This one’s kind of for the fans out there. Most of my thoughts on Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie are inevitably tied to my feelings on the show, so those of you unfamiliar with the series might not get most of the references.
Okay. MST3K: The Movie is the project that made Joel […]
Fourteen years after Ishirô Honda opted to use a man in a suit instead of stop-motion to animate Kong in 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, producer Dino De Laurentiis made the same decision for his big budget remake, King Kong. But, frankly, that’s not where this epic film falls flat. No, the suit […]
From the ridiculous (Barbarella) to the sublime. Zelig is, to put it simply, the best mockumentary ever made. To me, anyway. And I’ve already mentioned how much I love This is Spinal Tap, so you know that’s a bold statement. But it deserves no lesser phrase. Year before Forrest Gump […]
I’m not going to lie to you. The main thing that drew me to Barbarella as a youth was the copious amounts of nudity. I mean, I had never seen a film that had so much casual nudity in it. There are women who are just naked for no particular reason from […]
Now, I’ve been a big fan of Bob Hope since the days of my youth, when the local independant station used to show his movies every saturday or Sunday morning. (This is also the cause of my love for Godzilla and Blondie movies.) But ever since then, my favorite has been Son of […]
Until Cars, Monsters, Inc. was my favorite Pixar film. Oh, I made a lot of noise about Toy Story 2, but deep down, I always knew that it was Mike and Sully that I’d rather watch.
The thing is that Monsters, Inc. gets almost everything right. The cast is perfect, the story is engaging, […]
I found Troy to be a great movie from a lot of different angles. It is beautifully shot. The performances were much better than I expected, and I was particularly impressed with how the filmmakers had a healthy disrespect for the story as it previously existed, and instead told the story they wanted […]
I love Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. It does something that I always admire in a film: it builds its own take on reality and blindly holds onto it no matter what. The world of Anchorman is a specific take on the 1970s: male chauvanist, environmentally unfriendly, yet harmlessly naive (despite the […]
I hadn’t seen Cinderella, Disney’s 12th Animated Feature, in several years, but was inspired to watch it because of the impending release of Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, which was getting strong reviews. I’ve still yet to see Cinderella III (I’ll apend my thoughts here when I do), but after watching the original […]
Dr. Who and the Daleks is the big screen adaptation of the second Doctor Who serial, “The Daleks”. It takes a lot of liberties with the story, mostly with the characterization of the lead character, who is here known literally as “Dr. Who” (on the show, he is almost always called “The Doctor”) and […]
Humanoid Woman, or Cherez ternii k zvyozdam*, as it was in its native Russia, is best known to modern audiences for having been featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 during its first year, when it was on a local Minneapolis TV station KTMA. But its reputation in the Western World as a cheesy B-movie […]
Okay, so I should have seen A Bug’s Life after Toy Story, since my intention had always been to watch the Pixar films in order. But, much like the Disney Animated Feature canon, that plan didn’t last long. Since I sort the film by series, I watched Toy Story 2 without even thinking […]
The serial Superman marked the debut of the Man of Steel in live action and would help define the character for many years. Even the portrayals by George Reeves and Christopher Reeve, both of whom far outshone Alyn, owe something to his version.
The first thing that impressed me about Superman when I originally watched […]
The Princess Bride is one of those rare cases where I had read a not-terribly-popular book before seeing the movie. Of course, I was suckered into reading it by the exciting copy on the back. (At that time, I was reading *a lot* and it took something extra for a book by an […]
While it’s true that I am going to watch all 45 (soon to be 46) Disney Animated Features, the reason I chose to watch The AristoCats next was a simple one: I was selling it. I don’t mind telling you that The AristoCats DVD was going for a pretty penny when I got word […]
There is little left to be said about King Kong, one of the most influential films in motion picture history. It is directly responsible for inspiring a generation of effects makers, including the biggest name in stop-motion, Ray Harryhausen. It inspired Godzilla and countless less successful films and series.
And regardless of its place […]
Toy Story 2 is one of those rare occasions when the sequel outdoes the original. While Toy Story is a wonderful film, but its biggest draw is the (then) unique style of animation used. By Toy Story 2, it would take more than CGI visuals to grab an audience. It does this […]