michael's movie reviews
2011
These are the movies I reviewed in 2011.
reviewed 2011.12.12
This is, as the title suggests, a movie in which aliens trade gunfire with cowboys of the late 19th Century...
reviewed 2011.11.13
This is an ambitious book based on the children's book by the same name...
reviewed 2011.10.30
This is a story about two detectives who arrive at a psychiatric hospital on an island...
reviewed 2011.10.02
This is a .. fantasy movie? about trolls in Norway and the people who hunt them. Following a young film crew into the high, near-arctic wilderness, we watch a professional trollhunter deal with a set of ever-larger quarry. Soon the crew is drawn into close contact with the monsters, some of which are truly gigantic.I quite enjoyed everything about this, from the tragic death in the film crew to ..
reviewed 2011.09.27
This is a movie I've returned to several times in my mind since recently seeing it...
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
reviewed 2011.08.15
Sadly, the ground broken with the previous Harry Potter movies is forgotten in this confused mess...
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
reviewed 2011.08.14
At last, we have a good Harry Potter movie. I've lost count as to which this is, the fourth or fifth, perhaps?Anyway, it's a good deal more sophisticated this time out and between the writing and a superb effort by the supporting cast member who plays a visiting bureaucrat like a British-flavored Soviet "Political Officer", it feels high-stakes and grounded in some sort of normalcy...
reviewed 2011.08.13
This is a movie about four friends who head to Las Vegas for a bachelor party...
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
reviewed 2011.08.12
It's at times like these, as I watch movies set in a British private school (which I believe they euphemistically call public schools) that I'm very glad I grew up in Alberta, home of rugged individualism and piss-poor, half-assed schooling...
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
reviewed 2011.08.11
A friend gave me his Harry Potter movies to watch. They're about a young boy who returns for a third year at his school of wizardry and this time there's an escaped prisoner on the loose who's looking for our rather unlikable little British hero.As before, it helps that the actors are growing up...
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
reviewed 2011.08.09
A friend gave me his Harry Potter movies to watch. They're about a young boy who returns for a second year at his school of wizardry and spends a lot of time going through all the same stuff. Watch him buy a wand! Watch him run into shitty classmates... There's a magic flying car now because only plebs use the train I guess?The acting is marginally better this time because the kids are not small..
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
reviewed 2011.08.07
A friend gave me his Harry Potter movies to watch...
reviewed 2011.07.15
This is an interesting bank heist movie that takes the unusual step of showing you the back-story of the robbers...
reviewed 2011.06.24
When I first saw the original "Toy Story" I wouldn't have guessed that there would be a trilogy or that I'd watch the final one with my three-year-old son...
reviewed 2011.06.15
Once in a while a movie comes along with a big splash and everybody raves about it, but it's actually crap...
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
reviewed 2011.06.13
This is an incredibly unpleasant movie in which the terrible past of some young women who were abused by their family and the family's circle is explored. The titular character is a damaged but brilliant and determined girl who's survived not only the abuse but also the ministrations of the state, who placed her back into the care of another vicious abuser.It's very well put together, and the ca..
reviewed 2011.05.02
This is a science fiction story in which humans have since the early 1980's shared the planet with aliens that touched down in South Africa...
reviewed 2011.04.25
This is a classic Western about a girl who encourages an aging US Marshall too pursue the man who killed her father...
reviewed 2011.04.17
This is a vampire movie that's actually good...
reviewed 2011.03.15
This is the story of a girl in an impoverished mountain district who faces the loss of the family home - and the paying woodlot attached. It's an area of real menace, controlling - and controlled by - the trade in amphetamines and opioids. She has to find and return her surely dead father's corpse to save it and keep the remnants of family together, small siblings and a brain damaged mother.Her ..
reviewed 2011.02.20
This is a liberal retelling of the classic detective story, by Guy Ritchie...
reviewed 2011.02.07
This is a stop-motion animated movie done in a perfect style in which two realities are tenuously connected through various cat-flaps in an old house...