I want to talk about Star Wars, but that’s dangerous for me, because I don’t want to deliver any spoilers, but apparently I don’t know what a spoiler is.

I think a spoiler is “a shocking or unexpected plot twist that’s important to the story.” Gandalf dying, then coming back from the dead - those are spoilers, except they’re not, because they were ( Read more... )

Short answer: atmospheric dark fantasy with some memorable scenes and Scarlett Johansson naked, but slow and lacking in story. Cautiously recommended, as long as you’re prepared to be kinda bored.


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Score! The in-flight movie was Frozen.


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A few months ago I saw the movie Room 237, a documentary about obsessive super-fans of Stanley Kubrick’s movie The Shining, who have watched it more times than you’ve seen Star Wars and developed interesting interpretive theories about Kubrick’s film. These range from the relatively plausible (small incongruities aren’t continuity errors - they ( Read more... )

(Now that I have updated the website, I am doing some electronic housecleaning. Sometimes I run into a fairly complete, but unpublished essay, such as this one.)

So, we saw the new Tron movie.

I have inexplicably fond feelings for the old one. I saw it as a teenager, but even then I realized 1. It wasn’t very good, and 2. Jeff Bridges was great. ( Read more... )

Saw Pacific Rim on Sunday… another movie I wanted to love, and unfortunately didn’t. Guillermo del Toro! Nerd obsessions! Giant monsters! Mako Mori! Idris Elba! It looks pretty and there are some parts of it that work great, but overall I was bored too often and surprised and delighted too little.

(Spoilers, I’m sure, follow.)

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This recent Slate article [Save the movie!] suggests that an over-reliance on the beat sheet from Blake Snyder’s “Save the Cat” books is ruining Hollywood movies, but I think it’s completely wrong. The problem with dull blockbusters isn’t that they are following Snyder’s beat sheet - it’s that they aren’t following it.

I admit, when I read the ( Read more... )

As part of my birthday shenanigans, we visited the newly remodeled Sundance Cinema in the U-district. (It used to be the Metro) It is now 21-and-over, and you can get a cheese plate and beer and drink in the theater. Also, reserved seats, and really nice big seats with lots of elbow room between them.

Two thumbs up for the theater, although I ( Read more... )

Short, spoiler-free review: if you liked Jackson’s LOTR movies, you will probably like this as well.
( Longer review that I don’t think has any spoilers, but I am notoriously spoiler-insensitive, especially with a movie version of a book that was published in 1937. )