Movie Reviews

I am not a Star Trek fan. I know as much about Star Trek as you learn by just being a human on Earth.

I know the names of most of the Enterprise Crew…

Oh! I know the “Enterprise.”

I know what a Vulcan is. And a Klingon. And Warp Speed. And we’re starting to reach the extent of my knowledge here...

I saw Star Trek Into Darkness. And I felt like a kid who just transferred to a new school and picked the only table of friends who’ve known each other since birth to sit down with during lunch.

They’re all talking about “Randy’s Mom’s hilarious pancake that one time,” and I come from a place that called pancakes ‘flap jacks’ so I’m all confused.

The film was big. It was explodey. It was a boring, boring, boring Summer Action Flick.

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The dazzling commercials for this sure-to-be box office smash proclaim that it's going to be the summer of Gatsby. But does it live up to enormous expectations?

While there's sure to be a division of opinions between literary purists, Luhrmann fans, and regular ol' moviegoers, there is simply no doubt that this film is a piece of work.

As for this critic, I'm staunchly on the side that loved this interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel The Great Gatsby.

Director Baz Luhrmann is known for his distinct, somewhat over-the-top, storytelling style.

His past cinematic achievements include William Shakespeare's: Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge. Both of those films are stories that have been told before, but Luhrmann has a way of re-imagining the stories and adding his own eccentric and decadent spin on things.

This is exactly what he did for The Great Gatsby​.

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Iron Man 3 is one of the best superhero movies ever.

It succeeds in places The Avengers failed.

It has stuff for the casual explosion-hungry moviegoer. It has stuff for the passionate comic book fan. It has stuff for the cynical film aficionado. It satisfies all three without sacrificing much, and while still reserving the ability to surprise.

The Avengers was a great film because it codified the “Superhero franchise” as a thing. And it was action-packed, doubtless.

But ultimately, The Avengers was two giant fight scenes strung together via mostly-assumed background information.

Iron Man 3 isn’t that. It has the heart of the first Iron Man film (more, even) as well as the stylized comic book tropes - your evil scheming corporate masterminds, your superhuman abilities - necessary for a superhero film to be successful.

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Pain and Gain is like if a Coen Brothers movie and a Scorsese movie had a baby and that baby disappointed its parents and went into porn.

At its core, the film is about a trio of hapless men just trying to get ahead in life, but who end up getting in way over their heads.

The difference between Pain and Gain and every Coen Brothers movie with that premise is that Michael Bay’s hapless men aren’t timid and pathetic.

They’re not looking for recompense or justice. They’re just greedy meatheads.

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In an era where most blockbuster action/thrillers have more loose ends than the before lady in a shampoo commercial, all a film really has to do to not suck is make sense.

Oblivion makes sense. Therefore, Oblivion doesn't suck. 

While the film thinks it’s being more mind-blowing than it actually is, ultimately Oblivion is a fun, clean, flashy movie with a few well thought-out twists and turns.

The film does have some pacing issues, the biggest of which being that the backstory is so complicated, the first fifteen minutes of the film feel like a training seminar.

Tom Cruise stars as Commander Jack Harper, the man with the most Ordinary name in America. No, actually, Harper is a drone repairmen left on Earth after its abandonment, following an alien attack.

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Derek Cianfrance has made another brilliantly pensive film about the failings of the human drive for progress in The Place Beyond the Pines.

Movies that treat small personal conflicts in sweepingly dramatic and devastating ways are often hard to watch, inching dangerously close to mushy melodrama. But the Blue Valentine director has an amazing ability to treat an intimate narrative like an epic poem.

The Place Beyond the Pines is actually three films. Three very good films. While they are woven together in a way that is initially jarring, Cianfrance’s structural decisions prove carefully thought-out and, indeed, riveting.

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Scary Movie 5 is not a spoof. It’s not even a comedy. It’s a mess of very vague references to mostly outdated cultural phenomena, sprinkled in between half-hearted and half-baked “gags.”

Genre spoof is supposed to expose the conventions of that genre in a clever way.

The original Scary Movie was successful because it came on the heels of a horror film Renaissance that began with the movie Scream (which, in itself was somewhat of a spoof, but, that’s okay).

Scary Movie had a reason to exist. It had something to say.

Mainly, “Boy, there sure are a lot of horror movies copying Scream these days.”

But what is Scary Movie 5 saying? I sat through it, and I couldn’t tell you.

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Evil Dead has one of the most difficult names to live up to. The original film is a consummate cult classic. While most fans of The Evil Dead franchise may not hold the reboot in the same esteem, it does succeed in bringing the story into the 21^st century.

The new film is gory. Very gory. While there are only one or two startle points in the entire thing, there is enough blood to make millions of black puddings (gross).

The rules of Evil Dead are slightly different than the 1981 movie, but the same tropes are all hit. Five people in a cabin in the woods find the Book of the Dead and unlock a demonic presence. Simple.

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Oh, Tyler Perry's Temptation, where to begin? You were written in a single night, right? On Red Bulls and Adderall? Or during a fever dream with not just a Telenovela, but the worst Telenovela - whatever that would be - playing on double-speed in the background?

Please tell me I’m getting close.

That Temptation was made is confounding. That it was made by one of the most successful and recognizable filmmakers alive is terrifying.

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Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is essentially a movie without a purpose.

It’s a sensationalized film about sensationalism, and while it gets away with very little in the way of plot or character growth for much of the film, the ending seems to cast away any sense of obligation to make a grander point one way or the other about youth culture and depravity.

Spring Breakers is shot like a music video. It’s cut like a music video. Its characters think they’re in a music video.

Taking their cues from MTV, James Franco, Selena Gomez, Rachel Korine, Ashley Benson, and Vanessa Hudgens’ characters spend no mental energy at all on anything but image.

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