Results tagged “moviereviews”

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Let's just get one thing out of the way before launching into the proper review: I am in love with Robert Downey, Jr. Not since seeing Michael J. Fox whip through time in that DeLorean have I been so smitten with an actor. I typically don't get into the whole swooning over celebrities thing, but I can't help myself with this one. My love is unavoidable, uncontrollable, and unrelenting. Okay, I feel better now having disclosed that. On with the review.

Film: Rumba

Film: (500) Days of Summer

"Bromance" is one of the new terms that I don't despise (I'm looking at you, whoever coined "Recessionista"). Judd Apatow has consistently been bringing the funny with stories of man-boys refusing to exist in the grown-up world of real jobs, sex, girlfriends, and non-pot smoking. This foray into the Peter Pan world is not actually associated with Apatow, but it is the logical extension of his formula. I Love You, Man takes the charming and slightly girlish Paul Rudd and pairs him with man's man Jason Segal while following all the rules of Romantic Comedy.

After much hype and controversy, director Zack Snyder's film adaptation of author Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons' critically acclaimed graphic novel Watchmen is finally here. Many people, including the book's author, said it was unfilmable, and I definitely understand why. The book is a postmodern examination, not only of the content and the stories of comic books—what it would really mean to be a costumed crime fighter, and what kind of person would really do that; what it would really mean to have super powers; what it would really mean to "save" the world—but also of the form of comic books—how the images flow across the page; how they relate to each other from panel to panel; how time and space are expressed on the page. The story is so much, at its very root, a comic book story, that moving it into another medium in some way destroys it.

Theoretically, Hotel for Dogs should have been the perfect movie for me. After all, it combined two of my greatest loves: dogs and Rube Goldberg machines.

The man born Christopher George Latore Wallace was known by many names: Biggie Smalls, Notorious B.I.G., Big Poppa, Biggie and had just as many facets to his personality. A ground-breaking rapper, he was also a lover, a son, a drug-dealer, a father, a convict, and just a little boy from Bed-Stuy. Going into the film, I wondered if the film would just be a glorified "Behind the Music" episode, but was blown away by the performance of unknown Jamal Woolard as Christopher Wallace. People who knew Big in real life are most likely haunted by the spot-on portrayal of the rapper in the film. Those of us who only knew him as a performer will also be moved by the tale of his life. Particularly touching was Biggie's real-life son C.J. playing him as a young child—seeing him out on the stoop, writing rhymes in his dime store notebook, we get a glimpse into where Biggie's talent was born.

If Jim Carrey would stop being a caricature of himself then maybe it would be a little easier to enjoy his films. He shines in his non-comedic stuff (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Truman Show), but his comic performances are so over the top and deliberate that sometimes the overacting is difficult to get past. Though even if he were able to take it down a notch, this movie still would have some problems.