The Tale of Despereaux

great animation, but very weak plot

so despereaux is a mouse who's not afraid of stuff, he's brave and curious... so he ends up reading stories of knights and honor and saving princesses... he ends up going on an adventure with a rat and they try to save the kingdom because the king is so grief stricken he outlaws soup. pretty lame, and not much happens honestly. the best part of the film is the great animation style and design.

The Switch

standard romantic comedy

i really like jennifer aniston and jason bateman, but this film is just a standard story about a platonic relationship that turns into romance. aniston wants to get pregnant, but can't seem to find the right man... she decides to get artificially inseminated, and somehow jason bateman replaces the sample with his own. some hilarity ensues, the end.

Operation Endgame

great cast, horrible script and execution

man this looked like a winner. rob corddry, zach galifinakas, bob odenkirk, and more, problem is that the film has more drama/action than comedy, and the script is so slight and almost nothing really happens. a bunch of funny people got together and threw this film together with almost no real ideas at all. it's based on a government secret agency that is operating behind the scenes and the leader gets killed or something and then operation endgame is engaged. now the guys need to kill eachother and end the operation before the world ends or something. it's lame. corddry is funny as usual though.

Black Devil Doll

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

MacGruber

Happy, Texas

The Invention of Lying

great setup, but almost no plot

ricky gervais is great, and in this film he's charming, likeable and funny. but this almost plotless movie about a world where no one ever lies, except him, falls flat after about 10 minutes. mark is a loser in this fantasy world of all truths, until one day he is able to lie and get everything he ever wanted. this is a funny set up, but then they bring god/religion into the mix (which isn't funny at all) and it becomes a rehash of life of brian, but not funny. i can't stand jennifer garner anymore, and louis C.K. and phillip seymore hoffman are thrown in as pointless unfunny characters. this shouldn't have been made into a feature film.

Titan A.E.

very meh animated feature

wow, this is a forgettable animated film. don bluth's sci-fi thriller kids film titan a.e. (after earth) is boring, predictable, and lifeless. the earth is destroyed, and it's up to matt damon's character to find the titan space craft that his dad built so they can restore humanity. lots of weird alien creatures and some explosions ensue. decent animation, but it's incredibly dated already.

The Lovely Bones

good moments, but overall crappy

peter jackson has been one of my favorite filmmakers since i saw the frighteners as a kid. my favorite films of his also include dead alive, meet the feebles, bad taste, and the first lord of the rings. this latest opus of his has some great elements, but seems too much like a shitty knock off of 'what dreams may come'. susie salmon is a young girl who gets murdered, and the film is about her journey through the afterlife trying to lead her father to the killer. it's original and all, but not necessarily a great setup for a film. the scenes with stanley tucci (the killer) are great and all, but all the afterlife stuff is lame and played. mark walburg breaks a bunch of class bottles with model ships in them in an obvious act of rage. it's just not a good original film at all.

I Heart Huckabees

existential comedy that isn't funny

i heart huckabees is a film about some existential philosophical stuff... 'is everything connected', 'is nothing connected', etc. bottom line, it's not funny. i love jason schwartzman, and that's my main reason for seeing this... but this film sucks. jason is a guy who's trying to make sense of some coincedences in his life, so he seeks help from an existential detective duo, dustin hoffman and lily tomlin. they basically lead him on a journey to discovering the truths about his existence, meh. all the characters are annoying and unrelatable, and like i said, it's not funny.

Stargate

boring and meh

so i finally saw stargate, and i was disappointed. i didn't know what i was expecting, but i was hoping for something better than this... i mean this spawned some tv shows and stuff, right? plot: james spader is great with heiroglyphics and shit, so the government hires him to decipher this ancient circle thing from egypt. turns out to be a stargate that teleports you to another planet on the other side of the galaxy or some shit. he breaks the code and goes with hard boiled army guy kurt russell to see if it's safe on teh other side. they go through and can't make it back.... meet some natives, and fucked up shit ensues. the story is predictable, and the acting is good, but the behavior of the characters makes no sense whatsoever. the effects are cool, and the egyptians from the other planet have awesome pharoah masks and shit that are cool. i like spader and russell, so i can't hate it too bad, plus it's 15 years old.

Whispering Corridors (Yeogo goedam)

stale korean horror film

after seeing lots of good asian horror films, one like this just doesn't compare. a high school is being terrorized by the ghost of a former student who commited suicide. her former friend, and new teacher at the school is investigating what happened, and meanwhile 2 girls are trying to contact spirits... a few people end up dead, and overall it's kinda confusing. i just didn't like it as much as other more recent asian horror films involving ghosts. this is somewhat of a classic now, and has inspired some sequels.

Street Trash

street bums, napalm hooch, necrophilia, and much more!

street trash is a decent 80's b-movie. freddy (our protagonist) is a bum who runs around trying to score cheap alcohol, cash, and easy women on the streets of new york. meanwhile a liquor store owner uncovers some really old bottles of booze called 'viper'. turns out this stuff turns anyone into liquid from drinking just a sip! so, bums start melting all over, and some shitty cop is hunting down a killer. meanwhile freddy is just trying to get his fuck on with a drunken whore whom he eventually date rapes! once he's done with her the other bums (who behave more like zombies than actual humans) rape and kill her... then this fat ass junkyard owner finds her dead body, and he rapes her! more people end up melting in an awesome display of b-movie special effects. lots of liquid body parts, ooze dripping from people's bowels, etc. one of the funnier scenes was when the leader of the bums gets peed on and he instinctively cuts off the pee'er's dick and the bums play keep away with it! awesome. the filmmakers probably had some deeper message with this film, probably about homeless people and alcohol or something, but it isn't too prevalent. this is entertaining, but the acting and dialogue are so horrible at times.

Cold Souls

paul giamatti continues to annoy me

cold souls is a quirky little film that is very similar to being john malkovic. paul giamatti plays himself, a "famous" actor who is having trouble seperating his acting from his real life. he discovers a new company that is able to store humans' souls for them. somehow he thinks this is the solution to his problems. he gets it removed and he feels empty, so he gets a soul transplant from some russian poet. eventually he wants his soul back, but the russian black market has stolen it and given it to some soap opera actress who thinks it's al pacino's soul. sounds quirky and funny, but it's mostly just boring and annoying. the MAIN thing that bugged me about this film... why the fuck would anyone want to remove their soul? temporarily or otherwise? this made no sense, and they didn't explain that part at all. sure it's an interesting concept, what if our soul was tangible and we could change them with eachother... but the filmmakers don't even know what a soul is, or what it means to have it removed or replaced, so it's a pointless exercise in bullshit. paul giamatti may be a good actor, but how can anyone take that creepy little fucker seriously? honestly? he looks like a goofy little bastard in everything he does.

OH, and what the fuck is up with emily watson's hair in this? she has man bangs or something. fucking atrocious looking.

Halloween II (2009)

crappy sequel

rob zombie isn't exactly a stellar director in my opinion. he does however make entertaining splatter films with lots of cameo appearances by old b-movie actors and somehow manages to flesh out characters rather well. halloween II is the sequel to the 2007 reboot of the michael myers saga which i rather enjoyed. this halloween gets a little more trippy with dream sequences, some bizarre white horse imagery and some random weirdness. michael is back (did anyone really believe he was dead?) and he's on a quest to find his kid sister, laurie, who "killed him" in the last movie. most of the kills are standard horror fare, and not really shocking by this point. the only original stuff involved the white horse and michael's dead mom and michael himself as a kid. they appear only in michael and laurie's heads.
malcolm mcdowell returns as dr. loomis who is now nothing more than a money grubbing asshole author looking to exploit the victims and entire michael myers story. he gets his in the end however. what sucked the most is that they featured young michael a lot in this film, but the original kid (the incredibly creepy Daeg Faerch, was replaced. apparantly it was because he got too old, but still, that killed the mood of the the scenes he was in. also there wasn't much of the classic halloween music in this one and that was a shame. overall a pretty poor sequel to a film that had potential to be better than the original.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

blah love story featuring 2 annoying leads

i still really like michael cera, even after seeing him in year one. however, in nick and norah's infinite playlist (such a pretentious title btw) he is annoying as holy hell. he stars as nick, an indie hipster who is into music, but he just had his heart broken by tris... a heartless bitch who cheats on men often. he's uber sad and in search of closure. along comes norah (kat dennings) an equally annoying hipster who is in love with nick even before she ever met him. the whole film takes place one night when one of norah's friends needs a ride home cause she's hammered, and nick's friends want the 2 love birds to hang out together all night... really dumb stuff, and i swear i've seen this film many times under different titles. i certainly didn't hate this film, but it was very predictable, kinda silly and quirky, and like i said the leads were annoying. the only funny stuff involved michael cera's gay bandmates/friends.

Godzilla vs. Megalon (Gojira tai Megaro)

substandard monster fare

godzilla vs. megalon is one of the crappier japanese monster movies i've seen. there's this weird underwater civilization that releases megalon to destroy earth, and it's up to godzilla and jet jaguar (a robot that can grow to godzilla size at will) to stop him and some other bad monster. there are a few lulz, and very cheesy action sequences to be sure. it's just not that enjoyable. 5 stars cause it's godzilla and he's always badass.

Willard (1971)

inferior to the remake.

willard is an odd little horror film about a troubled boy and his developing obsession with his rat friends. willard (bruce davidson) is working a shitty job for a boss who hates him, his mother is constantly nagging him and making his life miserable, he has no friends, etc. he befriends a bunch of rats he finds in his house and trains them to do things for him. he starts to treat the white rat, socrates, better than the rest, and ben, another important rat, becomes jealous and eventually turns on willard. the story is good, but the acting is pretty shitty overall. ernest borgnine plays willard's boss who treats him like shit. willard is convinced that he killed his father, and is forcing him to sell his mansion after his mother dies. the remake (which i saw years ago in theaters) is far superior to this one. crispin glover was amazing, and the horror elements were a lot creepier. i'm glad i saw this one though finally.