The Notorious Bettie Page tells the story of the rise to fame of the well-loved pinup girl. It follows her as she leaves her home and hooks up with a successful publisher of “educational” and “specialty” photographs, eventually becoming one of the most famous “non-famous” people in the country. (Bettie may not have […]
The Aristocrats is a documentary by director Paul Provenza and executive producer Penn Jillette that tells the history of one of the dirtiest jokes ever told. It does this by having well-known (and sometimes not so well known) comedians tell the joke. Again and again and again and again.
To those with a low […]
The original, 1968 version of Mel Brook’s The Producers and its 2005 remake naturally have a lot in common. But there are almost as many differences. As I mentioned in my original review, the biggest change is the expansion of the storyline to include a love story for Leo.
These changes alter the dynamic […]
Over twelve years ago, I visited my brother who was then living in Pennsylvania. He was going to school, so, naturally, he had a computer. After spending several days getting to know the machine, I came away with two bits of knowledge. First, I didn’t think I’d ever wrap my head around […]
I’ve previously covered 2005’s King Kong and wrote a full review here, but I thought this time around I’d do a kind of contrast and compare, tale of the tape kind of thing alongside the 1998 version of Godzilla. So let’s see how they stand up to each other.
Approach
Godzilla took the more common road […]
Robots, like many other borderline films, does improve with multiple viewings. The problems with the film that I previously mentioned are still in full effect, but a lack of anticipation means that there is no chance of being let down like the first time.
I still can’t help but think that there was more potential […]
I know I’ve mentioned Valiant a few times since my original review. It’s the perfect example of a film that doesn’t impress too much on first viewing , but slowly, inexorably creeps into one’s consciousness.
At this point, I really like Valiant. Sure, it’s formulaic and lacks the polish and storytelling skill of a […]
Just Friends, like Waiting, is a film I bought primarily on the strength of its star, Ryan Reynolds. Thankfully, this one turned out a lot better.
It’s a romantic comedy with a twist, as they say. Reynolds plays Chris Brander, who as a young man was overweight and carried a torch for his best […]
When I previously reviewed Chicken Little last year, I covered many of the shortcomings in this 2005 Disney CGI animated film. It lacks cohesion, gets way too caught up in pop culture jokes and has far too much music for its own good.
But, as often happens, it has grown on me since then and […]
I previously reviewed Fantastic Four for thelogbook.com (the review can be read here), so I won’t go into great detail, but I will say that I still really like this movie. It’s certainly not among the greats of the comic-book-to-big-screen field, but I think it’s a fun, entertaining movie.
Particularly, I like the interaction […]
I’m not going to say much about Bewitched, as most of my thoughts are covered in my original review.
Basically, re-watching it now has strengthened the negatives in my mind, while the positives come off a bit weaker. I still like the premise a lot. In fact, much of what sells me on Bewitched […]
You know, I held off watching another film way too long out of some weird sense of not wanting to watch something “unworthy”. But as time has gone on, I’m settling in to watching what I would’ve watched anyway.
First of all, I’ve been on a huge “Hitchhiker’s” kick since last year, when my sister […]
Film #001 - Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Film #002 - Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Film #003 - Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Film #004 - Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
Film #005 - Star Wars: Episode V - The […]
Viewed December 23, 2006
Waiting… is a comedy about the staff at a mass market restaurant (”Shenaniganz”) that follows the events of a new worker’s first day.
Essentially, Waiting… is like an old Bill Murray vehicle (think Meatballs or Stripes) with the Murray part filled by his modern-day counterpart Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds plays Monty, an “old […]
Viewed December 18, 2006
Herbie Fully Loaded picks up the story of the Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own last seen on the big screen in 1980’s Herbie Goes Bananas. (There was also a 1997 TV remake/sequel of the original film, The Love Bug, that is not necessarily in continuity.)
Fully Loaded […]
Viewed November 14, 2006
Even if my pig-headed need to see every movie based on a comic book didn’t require it, I still would have watched Man-Thing because of the character’s connection to one of my favorite comic book characters, Howard the Duck. Now, Howard was the star of his own, highly celebrated film back […]
Viewed October 17, 2006
Okay, so I get some of what Uwe Boll does. I get the whole make-it-cheap-and-fast thing. I get the whole cast-whoever-is-available thing. What I don’t get is the change-everything-about-the-storyline thing. After all, someone somewhere down the line had to have actually played the games that his films are […]
Viewed September 20, 2006
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride wants desperately to be The Nightmare Before Christmas. But it isn’t, not by a long shot. The story is less engaging and the songs are forgettable, a pale shadow of the ones in Nightmare.
And that’s probably the biggest problem with Corpse Bride. The songs in […]
Viewed September 4, 2006
Cards on the Table is a recent TV Movie featuring David Suchet as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. Now, I’ve read plenty of Christie (and seen a lot of Suchet’s Poirot on his show and other TV movies), but I’m not familiar with Cards on the Table. A bit of digging […]
Viewed August 27, 2006
Another in the BBC’s line of “ShakespeaRe: told”, The Taming of the Shrew is much more successful than the last one I watched, Macbeth. I think this is partly because Shrew is a comedy and so therefore lends itself more naturally to adaptation than a drama that was based on historic […]
Viewed August 20, 2006
The Brothers Grimm has a lot in common with director Terry Gilliam’s 1988 masterpiece The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (my personal favorite of his films). They both deal, in different ways, with the power of myth. While Munchausen is more directly about the power of belief, this one deals with […]
Viewed August 13, 2006
BBC America is currently showing a series of films under the banner “ShakespeaRE: told”, where classic Shakespeare stories are reworked into modern settings. This week, I watched Macbeth, and it couldn’t have been more wrong-headed if they tried.
First of all, they set the film in a restaurant. Joe Macbeth is […]
Viewed August 12, 2006
Robots is Blue Sky Studios’ follow-up to their 2002 breakthrough film Ice Age. It doesn’t quite live up to the earlier film, but is entertaining, certainly looks good and will please younger audiences.
Robots is a bit more of a formulaic movie than either Ice Age or Ice Age: The Meltdown. […]
Viewed August 4, 2006
The problem with The Dukes of Hazzard is that it totally fails to capture what made the original TV Show such a success. It is this basic failure that permeats the film and is at the core of everything that goes wrong throughout.
First, the casting is a disaster, despite some ingenious […]
Viewed August 3, 2006
Nanny McPhee is an impressive entry in the family film genre. The basic premise is not all that original: horrible children finding difficulty dealing with life after the loss of their mother being set straight by a caring (if unorthodox) nanny. There are certainly shades of Mary Poppins in here, […]
Viewed July 23, 2006
Boy, where to start with this one. As I sit here in my room surrounded by action figures and stacks of video games, I must admit some aspects of The 40-Year-Old Virgin hit a bit too close to home. Putting all that aside, the film is basically a standard-issue romantic […]
Viewed July 17, 2006
Batman: New Times often gets tagged as a “LEGO” film. I want to point out right off the bat (get it?) that it, in fact, uses the C3 figures and blocks from Art Asylum (they’re compatible with LEGO). This computer animated short film was created by students at The Digital […]
Viewed June 30, 2006
I honestly didn’t expect to enjoy Constantine as much as I did. Of course, that’s not saying much, as I’m no fan of Hellblazer, the comic on which Constantine is based. Maybe if I was I would like it less. I’ve certainly seen my share of scathing comments on […]
Viewed June 9, 2006
Ahh, what the heck. If I can’t watch an extra movie now and then, what’s the point? So…One Man Band.
This short, released theatrically alongside Cars, is (as far as I’m concerned) a return to form for Pixar. The last two shorts, Boundin’ and Jack-Jack Attack, I found to be […]
Viewed June 3, 2006
With the release of Pixar Animation Studio’s new film Cars mere days away, I decided (in addition to re-watching all my favorite Pixar stuff) to try and track down all the Pixar material that I had not yet seen and watch it before going to the new film. Turned out there […]
Viewed April 30, 2006
Okay, so this is the first time we kind of bend the rules a little bit. I’d been wanting to watch a fanfilm or two as part of this project, but I found them all to be so trite as to not be worth the time. There certainly didn’t seem […]
Viewed April 25, 2006
I don’t know. Maybe I really am just a sucker for Will Ferrell these days, but I enjoyed the heck out of Bewitched. I’m not sure what anyone else was expecting from this film, but I tried to go in with no preconceived notions about it and I just thought […]
Viewed April 13, 2006
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (LWW) is the best fantasy film I’ve seen in a long time. Perhaps ever. Regardless of whether you are a fan of the original C.S. Lewis novels or not, LWW entertains on every possible level: heartfelt drama, lighthearted comedy, […]
Viewed March 17, 2006
The debate rages on as to whether Disney devalues its films by releasing straight-to-video sequels like The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000) and Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002). Often, these films lack the spark that made the original so beloved. There are usually several key cast […]
Viewed March 13, 2006
With one of the most impressive box office runs of 2005, March of the Penguins established a place in movie history for itself. If it weren’t for the political diatribe Farenheit 9-11, March of the Penguins would be the highest grossing documentary of all time. And a far more worthy […]
Viewed March 3, 2006
At the time that Chicken Little was made and originally released, it seemed unlikely that Disney and Pixar would be working together ever again and Disney needed to show they could at least compete in the arena of CGI films. Since then, of course, Disney has agreed to buy Pixar, but […]
Viewed February 28, 2006
I had so completely prepared myself to be disappointed by The Producers that I was shocked by how much I liked it. Whoever was in charge of marketing this film should be fired. I watched it with a modest-sized audience in a discount theater and they never stopped laughing. […]
Viewed February 21, 2006
Perhaps it is because it is the first “Harry Potter” film that is saw after having experienced the book, but Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the first film that I felt really missed essential elements of the story.
Mostly it was subtlety that went out the window. Director Mike […]
Viewed February 19, 2006
The Check Up is a short film starring Joe “Joey Pants” Pantoliano and Kevin Connolly (Entourage) made by Volkswagen to promote their 2006 Jetta.
With advertisement/films like this (which due to their increasing presense I have dubbed “Cinéma-Annoncez”), the important issue is whether they are able to rise above the level of being […]
Viewed January 24, 2006
(sung to the tune of “Maria” from The Sound of Music)
She kills a guy, then starts to cry.
Her costume is all red.
She’s got some kind of ninja skills
And came back from the dead.
But in the end all she wants
Is to play mommy for some kid.
What kind of tough assassin is Elektra?
She’s got […]
Viewed January 23, 2006
With the release of the Disney / Pixar film Toy Story in 1995, the era of the computer generated animated film was born. Although films such as Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992) had utilized computer imagry, it was Toy Story that proved that the technique could carry an […]
Viewed January 20, 2006
I have to admit that I’ve never really “gotten” Wallace & Gromit. Not that I haven’t found their previous shorts funny, just that they never really grabbed me. I still haven’t seen Chicken Run (2000), Aardman Animations’ previous feature which is supposed to be quite good, so I went into this […]
Viewed January 11, 2006
Since I will be writing a full-blown review of King Kong for theLogBook.com, I’m going to just state a few observations about Peter Jackson’s $200M remake.
If Peter Jackson loves the original King Kong (1933) so much, why did he feel the need to change it’s fundamental theme and why does he portray […]
Viewed January 3, 2006
Okay, Alone in the Dark is a bad movie. It has a ridiculously convoluted plot, a lot of the acting is sub-par and none of it really comes together in the end.
That being said, I’ve certainly seen worse movies. I’ve sat through The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961), for heaven’s […]