplex form, something producers threw money at in the hopes people watching the film in theaters wouldn’t notice they could see the same exact movie at home for free.  Instead, The Vow has a layered storyline that goes beyond it’s one-note beginnings and does something many romance movies forget to do; it entertains.

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Movie Review: Chronicle

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Superheroes!  Zap!  Biff!  Pow!  They seem so put-together when they’re covered in spandex, but as we all know from Smallville, it takes a while to get from having powers to being super.  Chronicle is the latest “Found Footage” film to hit the theaters, and it shows three boys trying to become super-men after they get their powers on.  It’s a film with tons of trippy, amazing scenes of superhero derring-do, but all the special effects in the world can’t cover for a weak storyline.  As a wannabe comic book nerd, I’m bummed that a movie that came up with such a great premise failed to deliver a movie I cared about past the closing credits.

Remember high school?  You either hated it, or it was the Best Time Ever and now you’re pumping gas or ghostwriting YA novels.  Andrew, the male version of Carrie White of his local high school, has just bought a camera and has decided to film his day-to-day life.  Cool burnout cousin Matt thinks that’s a lame way to hide from the world (and hey, it kinda is) but since Matt has no real interest in spending time with his cuz beyond the token morning ride to school, it’s a non-issue.  That is until senior class uberdude Steve finds something in the woods during a party Matt dragged Andrew and Andrew’s camera to.  When these three guys head down the rabbit hole — literally — they find something way cooler than Peter Parker’s radioactive spider.  The next day, they’ve got powers.  Powers that seem to get stronger and stronger every day.  But the guys react to these powers differently; wanna guess what happens when they stop getting along?

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Movie Review: The Grey

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How do you review a movie that wasn’t great, but didn’t suck? A movie that pulled you in, but not far enough in that you were absorbed? A film that wasn’t bad, but didn’t feel like it was made for you? Such were the questions I asked myself before I sat down to review The Grey, a movie about a group of men trying to survive in the cold harsh winter (of their discontent) of Alaska, wolves circling around them ready for dinner. It’s an interesting character study, with the group of tough guys slowly breaking down one by one. But gorgeous views of Alaska and the well-done animatronic wolves weren’t enough. For me, I wanted more.

The Grey is a man vs. nature film, and you need to be a dude (or in a dude frame of mind) to really get into this film.  Or perhaps it just that this film suffers from a lack of dramatic structure.  You can easily pick out the movies director/screenwriter Joe Carnahan (The A Team, Smokin’ Aces) loves as this movie unspools.  Go ahead; you won’t miss much if your mind wanders. The Thing (scary!cold), Alive (dudes survive a plane crash!), Ghost and the Darkness (scary!animals), Wolfen (wolves!  eek!), Solaris (dead wife visions!) Cliffhanger (daring feats of ice bravery!) But I like to think of The Grey as Deliverance. With wolves. Cue the banjo music…oh wait, wolves don’t have opposable thumbs. No wonder they’re pissed.

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Movie Review: A Dangerous Method

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Shrinks.  Can’t live with ‘em, can’t truly reshape their consciousness for a more pleasing outcome without taking into consideration the many ways that could cause irreparable harm to the psyche.  Best to just watch A Dangerous Method, the fascinating story of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and their patient/fellow psychoanalyst-to-be Sabina Spielrein.  After watching, you can tell me how that made you feel.  It made me feel fantastic.

Everybody knows who Sigmund Freud is.  The father of psychoanalysis, he’s the one who seems to be able to break everything down into something sexual and is now more of a sly joke than scientist to most folks.  “Sometimes a banana is just a banana, Anna.”  Carl Jung is well known, but not to the point of being a touchstone like Freud.  Jung just isn’t in everyone’s collective unconscious yet…but since he’s the one that coined that term (and he’s more respected nowadays), he should be.  Freud and Jung had a longstanding professional camaraderie that blossomed into friendship, only to crash and burn when their ideologies clashed.  A Dangerous Method adds Spielrein, a gorgeous but dangerously neurotic woman who becomes a patient of Jung’s.  In this movie, her arrival is the catalyst that shifts Jung’s ideas, ultimately causing the rift between Jung and Freud.  In director David Cronenberg’s hands it’s a mesmerizing look at the humanity behind these great minds.  Performances by Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley make this film one to watch when they announce the Oscar noms.

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Movie Review: Red Tails

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Tuskegee Airmen.  World War II.  Awe-inspiring airfights.  You know what that means; time to ogle men in uniform, amIright?

George Lucas revisits his well-known love of classic war-genre feats of awesome in Red Tails, a story about the amazing pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (aka The Tuskegee Airmen).  It’s a real-life story about how honor, duty and fearlessness knows no color.  Unfortunately, Lucas doesn’t seem to have any interest in creating fully fleshed characters or believable dialogue, and instead relies on cheap sentiment, cliches and rushed direction so he can scoot over to Skywalker Ranch and play with his CGI.  That it’s a beautiful film can’t be denied, but the Tuskegee Airmen, and this movie, deserve better.

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Movie Review: Carnage

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Coffee and cobbler will lead to the breakdown of our society.  Now you know.  In Roman Polanski’s Carnage, two couples — seemingly intelligent, affable adults — become unglued, morphing into self-serving jerks while trying to deal with the aftermath of a schoolyard fight between their two sons.

I couldn’t help but liken this movie to Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  As with Nichols’ film, Carnage is based on a stage play.  It also deals with highly educated upper-middle class white couples breaking down over a prolonged visit (doubting if the liberal Longstreets are upper-middle?  I’d like to know how else they could afford the lavish apartment/condo they’ve got.  Seriously, it’s awe-inspiring.)  But unlike Woolf, Carnage is a comedy.  And it’s hilarious.  No, fans of Louis C.K., I’m not abusing the term.  Okay, maybe I’m not dirty and haven’t been in a gutter (lately).  But I was close.

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Movie Review: Beauty and the Beast 3D

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Can you believe it’s been over 20 years since Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was first released?  On the one hand, over these years it’s become a timeless classic.  But to me it also feels like it was just last week I first saw Belle and her Beast on the big screen.

Oh wait.  It WAS last week.  But this time I saw them in 3D, with the Beauty and the Beast 3D release.  And lemme tell you, fans of this movie that wonder if they should shell the hard-earned for this version…yes, you should.  It’s a totally new way to see the film, and it’s a wonderful use of 3D.  Plus hey, tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.  You know the drill.

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Movie Review: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

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January.  The notorious dumping ground of films that weren’t good enough to warrant any kind of award recognition the year before, and aren’t groovy enough to be a fun ride for Summer blockbuster season.  I’m not talking about movies that had an “awards release” late in the prior year.  They’re just cheating the system, but I’m all for it if that means the good stuff continues to trickle into the multiplexes for a few extra weeks.

But then there are the wild cards; the movies released for a hiccup in the prior year but have no real business appearing in Best Movie lists.  These are the films that you’re supposed to like if you know what’s good for you.  If you don’t?  Well, guess you’re not in the club.  And guess I’m not in the club when it comes to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; as a book it was a striking look at Cold War espionage.  As a movie it just left me cold.

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