August 2011
6 posts
4 tags
Fright Night (2011) review
After an aborted attempt to sit through Conan the Barbarian, I cut my losses and settled for the “other” remake of the week, Fright Night. I’d seen the original film years ago and had vaguely positive memories of it, but I approached the new version with a certain ambivalence, a definite “meh” attitude.
As it turns out, the new Fright Night is a decent...
3 tags
Final Destination 5 (2011) review
I’m not even sure why I watched this. I hadn’t seen any of the earlier Final Destination movies, I’m not a fan of the “body count film,” and I had plenty of other things to keep me occupied. Oh well, it wasn’t a complete waste of my time (I didn’t leave the cinema angry and frustrated), though in retrospect I’m certain I’d have...
4 tags
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) review
I was mildly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive critical and popular response to this film, which was entertaining enough but hardly earth-shaking. A great deal has been made of the CGI animation/motion-capture technology which allowed Andy Serkis to “play” chief chimp Caesar: honestly, after a while you don’t even think about the fact that Caesar is not only...
2 tags
Cowboys & Aliens (2011) review
At times it’s difficult to tell the difference between a legitimate “high concept” idea and one which is merely intended to be deliberately ironic (or, as we might say, “hipster friendly”). Cowboys & Aliens joins Snakes on a Plane, Hobo with a Shotgun, Zombie Strippers, Alien vs. Predator, and a host of other films that expand a simple premise...
3 tags
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) review
In my adolescence, I was a big comic book fan. I read them voraciously, collected them obsessively, corresponded with other fans earnestly, contributed to “fanzines” seriously, wrote and drew my own comics (poorly), and so forth (I even won a coveted Marvel “no prize” and had a letter published in an issue of Captain America, nyah nyah nyah!). I was a Marvel...
