I saw I Am Legend yesterday. I like Will Smith enough that I could watch him recite the stock report and be entertained, but I was still slightly worried that this movie would be along the lines of the borefest that was Castaway (two hours of Tom Hanks talking to a volleyball? ZZZZZZzzzz). It wasn't. It was actually really, really good. Smith ( Read more... )

When you're a public figure, there is such a thing. While most of us can quietly leave off or shroud habits like excessive drinking from our resumes, a celebrity famous for it cannot. The same goes for any other kind of behavior that might seem detrimental to the marketability of a film or television show (see: Tom Cruise). That's why I was ( Read more... )

Ahhh, is there anything that says "douchebag" louder than a director who thinks his film failed because we were just too stupid to get it? Here's Guy Ritchie claiming Revolver was almost universally panned because it was "too intellectually taxing."

I mean, we've deliberately made it more complex than the first one because we wanted people to ( Read more... )

It's that time of year. Really Important Movie™ season. One of the only things more obnoxious than pretentious movies that take themselves seriously are pretentious cinephiles that take them more seriously. Even worse are the ones who act like they've earned a PhD on the subject covered in Important Movie X or that they've somehow propelled ( Read more... )

Geez. Talk about over-intellectualizing something.

Harder to fathom is why audiences return. Fans who tolerate the repetitiveness and ideological bankruptcy of the "Rush Hour" franchise, for example, may be testaments to the power of hope and a need for familiarity at a time when the Iraq war continues unabated, pensions and polar ice disappear, ( Read more... )

Continuing the theme from the post below about the "oh no! Don't slander the classic!" dilettantes, the following snobs can also suck it:

"They don't make them like they used to."Well, you're right. They don't. For the most part, they make them better. Even the suckiest of modern sucky sucks don't have the cheesy effects and utter boredom of ( Read more... )

I'm not generally a filmsnob when it comes remakes and movies adapted from TV shows or loosely based on previous work. Anyone who argues that contemporary remakes of old classics is some sort of modern indication of a creative drought in Hollywood is clueless. Movies have been made and remade, sometimes within a few short years of each other - ( Read more... )

Stolen from Sheila, this was too fun to pass up.

The Professor's Movie Quiz.

1) Favorite quote from a filmmaker

"Keep Ted Turner and his god-damn Crayola pens away from my movie." - Orson Welles

2) A good movie from a bad director

I can't really think of one; the closest I can say is Midnight Express, because I hate Oliver Stone, but he only ( Read more... )

So, unless you'd really like to spend your entire weekend fluctuating between depressed and angry, you probably shouldn't watch Blood Diamond and a documentary about Jonestown back-to-back on a Saturday morning.

You're welcome.

One of my favorite scenes in Borat is where he interviews the overly-earnest feminists, asking completely ass-backwards, chauvenistic questions. I especially love that none of those women realized the irony of charging a man with being "demeaning" when they've spent the entire interview up to that point condescending to him like he was a four-year ( Read more... )