Category Archives: 2009 Movie Review

‘The Lovely Bones’ is haunting at times but lacks emotional impact — movie review

Who’s in it?: Mark Wahlberg (The Funky Bunch, The Departed), Rachel Weisz (The Mummy, Brothers Bloom), Stanley Tucci (The Terminal, Captain America: The First Avenger) and Michael Imperioli (TV’s Soprano’s)

Who Directed it?: Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Heavenly Creatures)

Damn, Peter Jackson, I was really looking forward to this one.  But no, you had to go and let me down, didn’t you?  I haven’t read the book by Alice Sebold so I can’t make comparisons between the two but watching the movie you could just tell it wasn’t all there.  Not that its a bad thing.  After all, when you’re adapting a book into a movie, it’s nearly impossible to get it all on screen.  Some shit just doesn’t translate from book to screenplay to motion picture. Continue reading ‘The Lovely Bones’ is haunting at times but lacks emotional impact — movie review

‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’ (2009) — movie review

Who’s in it?: George Clooney (Ocean’s 11), Ewan McGregor (Revenge of the Sith), Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski) and Kevin Spacey (The Usual Suspects)

In this one, Ewan McGregor plays a reporter trying to do a story on a psychic spy (Clooney), who prefers to call himself a Jedi.  Get it?  Cuz Ewan played Obi Wan?… Well in The Men Who Stare at Goats, he spends nearly this entire movie trying to prove that Clooney is full of crap and Jedis don’t exist.  It’s funny because most of the time he has this smug look like, it’s all part of the joke.

This is the real beauty and perhaps the downfall of this movie. It’s great if you’re in on the joke but the filmmakers throw so much at the audience, they are only going to catch so much. Continue reading ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’ (2009) — movie review

‘Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day’ (2009) movie review

Who’s in it?: Sean Patrick Flannery (Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Suicide Kings), Norman Reedus (Blade: Trinity, Pandorum), Billy Connolly (The X-Files: I Want to Believe, The Last Samurai)

Directed by: Troy Duffy

Now see, this is just the kind of bullshit that pisses me off about Hollywood.  I saw “The Boondock Saints” ten years ago or so and I loved it.  No, it’s not art; it’s not what you’d call a masterpiece.  But it’s funny as hell and has some great shoot outs and a hilarious performance by Willem Dafoe.  It took FOREVER for director Troy Duffy to make this sequel and dammit if he didn’t nearly ruin the the movie he made ten years ago with this unbelievable waste of time.

Seriously, it’s awful.  No, that doesn’t begin to explain it. The movie tries, and fails to duplicate what worked last time — and let’s face it the last one isn’t a masterpiece. This time it just doesn’t work. The main leads are okay, but seem bored and the supporting cast is just terrible. Julie fucking Benz (TV’s Dexter) is awful in this movie. Sadly, all she does is try and duplicate Willem Dafoe’s tactics from the first one and it just sucks.

Then the cameos start and you just wish the world would come to an end like literally you will welcome the end of humanity if it just meant you didn’t have to finish this movie….but fortunately, the movie ended before the world did.

1/10