Posts Tagged ‘movie review’

I believe the time when many years would lapse between the release of an original film and its remake have officially passed (if it didn’t already several years ago).  Just short of two years since the masterful Let the Right One In sneaked into theaters in limited release, Let Me In, the American remake will bite into audiences’ wallets this weekend.  And unless you saw the original at the film festivals or caught it in its brief theatrical run, many probably saw this film in the last year.

Read our full Let Me In movie review.

The Oscar-nominated animated film The Secret of Kells comes to DVD next Tuesday, bringing with it a dazzling spectacle of unique animation and creativity. Oh, and some bonus features. The movie is imaginative and well-drawn, but not as captivating or engaging as expected.

Read our full The Secret of Kells movie review.

Drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll are on full display in the critically praised comedy Get Him to the Greek, available today on DVD and Blu-Ray. Starring Russell Brand as Aldous Snow, the sex-fueled singer from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Jonah Hill, who also had a role in Marshall (albeit a different one), Get Him to the Greek is an entertaining but hard to fully swallow onslaught of eccentric characters and ridiculous situations.

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High school comedies are a dime a dozen, but only once every couple of years are audiences treated to a smart, edgy creation that defies convention and the genre as a whole. In the vein of Saved! and Mean Girls, 2010′s Easy A is a funny and witty production that showcases rising star Emma Stone.

Read the full Easy A movie review.

The new movie Devil, marketed as M. Night Shyamalan’s Devil, was neither written nor directed by the great-turned-awful director, but it may as well have been. A laugh-inducing, horribly written and sadly directed horror-thriller, Devil is about as fun to watch as it is to listen to elevator music.

Read the full Devil movie review.

Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger debuts in theaters today, and we’re celebrating with a big giveaway and, even more special, our opinion! Enter today to win the You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger giveaway, and then head on over to our movie review.

The romantic comedy-drama features an all-star cast that includes Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas and Freida Pinto and follows a pair of couples as their passions, ambitions, and anxieties lead them into trouble and out of their minds.

Fifteen years after Heat and four years after The Departed, Ben Affleck looks to stamp his place in crime fiction with a new, gritty action-drama set on the streets of Boston. The Town, about a group of increasingly violent bank robbers, is the opening act for awards season.

Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, the leader of a sophisticated band of young men from the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston that steals money from armored cars and banks. In their latest heist, his best friend James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner) decides to take the bank’s assistant manager hostage. After the heist is over, worried that the woman (Rebecca Hall) could identify them later on, Doug decides to get to know her – and ends up falling for her. Her name is Claire and they hit it off immediately. Doug realizes that his life of crime may not be worth it, but getting out of Charlestown isn’t as easy as it seems. Furthermore, the FBI, led by Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm), is hot on his tail.

Read the full The Town movie review at FilmJabber.com

With M. Night Shyamalan’s Devil coming to theaters this weekend (he produced it, but didn’t direct or write it, thankfully), it only seems fitting to review his summer disaster The Last Airbender. Here’s the movie review for this movie:

Let’s not even dwell on M. Night Shyamalan’s career. He used to make good movies. Now he makes terrible ones. And for some reason, studio executives at Paramount thought it would be wise to hand the reins of a potential franchise – and hundreds of millions of dollars – to the struggling director to make The Last Airbender.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Last Airbender movie review.

Amanda Seyfried stars in her second romantic drama of 2010, but thankfully Letters to Juliet isn’t based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. The movie is still utterly predictable, but focuses on a more interesting subplot than audiences are used to.

The previews for Letters to Juliet made the movie out to be incredibly bland and cheesy, but it avoids most of the typical pitfalls associated with the genre – while still delivering the romance woman want. The movie stars Seyfried as Claire, an aspiring writer who goes on a vacation to  Italy with her fiance (Gael Garcia Bernal). While he gets distracted by Italian food (he owns a restaurant), Claire meets the secretaries of  Juliet, a group of women who respond to relationship advice letters left at the wall of a famous later, and finds a love letter written 50 years ago…

Read FilmJabber’s full Letters to Juliet movie review.

It’s September, which means it’s slim pickings when it comes to movies. Thankfully, I made a list of movies to see in September. Three of those movies are already in theaters, so naturally I chose to watch Resident Evil: Afterlife first – a movie that didn’t even make my top ten. A sequel to one of the worst movies of 2007, Resident Evil: Afterlife is a pleasant surprise and an entertaining, mindless action film.

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

Roman Polanski. Love him or hate him, he’s a very good director responsible for several timeless classics. His latest is The Ghost Writer, a thriller starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams. At times captivating, other times flat, the movie is not one of his better productions. Still, a weak Polanski production is superior to most movies currently available.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Ghost Writer movie review.

Amidst the many blockbusters that capture the most significant amount of press, a generous amount of smaller movies are wowing critics and audiences alike this summer, at least those who take the time to seek them out. One such film is The Kids Are All Right, a drama-comedy about a lesbian couple whose teenage children decide to seek out their “surrogate” father, which subsequently throws their family into chaos.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Kids Are All Right movie review.

Michael Cera is known for playing a geeky and awkwardly charming young man in every movie he appears, and if that’s a shortcoming it doesn’t explain the masterpiece that is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. In this action-comedy-romance from the director of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, Cera plays the exact same character he did in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, only here he has super powers and video game upgrades. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is the ultimate movie for nerds, but it will appeal to broader audiences if they give it a chance.

Read the rest of FilmJabber’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World movie review.

Four years ago, Sylvestor Stallone was a washed-up action star. For the last decade, many of his movies went straight to video and the ones that did make it to theaters reminded audiences and critics alike that Stallone was well past his peak. With his age becoming a factor, it was highly unlikely Stallone could ever become relevant again. And yet, in the last few years, Stallone has quietly rebooted his career. Sure, he returned to his roots with Rocky Balboa and Rambo, but those films, both of which were surprisingly good, indicated that Stallone had finally accepted what his remaining fans wanted of him. Box office success followed, and now he’s back with his latest directorial product: The Expendables, a movie that truly harkens back to the glory days of 80′s action films.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Expendables movie review.

MGM may be struggling to get new movies off the ground, but the Blu-Rays keep on coming: in recent weeks, classics such as Bull Durham and Escape from New York have hit high definition, along with an early Brad Pitt thriller called Kalifornia. None of the films need the Blu-Ray format (Escape from New York succeeds in part due to its low-budget effects), but Blu-Ray format they have received nonetheless.

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