License to Drive [1988] review

In honor of Corey Haim’s memory, and to revisit a movie that has long had legendary status in my teenage recollections, this Saturday’s movie was LICENSE TO DRIVE.  I can remember being stoked to go see this movie when it came out in theaters, though at that age going to see any movie at the theater without parental supervision was cause for an ecstatic state.  As always with seeing a movie for the first time in 22 years, I was not sure at all how it would hold up.  Within the first five minutes all doubts were erased and I was reliving LICENSE as if still 14 years old.

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INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS [2009] review

I think I may be done watching Quentin Tarantino movies.  He does not make many, so it will not be that hard to do.  This is the feeling I am left with after watching INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS.  Would I ever want to watch the movie again?  No.  Is it basically the same movie Quentin has already made a couple times?  Yes.  How’s that?  Female heroine, check.  Gory violence for its own sake, check.  Two characters having an exteeeended conversation, check.

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THE HURT LOCKER [2008] review

I unexpectedly had a chance to watch THE HURT LOCKER tonight, a movie I definitely wanted to see before composing my 2009 top ten movie list.  However, I was not blown away by THE HURT LOCKER as I was expecting to be.  I thought it was going to be a very feel-bad movie, but it was not.  For me it did not have nearly the emotional impact that GENERATION KILL did.

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UP IN THE AIR [2009] review

It has been awhile since I laughed out loud that much in a movie theater, but such is the appeal of the humor in UP IN THE AIR for me.  It was exactly my sense of humor mixed with some well used strong language that often caused me to be one of the only people in the theater to laugh.  This was not the first time such a thing happened.  This movie is not all laughs as the third act takes a decidedly serious tone that is not all that expected, but was mostly welcome.

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EMPIRE OF THE SUN [1987] review

It is always nice when a movie turns out to not be at all what I was expecting, but I still like it.  Such is the case with Steven Spielberg’s EMPIRE OF THE SUN, a movie that long bounced around in my head as one to see, but took a couple decades to actually make onto my playlist.  Maybe most surprising of all was that the lead character (a young British boy) was played by Christian Bale.

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THE MOSQUITO COAST [1986] review

If you want to see Harrison Ford in something very different, give THE MOSQUITO COAST a look.  Harrison must really trust director Mike Weir as he made this movie right after they made WITNESS together.  I have not seen the latter film yet, but am very curious too after Weir and Ford have shown me a really different and disturbing film in MOSQUITO.

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THE CONVERSATION [1974] review

I like movies that show me a world I am not familiar with, especially if it’’s an interesting one. THE CONVERSATION succeeds on that level for me as I was very interested in learning the lingo and ins-and-outs of the covert listening and/or wiretapping fields.  There is tech and mystery and then the glimpse into the 1970s as well.

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NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS [2007] review

I quite enjoyed the first NATIONAL TREASURE movie, a fun romp with a bit of academia for the mind to chew on while the mouth chomps on popcorn.  I found the sequel, NATIONAL TREASURE:  BOOK OF SECRETS, to be nearly every bit as entertaining without being too gimmicky or repeating the first movie.

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