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 EXPRESS [2008] review

Earnest is the word I would use to most describe THE EXPRESS, a humble movie that wants to tell a small piece of the civil rights story of the U.S. and the history of the Heisman Trophy.  It does not try to be overly ambitious, comfortably staying within its own limits and thus able to achieve success on its own scale.

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AVATAR [2009] review

I was fated to see AVATAR alone.  I know this now.  AVATAR is a powerful environmental message exactly when the human race needs it.  It is a move that rivals the epic NAUSICAA in its organic environmental message.  It is an expression of imagination and wonder far, far greater than any movie I can remember that tried to do so.  The thing that made me most skeptical of the movie, its CGI characters, were in reality its greatest asset.  Human actors could not replicate the adaptation and harmony with the environment that the Na’vi had.  The moistness in their eyes illustrated their love for there world.  AVATAR IS A MASTERPIECE film by James Cameron.

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UP [2009] review

“They’ve done it again,” should be the official tagline for Pixar animation studios because with 2009’s UP, they have indeed done it again.  WALL*E was a perfect masterpiece of a movie to me.  I can still feel watching it.  The premise for UP did not have me believing Pixar could even get close to the mastery of WALL*E and I was left wondering how UP would awe and entertain me.  I was blown away after the opening scenes.

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WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE [2009] review

Why?  It is the one question I thought the most while watching the weirdly mesmerizing and somewhat off-putting emotional exploration that is the 2009 film WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.  As most kids of my generation, I can recall holding that oddly shaped hardcover book.  The illustrations almost seems to shuffle in your eye with a natural twitch.  The movie version did not replicate that twitch, but it did very successfully bring the monsters to life with amazing puppetry and only the necessary CGI.

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A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT [1992] review

A good 12+ years ago, I really wanted to move to Montana.  I cannot recall what entirely spurred this ambition, but what I can remember is that it was at least partially if not entirely motivated by a Pearl Jam concert being there.  Perhaps from this one event I concocted, as my mind is wont to do, an elaborate fantasy of living there and how it would be great.  Then I learned that Montana was a haven for militia and my Big Sky Country dreams vanished.  Tonight watching A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, those old Montana memories were stirred for the first time in a long time.

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