I'm going to do a complete plot synopsis and point out all the shit that made no sense. Ready? Go.

( In which I spoil the living fuck out of _Prometheus_ )

There's an economy to good storytelling. Supposedly, Hemingway once wrote a story of just six words ("For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn."), but even if a writer's not trying to artificially constrain himself so, good stories are just as long as they need to be, and no longer.

I just watched the A&E remake of The Andromeda Strain. Well, " ( Read more... )

What you should be doing instead is going to see Stardust. It's pretty much perfect; I can't think of a single thing they could have done to improve it. With the exception of a lack of good one liners like "Life is pain, Highness, and anyone who says different is selling something" and "You are the brute squad," it is right up there with Princess ( Read more... )

Check out Dana Stevens's hilariously arrogant review of 300 over at Slate.

To sum up, she didn't like it. It's "race-baiting fantasy." "Nationalist myth." She complains:

The comic fanboys who make up 300's primary audience demographic aren't likely to get hung up on the movie's historical content, much less any parallels with present-day ( Read more... )

Thoughts on Casino Royale

I'm going to go even further than most folks, who seem to be saying it's the best Bond movie since Connery. That's true, but Connery was in some stinkers himself; Diamonds are Forever was pretty piss-poor, and Never Say Never Again was execrable, all the more execrable for being a piss-poor remake of what's arguably the ( Read more... )

( Spoilers, although, seriously, it's not really possible to spoil this movie. )

boffo might appreciate Tycho's review of Silent Hill:

You might have seen people say that this was a good movie, or a faithful representation of the game, and I would urge you to disregard anything those people say in the future about movies or, indeed, any other subject. Silent Hill: The Movie evokes the games without accurately expressing them - to ( Read more... )

boffo has been justifiably complaining about Hollywood's plan to remake The Dirty Dozen. There's no way a remake can improve upon the original, for several reasons ( Read more... )

Saw The Great Raid yesterday.

I was actually fairly impressed. I thought the bits leading up to the raid dragged a bit, there was this big subplot taking up about half the screen time about Maggie Utinsky's smuggling ring, which was just distracting.

The rest was very well done. The raid itself was excellent, very accurate, with the ( Read more... )

AvP really, really sucked. I mean, I certainly wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but was at least expecting something fun. What I got instead was perhaps the single laziest exercise in screenwriting I've ever seen ( Read more... )