michael's movie reviews
2005
These are the movies I reviewed in 2005.
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
reviewed 2005.12.26
Wallace and Gromit holds a special place in my heart...
reviewed 2005.10.01
You know how it goes with airline movies...
reviewed 2005.09.12
I hate seeing good actors wasted in a dumb movie. And John Leguizamo's appearing in this stinker is a fine example. This movie is poorly written, implausibly plotted, full of slack acting, and strangely paced. Watching it was sometimes difficult. I don't know why it got reasonable reviews.This is a remake of a film from the 70's...
reviewed 2005.06.11
This is a silly example of the self-indulgent genre of super-hero movies. Being as cookie-cutter as its kind can get, I found it not interesting and barely made it through it. I won't bother describing the plot, tonality, characters, dialog and so on, it's all just cringe-worthy and/or dull. (How do they keep getting Doctor Doom so wrong.)I wonder if the fact that there are four of them is the p..
reviewed 2005.05.22
This is a film about a collection of thirty-somethings drifting through lonely lives in Montreal.The female lead is in a lousy relationship with an slob who robs convenience stores for a living. She has grown weary of the world of petty armed robbery, but feels at this point that it would be pointless to leave because she'd just wind up as miserable somewhere else.The lead male is a Czech pro..
reviewed 2005.05.21
This is an impressive little bio-pic about the father of modern sex research, Alfred Kinsey. He was an entymologist who switched into the field of sex research as a result of his own sexual experiences and his anecdotal discovery that everyone in society seemed to be pervasively ignorant of sex.The movie follows his research and the publication of the results...
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
reviewed 2005.05.19
At last, the prequels climb into the realm of the original series. This is the 'final' installment of the series, and it delves into the descent of an angry young man into fascism. The man of course is Aniken Skywalker, father of Luke and Leia from the original. And the fascist result is none other than one of the most recognizable villains in movie histroy; Darth Vader.This movie is a real s..
reviewed 2005.04.25
We saw this movie tonight. It's something of a modern classic, but I wasn't sure what to expect. It turns out to be a very character-driven story about a surgeon who runs an orphanage and trains one of his charges to become a doctor. He even goes as far as drafting some documentation for the young man as he's set to go out and join the adult world.The young man has other ideas, and takes a job p..
reviewed 2005.04.11
This is a teenage movie that goes way out on a limb and features real teenagers (okay, the actors are a bit older, but my point is that the characters are realistic)...
reviewed 2005.03.18
This is a movie about a senior executive who winds up, through some kind of corporate restructuring, with a boss from a very different corporate culture who's in his late twenties. The younger man then starts dating the daughter of the main character.This is two movies in one...
reviewed 2005.03.04
This is a zombie apocalypse movie from George Romero, who invented the genre...
reviewed 2005.02.19
This is an interesting story about the state of abortion in the UK in the 1950's. It follows the story of a working-class woman who does abortions (for free) for women of all circles even in an era when abortions were difficult to acquire even for the wealthy.When one of her abortions somehow goes awry, an investigation drags her entire family into the fray, with each family member reacting acc..
reviewed 2005.01.21
This is an animated flick with no fewer than three directors. It's a very paint-by-numbers story of a little guy who wants to make it big, and who captilizes on the mistaken belief that he's killed a shark in order to become a bigshot. I won't bother with the rest of the obvious story.Aside from the lackluster story, some of the voice work wasn't particularly imaginative...
reviewed 2005.01.16
This movie has the same name and broad plot outline as the original (from 1962) but updates it in several ways with major changes to the story and characters...
reviewed 2005.01.12
This is a movie directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio with a supporting ensemble including Cate Blanchett, Kate Beckinsale, John C. Reilly, Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda. This might be about all you need to know.DiCaprio plays the driven and talented Howard Hughes in a manner that suggests he wants to be treated as a grown up actor (but doesn't seem to he knows how)...
reviewed 2005.01.11
This is a flick set in the Gobi desert. It chronicles the unhappy tale of a fatal plane crash in that enourmous stretch of dry sand and rock, involving the crew of a failed oil rig and their pilots.The survivors are faced with an utterly inhospitable environment, a band of bandits, and their suspicion that they've been written off by the company that was flying them through the terrain.Dennis ..
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
reviewed 2005.01.10
This movie is an odd one. Full of weird little self-referential loops and half-formed sub-stories, it lurches forward with an attenuated pace and almost surreal fluidity. Things seem to happen without rhyme or reason, as if they occur simply to give the characters something to do or talk about. Like it was a Star Trek: The Next Generation movie where everyone is mildly intoxicated.That said, the..
reviewed 2005.01.09
This is a movie about two gangs of treasure seekers who jointly discover that there is a clue to the location of an immense wealth located on the back of the US Declaration of Independence.While this simple action/adventure flick was better than I'd expected, I wasn't really expecting much. Nicholas Cage is an odd choice for the lead role in this movie, which was a low-key Indian Jones type.I..
reviewed 2005.01.01
This is a tale about a man who is fished out of the sea and revived, only to discover that he's got no memory and no explanation for the bullet holes in his back, the LED naming a numbered bank account that was implanted into his back, or his propensity for languages and violence...