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Review: If ‘This is 40,’ Thank God I’m 30

December 19th, 2012
this-is-40

Funny and perhaps predictive of my future, This Is 40 is the fourth movie from director Judd Apatow and a quasi-sequel to the hilarious Knocked Up. A snapshot of one week of the lives of married parents Pete and Debbie, This Is 40 evokes plenty of laughs, even though the scenes are somewhat aimless and eventually unnecessary.

Read FilmJabber’s full Les Miserables movie review.

Resident Evil: Retribution Movie Review

December 18th, 2012
resident-evil-retribution

I have come to the conclusion that the apocalyptic world Paul W.S. Anderson has created in his Resident Evil franchise is exactly how he wants the world to be. Every movie he makes pushes humanity closer and closer to the brink of evolving into monstrous, CGI-animated creatures.

Read FilmJabber’s full Resident Evil: Retribution movie review.

Review: ‘The Apparition’ is Just Plain Bad

December 17th, 2012
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Does Ashley Greene need a new agent? It’s hard to say. On the one hand, of her five widely released movies, four are among the biggest blockbusters of the last decade. On the other hand, those four were the Twilight movies. The fifth is The Apparition, a truly terrible horror movie that earned only $7 million worldwide.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Apparition movie review.

‘The Hobbit’ Review: Peter Jackson Takes a Serious Risk

December 14th, 2012
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If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but Peter Jackson thinks otherwise. In his heralded return to Middle Earth, the director of the award-winning Lord of the Rings franchise keeps many things the same but makes one very risky change that has a detrimental effect on the overall film. Your opinion of the film will rely heavily on whether you can get past this alteration.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey movie review.

Review: Race and Rape in ‘The Central Park Five’

December 13th, 2012
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Following in the vein of the Paradise Lost trilogy, the documentary The Central Park Five tells a story of crime and racism in New York City as five black youths are arrested and subsequently convicted for the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park, despite an overwhelming lack of evidence. The movie tells an important story, but the movie lacks the spark and passion expected about the subject.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Central Park Five movie review.

Review: ‘V/H/S’ Says Don’t Have Threesomes with Demons

December 12th, 2012
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The end of the world is apparently scary enough, because 2012 has been an extremely disappointing year for horror movies. The Woman in Black showed promise, until it didn’t. The Devil Inside made me want to go to hell. Many others failed to deliver, too. V/H/S, on the other hand, manages to buck the trend by teaching you not to have a threesome with a demon.

Read FilmJabber’s full V/H/S movie review.

Review: ‘The Bourne Legacy’ Hits Blu-ray

December 11th, 2012
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When it was announced that a fourth Jason Bourne movie was being developed without star Matt Damon or director Paul Greengrass, I was worried. When it was announced that returning writer Tony Gilroy was taking over the directing reigns and making a Jason Bourne movie that would include its main character, I was ready to throw in the towel. Having now watched The Bourne Legacy, I wish Universal Pictures would have thrown in the towel long ago.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Bourne Legacy movie review.

‘Finding Nemo’ vs. ‘Arthur Christmas’: You’ll Win Both Ways

December 11th, 2012
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Two family movies. Two great movies. Two films that share diametrically opposed box office performances.

Finding Nemo and Arthur Christmas were recently released to Blu-ray and DVD, the former in Disney’s Collector’s Edition packaging, the latter for the first time since its theatrical release last Thanksgiving. Finding Nemo is generally regarded as one of the best animated movies of all time, and it is also one of the highest-earning Disney movies over that same period (all time). Arthur Christmas, meanwhile, was widely disregarded by audiences and bombed at theaters.

Read the full article »

Review: ‘Hyde Park on Hudson’ a Tale of Two Movies

December 8th, 2012
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Bill Murray plays someone other than Bill Murray for a change in the entertaining but wildly inconsistent Hyde Park on Hudson, a film that is at once a romantic drama and a lighthearted comedy. From the director of Venus and Notting Hill, Hyde Park on Hudson works best when it’s funny – and falls flat when it tries to be something more.

Read FilmJabber’s full Hyde Park on Hudson movie review.

Review: ‘Killing Them Softly’ Killed Me Slowly

December 5th, 2012
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Killing Them Softly is the kind of movie that makes audiences hate movie critics. With a 77% convincingly fresh rating on RottenTomatoes, the new Brad Pitt crime drama appears like a movie worth seeing. The movie flopped in its opening weekend, however – the worst debut for Pitt in a long time. Many pundits said it was because people don’t want to see the actor playing against type. I blamed the marketing, or lack thereof. But there’s a simpler factor at play…

Read FilmJabber’s full Killing Them Softly movie review.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green Movie Review

December 4th, 2012
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As harmless as a veggie sandwich but only as satisfying as one, The Odd Life of Timothy Green is about a sterile couple who accidentally grow a veggie boy in their garden to raise as their own. The movie could easily be a horror film, but it’s actually a feel-good family film. Odd indeed.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Odd Life of Timothy Green movie review.

Review: ParaNorman Scares Up Some Family Fun

December 3rd, 2012
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A boy named Norman sees dead people. He battles an evil witch and a pack of zombies. But Norman isn’t in a horror flick; he’s the main character in the family film ParaNorman, a beautifully crafted and imaginative stop-motion-capture movie that, while far from groundbreaking, is fun to watch.

Read FilmJabber’s full ParaNorman movie review.

Review: ‘Citadel’ Will Make You Want to Lock the Door

November 29th, 2012
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Your wife has been murdered. Your baby has been kidnapped. And you’re not sure if it’s all in your head, or if demonic children who feed on fear really are responsible for it all. Citadel is the intriguing new movie from writer/director Ciaran Foy, and one of the more unique horror entries in recent memory.

Read FilmJabber’s full Citadel movie review.

Review: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

November 27th, 2012
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It’s the alternate ending to Armageddon we never asked for. The space shuttle destroyed, a massive asteroid hurtling toward earth, humanity has days before it is wiped from the planet, and the planet destroyed. Within this context is set Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, a romantic quasi-comedy with lots of promise and not much else.

Read FilmJabber’s full Seeking a Friend for the End of the World movie review.

Review: ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ Shines, But Not as Brightly

November 26th, 2012
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A boy flees his Khaki Scouts troop, a girl runs away from her parents, and an island sheriff and scout troop leader put into effect a massive manhunt to find them in Wes Anderson’s offbest comedy Moonrise Kingdom, an original and amusing, if not ultimately unremarkable, return to form for the director.

Read FilmJabber’s full Moonrise Kingdom movie review.