Step Away From The Film Reviews...

A meme stolen from Alex.
Kafka is

Kafka is well documented.
Kafka is mania and mania is Kafka.
Kafka is so incredibly different.
Kafka is being politicized and demysticized.
Kafka is the ideal narrator.
Kafka is mature, methodical, strict in his daily routines.
Kafka is the brilliant follow-up to Steven Soderburgh's debut film.
Kafka is definitely worth the trouble.

Sean Bean has an unfortunate name

Just Like Heaven
How annoying is it when a movie that, by all rights, should both suck AND blow ends up being humorous and delightful.
That said... Hey, look - It's Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder! Hey everybody, Jon Heder's in this movie! Look at that... it's Jon Heder! ...and so on...
This movie suffers from a wonky timeline. They say it happens over 3 months and that he is in the apartment for 1 month... (SPOILER WARNING) am I supposed to believe that he pulled the roof together in, roughly, a week?
Be on the lookout for the horrible Reese-double in the bed during the escape (I love it when film critics make movies sound more absurd that they are but making a comment but trying to avoid giving anything away.)

Corpse Bride
All you Nightmare Before Christmas fans are going to hate me for this, but...
This movie is plotless, what little plot there is is unexplained (why did she turn into butterflies and go to heaven... I thought this movie functioned on the premise that 'dead is dead'), and they spent too much time making certain things look gorgeous and leaving other things unattended. It's great that her veil flaps gently in the breeze... did you notice that everyone else is doing the herky-jerky all over the screen?

Venom
*note to self*
Hollywood is buying every Voodoo/Hoodoo script they can find...
Pound out some shitty little horror flick with Voodoo at it's core.
*ideas*
- guy bitten by Voodoo snakes kills all the teenagers in town
- Jobu tells Pedro Cerrano that, in order to hit a curveball, he must sacrifice a player from each opposing team
- remake The Serpent and the Rainbow

Flightplan
Jodie Foster must have really liked making Panic Room.
I can see why... this was a solid suspense flick. Schwentke did a good job of playing both sides against the middle.

The Constant Gardener
Clearly an adaptation of a lengthy novel.
While I enjoyed the movie, once the plot was being explained for the second time (the retelling of events with certain things omitted makes for good drama but, if you told me his side already, don't weave it back into her side later), I tuned the story out and watched the camera. My God this movie had a lot of 'B' roll! Not only are there establishing shots... there are establishing montages.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining... I'm just saying that one explanation of the events and, hell, two establishing shots per location would have brought this movie in at under two-and-a-half hours.

A Month Later...

The Brother's Grimm
It breaks my heart to say this about a Terry Gilliam film...
Pure, Unadulterated Crap.

The Cave
blah blah blah world's biggest cave system.
blah blah blah missing scientists.
blah blah blah search team.
Oh, look... a monster.
Quick! -
Swim through the water room,
Climb the rockface in the bottomless-pit room,
Slide through the ice room,
Put up a fight in the apocalyptic-y fire room.
Yeah! Daylight!

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
All I can say is: Rob Schneider must have been hurtin' for some cash.

Transporter 2
Slightly less impressive than the first, but still more fun than most action flicks.

A Sound of Thunder
If the plotholes and bad timetravel logic don't get you, the horrible compositework will.

The Man
I have a real problem with this current crop of movies that function on the premise that it's okay for black people to make fun of whites, but not the other way around. The Man is another one of these films where the only joke is "Ain't this cracker a trip!" I cannot abide.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Dear Hollywood,
It's okay to advertise a movie for what it is, rather than what you think will get people into the seats. Emily Rose is more 'Law & Order' than 'The Exorcist'.
I went to a packed showing, and everyone walking out of the theater was talking about, not whether or not they liked the film, but about how the movie wasn't what they were expecting. No one will remember this film. We were told it was a horror movie and we got a courtroom drama.

Cry_Wolf
A teen hack-em-up with a decent reveal. This is one of the few 'cellphone & internet' movies that didn't bug me to death.
I gotta ask, though - am I the only person that, when out in public, sets their cellphone to vibrate so as not to annoy the rest of humanity with my stupid ringtone every time I get a call? I'm glad that bitch's lack of consideration gets her killed.

Lord of War
I'd love to smack whoever cut the trailer for this film. When you use a character-defining line for comedic effect in the trailer... you completely devalue the line. Especially when it is the opening line of the film.
I'd also like to ask what happened to the AIDS scare. What was the point of the character and their subplot if the consequences of said subplot are never realized? Whether or not the lead contracts AIDS as a part of his downfall is not a small thing that people won't notice if you walk away from. They set it up and carry it through to him freaking out, "What have I done? Am I bringing AIDS home to my wife and kid?!?" and then they never mention it again. WTF?
This could have been up there with Three Kings but they cocked it up. I expected more from the guy that wrote Gattica and The Truman Show.