Haven s.2:  Several new long-term cast additions.  Notably Jason Priestly as Son of Mayor Charm and Adam "Edge" Copeland as Dwight the Cleaner.  Plus lots of Mythology mixed in with all the Monster-of-the-Week.  Especially for Duke's family history and the coy secret back-story of Dave & Vince.  Though going from the season finale to some kind of ( Read more... )

An ok remake.  Not as good as Maleficent or the Jungle Book.  But ok.  Emma Watson is a good actor and a passable singer and Dan Stevens isa good singer and passabel actor.  Luke Evans is enjoyably hammy and dickish as Gaston and Josh Gad is more amusing than terrible.  And the FX work for Beast and the living castle was pretty good.

The musical bits were very catchy and enjoyable.  And Auli'i Cravalho voices a charming and delightful lead.  Plus Dwayne Johnson oozes charisma even when being a giant butthead.  Also I liked the swerve for the final boss confrontation.  Of course now I want a Maui/Lilo & Stitch fight kaiju movie.  With musical numbers.

The use of anthromorphic avatars to reperesent Riley's inner thoughts and emotions makes this one of PIxar's more evocative movies in a while.  Though the actual "people" end up being a little less well developed then their inner avatars.  Even the glimpses of the non-Riley Joy/Sadness/Anger/Digust/Fear quintets seem to have more depth than the ( Read more... )

An enjoyable and mostly fast-paced adventure movie. Though, for a movie that pushes a message of positivity over nihilism it sure does like its dead-eyed, smiling murderbot androids...

The general storyline is a fairly typical super team start-up.  It's a very well done and fun one with a more diverse cast than usual.  But still not much new here.  It's the robot Baymax and his purpose as a health provider and how that intersects with the grief of the lead character where the movie stands out.  That and the lush and vibrant ( Read more... )

Click to view

The story was more a re-imagining of Disney's Sleeping Beauty then a simple viewpoint change.  Angelina Jolie's Maleficent isn't really all that villainous.  Most of her actions are basically defensive ones against unprovoked human attacks.  Ok sure she curses one baby.  But who hasn't cursed a baby after a really bad break up ( Read more... )

Mud: Matthew McConnaughey really excells at playing Southern weirdos.  Here he's an on-the-run dude living on a sandbar after killing the son of a local Big Shot.  And gets two teens to help him restore a boat and play messenger to his girlfriend.  Lot of good work from the whole cast outside of McConnaughey actually...

In a World:  Can the ( Read more... )

Dredd: Easily clears the lowest of low bars by being better than the last "Judge Dredd" movie.  Given that both movies have a core concept of Small Group of Cops vs. Apartment Hi-Rise full of Mostly Crooks, its also easy to compare this to the Raid: Redemption.  Of course the latter has the whole redemption of the brother thing.  While this one has ( Read more... )