(2006) dir. Neil LaBute
viewed: 12/30/06
Why remake certain movies? The original The Wicker Man (1973), directed by Robin Hardy and starring Christorpher Lee, is considered to be one of the best British horror films ever made. And it is very much a piece of Britain, really, taking place on a remote Scottish isle, with an English [...]
Archive of entries posted on December 2006
The Wicker Man
I Am a Sex Addict
(2005) dir. Caveh Zahedi
viewed: 12/30/2006
Caveh Zahedi wrote, directed, stars and exposes himself as a singular narcissist in this autobiographical, semi-documentary, semi-reinactment film about his obsession with prostitutes and his ultimate recognition of his sexual addiction. It’s mostly comedic, I think, or played for laughs. Zahedi’s failures in relationships he tends to blame on his sexual [...]
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
(2006) dir. Ivan Reitman
viewed: 12/29/06
Amusing concept. Awful film.
Ivan Reitman used to make good movies, like Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981), and Ghost Busters (1984), but somewhere along the line, he started turning out stuff like Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Evolution (2001). Ah well…
The idea of a neurotic and dangerous superheroine seems like it has some possibilities, but even with [...]
The Hills Have Eyes
(2006) dir. Alexandre Aja
viewed: 12/25/06
French horror director, Alexandre Aja, whose High Tension (2003) caught some attention and praise for its gritty violence and strange take on female power, has hopped the pond, as they say, and has delivered his first American film, a re-make of Wes Craven’s cult film of the exact same name that originally [...]
Lady in the Water
(2006) dir. M. Night Shyamalan
viewed: 12/25/06
I’d read a lot of amusing critiques of this film over the summer when it was playing in theaters. I was recalling 2002 when he released Signs and Time Magazine declared him to be the “new Spielberg”. Something about being so annointed made sense. This is clearly what he was aiming [...]
Night at the Museum
(2006) dir. Shawn Levy
viewed: 12/25/06 at Century 20 Daly City
Night at the Museum is the kind of movie that Hollywood tries to make so frequently yet fails pathetically. It’s a fun kids’ movie that’s pretty enjoyable straight through, and while you can essentially get the main gags from the trailer, it somehow manages to be entertaining [...]
Miami Vice
(2006) dir. Michael Mann
viewed: 12/24/06
Michael Mann is one of those film buffs’ filmmakers, but has largely sat on the outside of my interest. I mean, I have appreciated a couple of his films, Maneater (1986) and Heat (1995), and other than acknowledging style and intelligence, just haven’t gotten into him the way that so many [...]
The Descent
(2005) dir. Neil Marshall
viewed: 12/23/06
Though it flashed in and out of theaters locally without much fanfare, there was somewhat of good word-of-mouth about it as being above average for a horror film. Written and directed by Neil Marshall, whose 2002 Dog Soldiers also developed a reasonable buzz as well, though I hadn’t heard anything about [...]
An Inconvient Truth
(2006) dir. Davis Guggenheim
viewed: 12/23/06
People frequently joke that this movie is essentially “the greatest PowerPoint presentation of all time”. And that may be. It is also a very political film, both in its outward message and in its more hidden agenda, the promotion of Al Gore as a saintly hero, great American, and the guy [...]
I Bury the Living
(1958) dir. Albert Band
viewed: 12/21/06
I Bury the Living is really an obscure masterpiece. I saw it by chance several years ago with my nephew on a night of several horror videos. Being a 12 year old, he was not impressed with it, but it totally blew me away. I hadn’t really heard of it, and [...]
