Cabin in the Woods review

I’m running behind on seeing movies. Generally, I’ve been too busy to see most movies at the theater. There are some movies that I hear a lot about, but don’t have a lot of interest in seeing. Cabin in the Woods fits into this category. I’m a big Joss Whedon fan and I had heard some good things about it, but I’m not a huge horror fan, so I didn’t run out to see it. I finally wound up seeing it recently and found that it was much better as an idea of a movie, than it was as an actual movie.

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Thor movie review

Yes. I’m a few years behind in reviewing Thor. I’ve always been more of a DC superhero fan (well, except for Spider-man, I’ve always liked Spider-man) and really have never read any Thor comics. So, it was never high on my list of movies to see. I enjoyed Hemsworth performance in Avengers and, on a lazy weekend afternoon, I sat down to finally watch the movie. Let’s see what happened.

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This Is 40 by Judd Apatow

I usually have mixed reactions to Judd Apatow movies. The setup and the beginning is usually very funny and then the second half the of movie is plot heavy and loses almost all humor. The exception, of course, is Funny People, which wasn’t funny at all. So, it was with some trepidation that I went to go see Apatow’s newest film This Is 40. I do have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Let’s see what happened.

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2012 Best Movies and TV shows

With the end of the year comes all the best of lists. Since I’ve already done my 2012 Best Books list, that means that it’s now time for the 2012 Best Movies and TV shows.

This list, in some ways, harder to do than the books list. There are very few science fiction shows on TV and very few science fiction movies. And many of these TV shows or movies don’t actually do that well, as you can tell by the fact that two of my TV shows were canceled this year. And the biggest name science fiction movie of the year, Prometheus (my review) looked good, but had huge plot holes that left many people shaking their head. But, the show must go on, so I present my 2012 Best Movies and TV shows.

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The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey review

While I was unable to get to see first movie of The Hobbit trilogy, An Unexpected Journey, during the first weekend. I was finally able to make the time to see it this past weekend. It’s a long move (clocking in at 2:45) and it was hard to imagine how the slight tale of The Hobbit will be extended to a full trilogy. Since it was directed by Peter Jackson, I knew that it would at least look good. So let’s check out what happens.

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Twelve Monkeys review

The movie Twelve Monkeys is an interesting movie are my favorite science-fiction, time travel story. Loosely (very loosely) based on Chris Marker’s experimental short film La jetée, the time-travel romance is a movie that shows you exactly what’s going to happen, convinces you that it can be changed and then shows you that it can’t, while still giving you hope at the end. The performances, along with Gilliam’s notoriously skewed vision of technology, captures the ideas perfectly and makes Twelve Monkey’s a can’t miss movie. So, let’s see what happened. NOTE: Spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie. But it’s been 17 years, so you should have seen it.

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Wreck-It Ralph review

After a strong run of animated movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Walt Disney Animation Studio started going downhill. The quality and box-office both dropped until they were behind Pixar and Dreamworks. And, while I’d love to say that their newest film, Wreck-It Ralph, is a throwback to the great Disney movies, it isn’t.. It’s a decent enough movie that has some fun parts, but really is just a decent kids movie. Nothing exciting in the way that the Pixar movies are. And, for Disney, maybe that’s all they’re going to end up as, a studio that just makes decent kids cartoons. So, let’s check out what the movie is about.

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Hotel Transylvania Review

I had fairly low expectations for Hotel Transylvania when I entered the theater. It looked like another cute and stupid kids movie with mediocre animation and was voiced by Adam Sandler’s gang of friends. I hadn’t heard too much about it and wasn’t expecting much. So I was pleasantly surprised. The movie, with an admittedly thin and silly plot, was a lot of fun. The animation was frenetic and exciting and more than covered for the sins and contrivances of the plot. Then the credits rolled and it all made sense. Somehow I had missed that the movie was directed by Genndy Tartakovsky. The TV animation wonder had spread his wings to feature films and it made my day. The movie was goofy and fun and there was a style to the animation that was all Tartakovsky. So, let’s see what it’s about.

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The Dark Knight Rises review

As you can tell, I’m about a week (or two) behind in reviewing movies. As I get older, it gets harder to co-ordinate seeing movies with friends on opening weekends. So I finally pulled my friend out of packing for his move so that we could see The Dark Knight Rises. Overall I kind of liked it, but not as much as The Dark Knight (and I disliked Batman Begins). But I had a number of problems with the film. So let’s check it out. WARNING: Spoilers ahoy.

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The Amazing Spider-Man movie review

It was with a certain amount of trepidation that I approached the new reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, The Amazing Spider-Man. For the most part, I had enjoyed the Tobey Maguire movies (except for the horrible 3rd film), so I was a bit ambivalent about the reboot. Clearly the third movie showed that the previous creative team had lost their way, but did we really need to see the origin story again? So I finally broke down and went to go see the movie. Overall I was disappointed, but there were some good parts that make it likely that I might enjoy a sequel. Let’s see what it was about.

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