Review – John Adams

I liked this miniseries better than I thought I would. If nothing else, Paul Giamatti wasn’t anywhere near as annoying as he was in every other role I’ve seen him play. Plus I didn’t know much about Adams other than his association with the infamous Alien and Sedition Act, so I enjoyed learning a little history along the way. Though I suspect it could have been a good deal shorter, overall it was a pleasant viewing experience. My only real disappointment was that the overlays of historical tidbits – an optional feature on the discs – didn’t amount to much. Mildly amusing

Review – Les Miserables

Bad as some of them were, the “singing” actors derided by many critics weren’t exactly the worst part of this production. Indeed, I was genuinely surprised at how terrible the music itself turned out to be. I was braced for pompous grandiosity along Andrew Lloyd Webber lines, but this outing wasn’t even that good. Aside from two or three lavish production numbers, the whole thing was a mess of meandering, barely-rhyming verse and so many recitatives that it might just as well have been a non-musical version of Hugo’s novel. When the villainous Javert is the only interesting, sympathetic character, the adaptation has issues. Tom Hooper’s direction was also especially dreadful. Every time the camera slanted off to an awkward, pointless dutch tilt or zoomed in so tight on a singer that the home viewers could perform a laryngoscopy, he left me wondering if he’d ever actually seen a musical before attempting to create one. See if desperate

Review – The Horror Show (1989)

I don’t remember the 80s so well. Was this executed-serial-killer-stalks-cop stuff fresh and original back then? Certainly there seemed to be a lot of it. This particular entry isn’t particularly distinguished. It offers a couple of familiar faces (Lance Henriksen as the cop and Brion James as the killer), but otherwise there isn’t much to it. Mildly amusing

Review – ParaNorman

I got caught up in the technical details of this production, watching closely to see what the filmmakers were doing with stop motion shot with a digital SLR camera. Fortunately, I don’t think I missed much plot-wise. A boy who can see ghosts does battle with a witch, zombies and ignorant townspeople. Mildly amusing

Review – The Paperboy

Thank you, Lee Daniels. Thanks for 107 minutes of wretched assholes leading miserable lives. If Congress ever proclaims a National Lose All Faith in Humanity Day, your production will become a holiday classic. Macy Gray was okay, but the rest of this picture was purely dreadful. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Coming to America

Remember when Eddie Murphy was famous for something besides voicing a talking donkey? Remember when Arsenio Hall could command a major role and Samuel L. Jackson did no better than a walk-on as a guy robbing a fast food joint? Remember when John Landis could still find work? Then perhaps you’ll remember this movie for something other than the huge lawsuit that trailed in its wake. This tale of an African prince who comes to New York to escape an arranged marriage isn’t bad. It’s just unmemorable. Mildly amusing

Review – Safe House

Someday they’re going to make it all the way to the end of one of these without using the phrase “off the reservation.” But apparently such an enlightened, racism-free age is not yet upon us. Nor is the day when I finally remember that just because Denzel Washington can act doesn’t mean he’s in a movie that gives him the chance to do so. This mediocre blend of noisy action sequences and predictable plot twists isn’t a finest hour for anyone, not even Ryan Reynolds. See if desperate

Review – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so I was expecting good things from this production. Perhaps that was the problem. The earlier series condensed three long books down to three long movies. This one takes the opposite approach, starting with one shorter book and expanding it to an epic trilogy. The result features a fair amount of filler, much of which doesn’t work (especially the Brown Wizard nonsense). However, the parts that stick to the main story are as entertaining as Peter Jackson’s previous trips to Middle Earth. Mildly amusing

Review – The Dark Sleep

Putting “sleep” in a movie title is just begging for a host of obvious insults, but here I’d feel bad about taking such cheap shots at such a defenseless production. H.P. Lovecraft’s “Dreams in the Witch House” may be buried somewhere under this vast pile of amateur hour antics. But for the most part this movie is an uneven blend of “at least you tried” special effects and writing more appropriate for skits performed in the multipurpose room of a dorm. See if desperate

Review – The Bay

To the extent I’m able, I’ve sworn off found footage movies. But with Barry Levinson in the director’s chair, this entry seemed like it might stand a chance. Levinson occasionally trips over the format, sneaking narrative filmmaking in here and there. I would also have preferred a more linear chronology. When the movie whips back and forth between subplots, editing scenes out of order doesn’t exactly make the story easier to follow. However, the nasty little mutant parasites more than make up for the technical defects. And sadly the premise – pollution of Chesapeake Bay turns harmless sea life into a dangerous plague – is all too plausible. Worth seeing

Review – Dark Feed

I’m greatly puzzled by one element of this picture: the puppy survives to the end. When a horrible horror movie introduces a cute animal of any kind, the poor creature’s part is almost universally guaranteed to end badly. Mind, I’m not complaining. Indeed, the decision saved the production from earning a lower rating. It just struck me as odd, particularly as the rest of the show was an intensely predictable tale of evil befalling a crew shooting a bad horror movie in a haunted insane asylum. See if desperate

Review – Sinister

I ran hot and cold on this production. I’ve come to appreciate producers’ decisions to actually spend money on horror movies. Not that Ethan Hawke necessarily does a better acting job than a low-budget unknown could have done. But at least the creative calls – good and bad – were deliberate decisions rather than the helpless flailing of a pack of amateurs with neither the wits nor the resources to make anything entertaining. A true crime writer desperately trying to finish a book runs up against a demon named Bagul – or Mr. Boogie in kid-speak – that specializes in persuading children to kill their whole families. I confess that I got distracted by a plot hole: this extremely methodical demon sticks to its plan except that it always targets families with three children and our hero only has two. Still, overall the production was a cut above most of the rest of the genre’s recent entries. mildly amusing

Review – James and the Giant Peach

Though I can’t say exactly why, this production just didn’t do it for me. It was far too cutesy, but that seems to be par for the course for children’s movies. The combination of live action and stop motion animation was awkward, driven more by the budget than by art. And the Randy Newman musical numbers were nothing short of excessive. They would have killed the plot dead if there’d been much of a plot to kill. That was the biggest problem. For a movie about an orphan who drifts away on a giant peach full of giant bugs, not much happens. Mildly amusing

Review – True Grit (2010)

I’ve never seen the original, and if the Coen brothers hadn’t been at the helm I probably would have skipped the remake as well. However, I’m glad I gave it a chance. The Coens’ usual level of quirk mixes nicely with a vaguely Deadwood-y script, resulting in a reasonably watchable Western. Mildly amusing

Review – The Adventures of Mark Twain

When I was a kid, Will Vinton’s Oscar-winning animated short, “Closed Mondays,” inspired me to spend some time playing around with animation using clay. Unfortunately, the quirky cleverness that functions well in shorts doesn’t translate particularly well to feature length productions. Vinton is still able to do some impressive stuff with clay, achieving fascinating effects that today’s computer-generated productions would never even consider. And in several spots it’s put to excellent use, particularly in the chilling version of “The Mysterious Stranger” (a segment cut from some prints for being too potentially upsetting for children). However, some of Vinton’s technique is ineffective. He’s especially bad with leg movement. And the production’s sense of self-conscious whimsey was dated in 1985, let alone now. Overall, however, this works as animated art and homage to the title character. Mildly amusing

Abandoned – Storage 24

Dear bad British horror movie producers: thanks for getting the dog death out of the way in the first ten minutes. You saved me from sitting through the remaining 80.

Review – A Dangerous Method

Pretty tame by David Cronenberg’s standards, this is a fairly straightforward account of the birth of psychoanalysis. Naturally Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Jung (Michael Fassbender) feature prominently, as does Sabina Spielrein (Keira Kinightley). As is typical with such productions, Spielrein is here commemorated more for her kinky affair with Jung (and its effect on Jung’s relationship with Freud) than for her own valuable contributions to the field. Otherwise, however, this was a reasonably entertaining bit of historical drama. Worth seeing

Review – Petrified

Time has passed Full Moon Video by. Maybe – just maybe – back in the 1980s a blend of the softest soft-core sex and guys in rubber monster suits was enough to justify a movie’s existence with no additional concern for script, acting, plot or character development. But in the 21st century infoscape, a realm of easily-accessible hard-core porn and extreme horror violence, this fails to rise above “quaint.” Though the MPAA wasn’t officially asked, I have trouble imagining the association dishing out much more than a PG-13 to this tale of an alien mummy who likes to watch women play with each other. See if desperate

Review – Pretty in Pink

Here’s a mix of the dated awfulness of the 1980s and the timeless awfulness of class-conscious romance. A poor girl (Molly Ringwald in her definitive role) falls in love with a rich boy (Andrew McCarthy) but suffers abuse from his snobby friends. Though Howard Deutch directed, this is very much a creature of writer slash producer John Hughes. If Hughes had gotten the ending he wanted rather than the one that tested well with audiences, perhaps this would have been a better movie. But then again, perhaps not. Mildly amusing

Review – Spooks and Creeps

I used to hate short subject filmmaking, which generally struck me as the realm of talentless amateurs. But now thanks to the tech revolution that’s opened feature-length work to talentless amateurs, shorts no longer seem that bad to me. At least someone with no clue can demonstrate his lack in 10 minutes rather than dragging it out to 90 and beyond. This disc is a collection of six unrelated horror stories without so much as a bracket. Two or three of them manage some cleverness, and familiar faces here and there don’t exactly hurt. Overall, however, I walked away with an overwhelming sense of “meh.” Mildly amusing

Review – Snow White and the Huntsman

Of Hollywood’s 2012 adaptations of this story, this one’s the grimmer of the two. Though I didn’t need anything as goofy-happy as Mirror Mirror, I would have preferred something that seemed more like a movie and less like a marketing package. The production reeked of Game of Thrones, and of course casting Kristen Stewart (whom I’m beginning to suspect is genuinely talentless) didn’t exactly hurt with the Twilight crowd, either. I also found myself strangely annoyed by the decision to cast average height actors and shrink them via CGI to play the dwarves. Though technically effective, the effect made the characters (especially Ian McShane) creepy and deprived seven naturally shorter actors of jobs. Mildly amusing

Review – Indie Game: The Movie

Yet another “let’s mock some nerds” documentary, this time about small-time game designers trying to make it big. I found the technical details of their stories fascinating in a making-a-living-without-working-for-a-corporation way, though I could have done without some of the disordered personalities. Folks considering the title pursuit as a possible path to fame and fortune should definitely watch this movie. Mildly amusing

Review – The Awakening (2011)

More than a century after the first publication of “The Turn of the Screw,” Henry James continues to work his evil, dull-as-dishwater influence on English ghost stories. The description’s mention of a ghost hunter prompted me to pass this picture at first, but then I found myself curious to see how one of the great staples of the “found footage” sub-genre might play in an actual, narrative movie set decades before the birth of camcorders. Though I found the spiritualist-debunking protagonist initially intriguing, the production swiftly sunk under the weight of its own ponderous plot. Mildly amusing

Review – Lincoln

This needed way more vampires and way less Steven Spielberg. The focus on the eponymous president at his political finest should have made for fascinating storytelling. Heaven knows they had the actors for it. Sadly, what we end up with is a run-of-the-mill interpretation of Honest Abe as the so-lofty-he-shits-marble Patron Saint of Emancipation. The only scene I was able to make any kind of genuine emotional contact with was when Stanton storms out of the room to avoid being subjected to another one of the President’s tedious anecdotes (coincidentally missing the only non-lofty tale in the whole movie). Nearly 150 years after his death, Lincoln still has no human qualities other than marital difficulties. Mildly amusing

Review – Rock of Ages

Oh thank the cinema gods that someone made Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for people who remember the 1980s. Or for people who don’t remember the 80s especially well, because I’m pretty sure arena rock ballads weren’t exactly the decade’s musical highlights. Broadway’s affection for excessively dramatic production numbers and paper-thin plots spreads to the big screen. All of the “who told you that you could sing?” celebrities in the cast got what they deserved from the critics. However, I did feel somewhat sorry for Diego Boneta. He plays the male lead, and yet on the DVD box he doesn’t merit any of the nine portrait spots in the grid, losing out to both Paul Giamatti and a monkey. See if desperate

Review – The Factory

In this mid-budget slasher flick the trick is that the killer doesn’t kidnap prostitutes just to kill them. Instead he chains them up in his basement and forces them to breed with him. Though the title implies that he’s doing this for money, his only apparent interest is in having a lot of babies around. Beyond the baby thing, this is a run-of-the-mill genre piece with the usual cast of characters, pseudo-suspense and ludicrous plot twists. See if desperate