(2010) dir. Tim Burton
viewed: 03/07/10 at the Castro Theatre, SF, CA
There are a lot of “Alices” out there and a lot of “Wonderlands” too. My personal favorite has tended to be Jan Svankmejer’s 1988 Alice, which is largely stop-motion animated and not exactly true to the source material, so I’m not a purist when it [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Theatrical category.
Alice in Wonderland
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
(2010) dir. Chris Columbus
viewed: 02/27/10 at AMC Loews Metreon 16, SF, CA
The latest teen novel franchise to become a movie franchise (as of this last week), bears the unwieldy over-branded title of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Adapted from the first book in a series of Percy Jackson stories from Rick Riordan [...]
The Last Station
(2009) dir. Michael Hoffman
viewed: 02/23/10 at the Albany Twin Theater, Albany, CA
The Last Station is a film about the turbulent last year in the life of a great writer and the love of his life. In this case, the great writer is Leo Tolstoy in his 80’s and the love of his life is his [...]
The Wolfman
(2010) dir. Joe Johnston
viewed: 02/15/10 at CineArts @ the Empire Theater, SF, CA
The latest Hollywood re-make in the theaters is the new Benicio Del Toro-starring re-do of the Universal “classic” The Wolf Man (1941). While it would be probably erroneous to say that the film doesn’t represent further creative bankruptcy and cynnical re-heating of Hollywood [...]
Up in the Air
(2009) dir. Jason Reitman
viewed: 02/02/10 at the Century San Francisco Centre, SF, CA
It took me a good long while to get around to seeing the George Clooney film, Up in the Air despite generally strong positive reviews. It’s hard to get motivated to see a film about a corporate downsizer flying around the country firing people [...]
The White Ribbon
(2009) dir. Michael Haneke
viewed: 01/26/10 at Embarcadero Center Cinema, SF, CA
Winner of the Palme D’or at Cannes last year, Michael Haneke’s film, The White Ribbon, filmed in black-and-white, is a parable-like tale of some of the dark sides of human nature. Namely, Haneke considers it a story about Fascism, or the elements therein, which gave rise [...]
The Princess and the Frog
(2009) dir. Ron Clements, John Musker
viewed: 01/09/10 at Century 20 Daly City, Daly City, CA
It’s easy to view the Walt Disney Corporation with cynicism. Way easy.
When the first traditional cel animation film from the studio appears after five years of going “digital”, the studio offers up yet another of their very bankable “princesses”, and this [...]
Avatar
(2009) dir. James Cameron
viewed: 12/28/09 at AMC Loews Metreon 16, SF, CA
James Cameron (Titanic (1997), among others) has finally unleashed his Avatar on the public. Long in incubation, expensively technological (nearly 70% Computer Graphics, including much motion-capture), and promoted as the greatest thing (this week or last) since whatever the last greatest thing was, this [...]
Sherlock Holmes
(2009) dir. Guy Ritchie
viewed: 12/26/09 at CineArts @ the Empire, SF, CA
Though I’d been liking the trailers since I’d first seen them in theaters some months ago, some early negative reviews of this film highlighting the “Guy Ritchie” factor led me to lower my expectations and even consider skipping this film. While that wouldn’t have [...]
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans
(2009) dir. Werner Herzog
viewed: 12/20/09 at CineArts @ the Empire, SF, CA
Terrible film title. In at least a dozen ways.
This film is a thing of strangeness, though perhaps the strangeness has more to do with marketing and production than anything. I mean, is it or isn’t it a re-make of Abel Ferrara’s cult film Bad [...]
