Movieman's Guide to the Movies
The Final Word on Physical Media
Overall, A Nightmare on Elm Street is just a plain nightmare for all the wrong reasons. It’s not the least bit scary and the acting by Haley is utterly laughable with each of his numerous, eye-rolling cackles. I do think the movie tries to do some things to make the film more visually interesting but visuals are only a quarter of the battle and that isn’t nearly enough to save this trash.
Predators may not have been as successful of a franchise reboot as last year’s Star Trek in terms of quality, but as someone who wasn’t as enamored with the original as some, I thought there were some elements that did work and the casting was well done.
The Peacemaker has all earmarks of a generic mid/late ‘90s action-thriller and is only remembered thanks to the then up-and-coming star in George Clooney and the beauty of Nicole Kidman otherwise this could’ve easily been just another direct-to-video affair.
Valentine’s Day may be a two-hour cliché but at the same time it’s fairly harmless and might please some people out there, but for me, I like my romantic-comedies to have, oh I don’t know, a little comedy thrown in there. I know… that’s a silly thing to expect.
As a comic book fan, in general, I found Elektra to be one of the most mundane and average comic book movie ever. There’s nothing really memorable, such as an action sequence, nor the performance from the lovely Jennifer Garner. However, Elektra does make a good time-waster and a film you don’t have to think about… at all.
The Relic may not be a top notched film but looking at it as a call back to the old days of monster horror flicks, I think it works well enough to be a satisfactory Saturday movie night viewing party.
Jade may be underrated in its vitriol but by the same token it’s still not a very good movie even with some erotic sex scenes meant to titillate and instead are weird (nothing new from Friedkin) bordering on boring. You add in a plot that isn’t very intriguing and a lead actor who is even less so and you’ve got a movie that deserves to be forgotten.
Sorority Row may just be another slasher pic with some unique kills but the finale is the real killer of this film. However, the audio and video are both solid and although I would’ve liked to have seen better featurettes than the standard EPK-like one’s we got.
Aside from the fact Warner Bros. still stiffs us out of any features for anyone over the age of 10, I found this addition to the Scooby animated original movie collection to be a lot of fun.
The Brothers Bloom is writer-director Rian Johnson’s follow-up his surprisingly fantastic 2005 film, Brick starring Joseph Gordon Levitt. But often sophomore efforts after promising starts tend to greatly disappoint but Johnson’s latest once again surprised me as it wasn’t your typical con genre flick.
I was absolutely enthralled with 2006’s Paris, I Love You as it beautifully showcased the City of Love, Lights, Dreams, Art, et cetera while also giving us stories that made use of each precious minute allotted; and I had high hopes for the follow-up, New York, I Love You where we get to see the City That Never Sleeps. Unfortunately even though the directors try their best to showcase New York, the stories never quite hit the emotional levels (be it for comedy or drama) that I felt with Paris.
I don’t even know where to begin with Triangle. The movie’s premise is completely different than what the flick turns out to be, which aggravated me right off the bat. You figure out shortly into the film that the killer is one of the group and then the movie turns out to be nothing of what it really should have been.
I’m not sure what it was about The Stepfather, but I didn’t overly enjoy nor dislike the movie. There were some decent movies, mostly amounting to Amber Heard, and then stop stupid moments mostly relating to the crappy plot with tons of plot holes confined within.
Although not as bad as I had imagined going in, Whiteout sadly just isn’t a special suspense-thriller. Indeed it does have a good moment or two but with a story that doesn’t exude feature film quality.
Just a quick welcome to the new Movieman’s Guide to the Movies home page. I’m hoping this will help streamline updates in the future. The rest of the site will remain as is including side links to new reviews and such but I may change that over in the future. For now, enjoy and let me know what you think!