Review – Jack Reacher

Despite the Tom-Cruise-iness of the this picture, I actually enjoyed it. The story is a typical blend of lone-wolf-ex-military-cop-hero and complex-conspiracy-murder-mystery. But they spent some money making it, and the cash went to good use for production values, cast, script and muscle cars. Mildly amusing

Review – Flyboys

This must have been an experiment to see if it was possible to pack every known war movie cliché into a single picture. Production values are good, particularly the dramatic re-creations of aerial combat in World War One. They even put together a reasonably good cast. The script just doesn’t give anyone much to work with. Mildly amusing

Review – Gettysburg

Endless speechifying transforms what should have been a feel-good picture about the defeat of the Confederacy into yet another parade of whiny nonsense about the nobility of the Southern cause. The Union gets a little of its due, but unless you and Ted Turner are of one mind about the true nature of the Civil War, this one is likely to be worth missing. See if desperate

Review – Lizzie Borden Took an Axe

Just once I’d like to see a movie version of this story in which the title character turns out to not be the murderer. For what it’s worth, some evidence actually supports the notion. However, that isn’t what we get here (sorry if that’s a spoiler). Instead it’s a run-of-the-mill recounting of the deaths and Borden’s trial. Christina Ricci does a good job in the lead, and the production is professionally assembled. With one exception: this picture features some of the worst soundtrack music I’ve ever heard. It’s like the director’s mom forced him to use his cousin’s dreadful rockabilly band. The resulting noise is completely discordant with the otherwise-carefully-constructed 1890s setting. Mildly amusing

Review – Joe Kidd

Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns attempt to develop a social conscience as the title character takes on a greedy land baron (Robert Duvall) out to kill the leader (John Saxon) of a group of farmers. Elmore Leonard supplied the story, which is better during its action scenes than it is when it bothers with plot and character development. Mildly amusing

Review – The Wolverine

This will no doubt please fans of the title superhero. I’m kinda meh on the character, so I was kinda meh on the movie. If you’re in the mood for a flashy, noisy, expensive action movie, you could do worse. Mildly amusing

Review – Thor: The Dark World

I’ve watched this three times now, not because it’s especially good (or especially bad either) but because I keep falling asleep somewhere in the middle and missing scenes. It must just be that I’m not getting enough rest at night, because this isn’t an especially dull movie. Our Asgardian hero enlists the aid of his adopted brother and human girlfriend to battle dark elves (they’re more menacing than they sound) who are trying to destroy the universe. Long on expensive, noisy effects and short on clever plot elements, this will serve you well if you’re in the mood for superhero-intensive entertainment. I do note, however, that these Marvel movies are beginning to get so interconnected that they may become hard to follow unless you’ve seen all of them. Mildly amusing

Review – Curse of Chucky

Here’s a rare treat: a horror series that long ago descended into dull farce suddenly snapping back, returning to its roots and coming up with something genuinely creepy. Yeah, it skips back into the dumb stuff toward the end, but act one (Chucky settles into a new house) features several successful stabs at doing something authentically scary rather than gory or goofy. I also found myself wondering what it was like for Fiona Dourif to do scenes with a killer doll voiced by her father. Mildly amusing

Review – The Monuments Men

The recovery of stolen art at the end of World War Two is a fascinating topic. Indeed, the subject has supplied fodder for at least one good documentary. But here it gets George Clooney’s awkward blend of drama and comedy, which ends up working as neither. It also features a heap of “greatest generation” schmalz, standing in the way of telling an honest story about real people working to save priceless masterpieces from thieves and vandals. Mildly amusing

Review – Sanitarium (2013)

This anthology piece – bracketed with some mental hospital filler featuring Malcolm McDowell – proves to be highly predictable. That’s at least in part because the first segment features an artist with an insane fixation on the dolls he creates (when was the last time you saw something original done with evil dolls?) and the second is uncomfortably close to the abusive-parent-versus-imaginary-monster bit from Tales from the Hood (not that the twist was exactly new even back in 1995). The trio finishes up with a guy-in-a-bomb-shelter plot that swiftly wears out its welcome. Though the technical quality is reasonably good, the cliché-ridden script kills the picture. See if desperate

Review – Custer’s Last Stand

The iconic commander of the Seventh Cavalry gets a thorough PBS treatment in this feature-length documentary about his life and death. Though little of this information will be new to anyone who’s read a book (or two or three) about the subject, it’s still a good job of dealing with a complicated subject. Mildly amusing

Review – Night of the Creeps

It came from the 80s! If you’ve got an itch for rubber leeches attacking lackwit teens with serious cases of mall head, this picture will scratch it. Mildly amusing

Review – End of Watch

I guess at this point audiences have become so accepting of shaky-cam crap that it no longer bothers anyone that the logic of the whole “found footage” thing has given way to “standard narrative storytelling only with really bad camerawork.” Robert Peña and Jake Gyllenhaal play cops just trying to do their jobs amid the urban (read: ethnic) squalor of South Central Los Angeles. The story is neither edifying nor interesting, but I guess I’ve seen worse cop movies. Mildly amusing

Review – The Little Mermaid

I could have sworn I reviewed this years ago. Well, problem rectified. The characters, story and songs are all typical Disney, so I found myself focusing on the animation quality. Highly inconsistent. The high points are on par with the work Chuck Jones did for The Incredible Mr. Limpet. But in other spots the art is weak and inconsistent. At least it’s a step up from the studio’s output in the 70s. Mildly amusing

Review – POE: Project of Evil

Of course POE could also stand for Piece of Excrement. Edgar Allen Poe’s poems and short stories are used as vague excuses to generate brain-dead torture porn. The result is an insult not only to Poe but to audience members in general. And though I concede that the actors speak English better than I speak Italian, it’s a near thing. Even if it hurt rentals, they should have stuck to their native tongue and subtitled it. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Young Lions

I have trouble putting movies like this in their proper historical context. From my 21st century viewpoint, this is a parade of clichés. Our three heroes (Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin and Marlon Brando) are a gentle-yet-stubborn nerd who becomes a war hero, a singer who wants to be treated like the rest of the soldiers, and a brash German officer suffering pangs of conscience. But I wonder if this wasn’t somewhat more groundbreaking back in 1958. In any event, the story has enough twists and turns to sustain the running time. I’ve seen plenty of World War Two movies way worse than this. Mildly amusing

Review – Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

If you’re a big Freddy Krueger fan, you’re in more than three hours worth of the right place. Who knew the Nightmare on Elm Street series could generate this much trivia? Some of it even manages to be interesting (assuming you’ve got any interest in the subject). Mildly amusing