Cinematique (Book) http://www.Writing.Com/main/books.php/item_id/1370982-Cinematique We'd seen a preview for this movie on some other DVD and it looked funny, so I rented it today. It was really not at all what either of us were expecting, which was a comedy. Sure, it had some funny moments, but those were pretty much all the scenes we'd seen in the preview. The movie itself was much darker and more complex than the trailer ...[Read Full Post] Tue, 18 May 2010 15:57:33 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/696618 We saw a preview for this movie on another DVD and it looked so good, we added it to our next Amazon order. We're glad we did. Ron Livingston (Office Space) plays Richard Pimental, the man who spearheaded the campaign that resulted in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Richard lost half his hearing in Vietnam, and suddenly had to fac...[Read Full Post] Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:46:24 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/692547 Well, thumbsup from George. I've never been a huge fan of martial arts films. But I guess, as far as the genre goes, this was a pretty good one, once you get past the over-the-top gratuitous bloody violence. It came from the same people who brought us the Matrix series and V for Vendetta, although it had a sort of 300 feel t...[Read Full Post] Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:07:07 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/691992 We absolutely love the first Boondock Saints movie, so I rented this one with a great deal of excitement, and not a small amount of trepidation. Sequels just never live up to the initial movie, right? Well, this one didn't *quite* live up to the original, but it didn't really let us down. The biggest problem I had with it was that ...[Read Full Post] Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:07:17 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/691971 When the previews for this movie initially came out, I wasn't very interested in seeing it. I thought the casting was backward. I thought Jude Law was much more the leading man than Robert Downey, Jr., and should have been cast as Holmes. Then we found out it was directed by Guy Ritchie, the man who wrote and directed Lock, Stock, & Two Sm...[Read Full Post] Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:39:08 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/691970 I hadn't heard anything about this movie until the ads on AFN Movie that they were going to play it, but I've always liked Claire Danes and we both like movies about autism (Mozart and the Whale is another one). It was well worth the viewing. Claire does a good job portraying the title character, who was diagnosed with autism in the...[Read Full Post] Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:31:33 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/691306 I bought this disc because I'd been interested in seeing it, and there weren't really any other options at the Post Shopette at the time. I've never been into reading comic books, so I really had absolutely no idea what to expect from this film. We watched it two nights in a row. Now, for a comic book (okay, graphic novel) action movi...[Read Full Post] Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:57:50 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/683324 Neither of us is a huge Adam Sandler fan, but there wasn't anything else on AFN, so we just went with it. We're glad we did. There are some truly hilarious moments in this film, which is sort of like It's a Wonderful Life reimagined. Okay, that sounds like it could be bad, as most remakes truly suck. But I didn't say "rema...[Read Full Post] Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:53:47 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/660912 I liked this movie almost immediately. It begins with some voice-over narration by the main character, a 17 year old goth chick in southern California who often sees the world in off-kilter ways (and shares her vision with the audience). She wants to move out of her mother and step-father's house, but needs a job to be able to afford it. She tri...[Read Full Post] Sun, 03 May 2009 13:05:23 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/647980 This is a good example of the "coming of age" memoir genre. Based on the book by Willie Morris, My Dog Skip covers a couple of the formative years in Willie's life when he was a painfully shy, friendless nine year old in 1940s Mississippi. His mother (against his father's wishes) gets him a puppy for his birthday. Through Skip...[Read Full Post] Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:28:56 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/639786 The latest from Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona returns to Allen's more comedic efforts, rather than his recent frighteningly dark side like Match Point and Cassandra's Dream. It wasn't nearly as funny as his earlier work, where he often played the starring roles himself, but it did have its share of witty litt...[Read Full Post] Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:14:24 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/638192 [As an HBO movie that just premiered tonight, there is no Amazon entry] I knew going into this movie that it would be heart-wrenching, and that I would cry, probably more than once. I was right. As the wife of a Desert Storm and Somalia veteran, I tend to be deeply touched by stories involving veterans and active duty soldiers. They make me feel selfi...[Read Full Post] Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:51:46 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/637087 On the heels of the Harry Potter book-to-movie phenomenon, it's not surprising that a number of Young Adult novels have recently made the jump to the big screen. I had not heard of the City of Ember series, and hadn't heard of the movie adaptation of the first of the four books in the series. But George came across it on In Demand cab...[Read Full Post] Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:20:00 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/636944 I gave this a thumbs up because it was well-acted (Edward Norton and Colin Farrell). But overall, it's really just another good cop versus crooked cops story with a fairly predictable outcome. Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:13:15 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/635901 We were ecstatic to see that Guy Ritchie had made another movie. Finally! We both absolutely love Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. We hoped that this new movie, eight years after the release of Snatch, would live up to those two. (We were also happy to see that he was no longer shackled to that life-sucking hag, ...[Read Full Post] Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:44:32 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/633024 The premise sounded good. Ben Stiller wrote this script to make fun of the actors who took themselves too seriously in the period when a lot of war movies, like Platoon, were filmed. But it fell quite a bit short of my expectations. There were a few funny moments, but on the whole, it wasn't really worth the time....[Read Full Post] Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:04:25 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/631629 I used to think maybe George should be come a paramedic. Not any more. This is a strange, slightly disturbing look at how easily graveyard shifts, sleep deprivation, and guilt can unhinge the human mind. Nicholas Cage plays Frank, a paramedic in New York City haunted by the ghosts of those he failed to save, particularly a young homeless girl named ...[Read Full Post] Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:59:52 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/631408 George really had absolutely no interest in this movie, but he knew that I was mildly curious about it, so he turned to it last night, for me. He was right to have misgivings about it. Frankly, I'm surprised at how much praise it received. It essentially glorified teen pregnancy, which I don't believe is an appropriate message to present ...[Read Full Post] Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:49:18 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/631109 !!! Our main impetus in choosing to watch this movie was its relation to my 2008 NaNo project, News From Ludicrous. This movie is about a man (Joseph Fiennes) who is obsessed with The Darwin Awards ([Link: 'http://darwinawards.com/']), and wants a job with an insurance company profiling the types of people who wind up as Darwin Awards....[Read Full Post] Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:20:39 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/629137 Not much to say about this one. The background was very thin, as was the plot, and quite predictable. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:13:28 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/629136 We hadn't really heard anything good about this movie, but I don't understand why. We were both very impressed. Will Smith plays a character who is, as George put it, like if Fred Sanford were Superman. Will does a great job playing Hancock so that the viewer easily feels sympathy for him. Jason Bateman plays Ray, a struggling PR rep who is ...[Read Full Post] Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:51:33 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/628806 Since this is an Owen brothers movie, we had high hopes that it would be along the Royal Tenenbaums lines. Nope. It had a very small number of mildly amusing moments, but on the whole, it was slow...slow enough for George to fall asleep. Don't bother with this one. Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:47:48 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/628442 Okay, so I haven't read these books yet. I actually wanted to hold off on seeing this movie until I had...but it came on cable last night and who knows when I'll buy the books, let alone read them. I would classify this story as both fantasy and scifi. The scifi element comes in that it takes place on a parallel world to our own, with humans much li...[Read Full Post] Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:42:05 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/626589 The moral of this movie is...don't write TV scripts, stick with novels! David Duchovny plays a script writer trying to maintain creative control during the entire pilot process...without a hell of a lot of luck. Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:19:51 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/625756 The Hunger is older than my usual reviews (1983), but I hadn't seen it before. This is not quite a traditional vampire movie. Yes, they live forever, and they must drink human blood. But they don't have fangs. They use tiny blades hidden in Egyptian Ankh pendants to open the victim's vein. If you know who the band She Wants ...[Read Full Post] Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:16:54 EST http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/625755