Some people might call William Girdler’s The Manitou a ripoff of The Exorcist, and in a sense they’d be right in that both involve possession of a sort. Then’s there’s the fact that Girdler’s film came five years afterwards, though other than that it’s a whole other animal and deserves revisiting. The movie, based on the novel […]
John Schlesinger’s Marathon Man–arguably one of the best thrillers ever made–has turned up on Netflix! If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth a look. It has stars like Roy Scheider, Laurence Olivier, William Devane and Dustin Hoffman playing roles that careers are made from, in a story that involves international intrigue, danger (you’ll never look at dentistry […]
I liked most of I Am Legend, based on the story by Richard Matheson, though my admiration stopped at the computer-generated effects, which tended toward the cartoony. What makes matters even worse was that StudioADI was actually working on practical special effects on the movie for a time (which actually effected the way that I looked […]
This time around we see how serious President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is, as Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) witnesses with her own eyes the wasteland that has become of District 12 (that looks vaguely like Germany after World War I, probably not a coincidence). It also comes off as a bit manipulative toward Katniss. I understand […]
“Part 1?” I think that that refers to the fact that the movie is being broken into a ‘Part 1’ and ‘Part 2.’ What I like about is that there’s an undeniable fascist (a word used way too often, mostly by people with either no idea what it means, or with the intent do bring about […]
Paddington is based upon the children’s storybook character Paddington Bear, who I imagine is bigger in Europe, like The Adventures of Tintin, which formed the basis of a 2011 film directed by Steven Spielberg that was produced by Peter Jackson and written by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat. I also expected to be creeped […]
“Stephen Sommers’ “Odd Thomas” Is An Interesting Diversion And Unfortunately Little Else.” I haven’t read any of ‘Odd Thomas’ books by Stephen Koontz, but I did enjoy that last movie based on one of his novels, Joe Chappelle’s 1998 movie, “Phantoms.” The director handling Koontz’s work this time around is Stephen Sommers, and that may be what makes […]
Paul Kersey, as played by the late Charles Bronson, has to be the most cursed person on the planet. The Deathwish films aren’t supernatural, but the way violence seems drawn to Kersey makes it as logical an explanation as any (other than it being a movie, that is). If you had to deal with Samara from “The Ring” you […]
It seems that every studio is trying to produce the next “Hunger Games” or “Twilight,” no wonder considering that the two films so far released have earned close to a billion dollars while the five films that make up The Twilight Saga have earned significantly more. The thing is, for every “Hunger Games” or “Twilight” […]
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