michael's movie reviews

2008

These are the movies I reviewed in 2008.

Hancock

reviewed 2008.12.16

This is a very uneven movie that wanders in and out of different styles and tones...

Transporter 3

reviewed 2008.12.15

All there really is to say about this movie is that it isn't up to the first two in the series...

Quantum of Solace

reviewed 2008.12.03

First, a note on what this movie is or is not "for the franchise". I've heard a lot of complaints about this movie. That it's "no longer bond". That the old magic is gone. I disagree...

Traitor

reviewed 2008.11.20

This is a smart flick about the "war on terror". It features the tale of an civilian agent of the CIA, employed to go under cover to uncover and upset extremist Muslim terrorist activities globally. It also follows the two CIA agents who know nothing of his assignment but who come across the civilian's trail repeatedly in pursuit of their own dealings with the same extremist organizations. Sett..

Little Miss Sunshine

reviewed 2008.09.05

This is an excellent movie about a family that decides to take their young daughter to a beauty contest in California...

The Simpsons Movie

reviewed 2008.08.27

So it's come to this...

28 Weeks Later

reviewed 2008.07.07

This is a sequel to the horror movie that brought us "fast zombies"...

Ratatouille

reviewed 2008.06.25

This is an unlikely movie about a rat that's moved by cuisine...

Smokin' Aces

reviewed 2008.06.11

This is the story of a thoroughly unlikable bit-player in the criminal underworld who's decided to start working with the authorities...

300

reviewed 2008.05.11

This is a very stylish and imaginatively-filmed/animated period piece set in antiquity...

Sunshine

reviewed 2008.04.17

This is a science fiction story, and a real mixed bag. The basic premise is that the Sun is failing and humanity has worked out how to reboot it by delivering some kind of machine and material into the star. This is the tale of the crew and their many struggles.I'm not sure that the science holds up but the story takes us to some interesting places...

Crank

reviewed 2008.04.17

Easily one of the worst movies I've seen. Let's put it in the bottom fifty. Purile, ridiculous, unpleasant and made without much care. Also, I can't help notice that Amy Smart featured in this wretched affair...

Children of Men

reviewed 2008.03.10

This is a sci-fi pick about a world without (human) pregnancies...

No Country for Old Men

reviewed 2008.03.07

I really enjoyed this movie, though it was filled with psychopaths trying to kill each other...

There Will Be Blood

reviewed 2008.02.23

This is a movie of the early days of the oil industry, depicting a ruthless and power-mad man who effectively loses his humanity in his effort to make a vast fortune and exert his control over everyone and everything around him...

The Fountain

reviewed 2008.02.07

This is am ambitious story about a man struggling to save his wife from cancer...

The Nines

reviewed 2008.01.19

This is a clever science fiction film that tracks three stories that are interwoven in a way that is at first utterly impossible to guess. As things go on, it slowly becomes that the main character (in his three guises) is not exactly human. He's more of a god, actually, incidentally deluded by the irresistable nature of the artificial world he's created. Our world, that is. Two things sto..

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

reviewed 2008.01.07

No. Bad Tim Burton. Bad!This is a movie featuring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter...

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The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

—Rita Mae Brown