I’m not sure I’d actually recommend this to anyone who’s not genuinely fascinated by comedy and comedians, but I found this to be a decent watch. Is it that funny? Not really. As with any movie based on a single joke it does start to wear thin after a while, but I do love to hear comedians talk about their craft and so the conceit of having so many comedians dissecting a single joke made for an intriguing insight.
Not too great a movie, to be honest, but I found it reasonably interesting.
Grade: ***
I enjoyed this. I guess I felt the final act didn’t quite match up to the rest, but on the whole I thought this was a very fresh, well-constructed take on a familiar genre. I mean, if you ask me if I want to watch a superhero movie it probably won’t be my first choice, but if I was putting together a marathon it’d definitely have a place. It’s a nice little breath of fresh air.
Grade: ****
This was good. I maybe wasn’t quite as invested emotionally as I am during the best action movies, but based on the action alone it’s pretty excellent stuff. It’s really reminiscent of the martial arts movies I used to watch as a kid but also kind of modern in how breathless, violent and relentless it is. There’s not a lot in terms of story, but that’s not why I went.
Grade: ****
Why is Chris Pine’s hair so big so much of the time? Is it attractive? I find it really weird and off-putting. My brother and I were discussing whether he’d make a good action movie star and my main argument against it is that, after further consideration, his hair freaks me out. It throws the proportions of his head right off. So yeah… that’s something.
Aside from that this movie was pretty much what I’d expected. It’s kind of lame in most ways, but I didn’t hate watching it. It’s one of those where you feel like there might have been something there if the script had been given a bit more work. Instead, everything falls just short.
Grade: **
A girl graduates from college and finds herself living at home, confused and struggling to find herself: I thought I was going to like and connect with this more than I did, but it was still okay. It’s confident and kind of impressive but there were key areas of the movie I couldn’t get into. Aura and her family and friends and her work? Good. Aura and boys? Not so good. And so my interest piqued and fell accordingly.
I saw enough that I’m looking forward to Girls, but I can’t see myself revisiting this.
Grade: ***
I found this atop several “funniest musicals” lists, but I can’t say I agree with that based on the movie. It is pretty funny and the 60’s bawdiness does have a certain charm, but I couldn’t really hack a whole movie’s worth of it. It’s like a musical Carry On… and honestly I could never really bear those movies either. Not terrible, but not for me.
Grade: **
There’s kind of an unfair pressure on documentaries to be original. Almost any other genre of film can retread old ground and, presuming it’s written well enough, manage to excite and entertain. But a documentary, even if it’s well-made, will rarely grab you in the same way if you’ve seen something similar before. That was pretty much the case with this. It was decent, but there was no narrative thrust and it didn’t really show me anything I haven’t seen before.
It’s sad all the same - almost any study of war is - but it’s nothing particularly enlightening.
Grade: ***
As a Marvel guy and a Joss Whedon nerd, I was obviously pretty excited about this. And though it maybe wasn’t everything I dreamed of, I’d definitely say it was all I could have reasonably hoped for: an impressive action epic with lots of fun moments for fanboys and casuals alike. Iron Man is awesome, Hulk is by far the best he has ever been and it never really suffers the “too many cooks” syndrome I thought it might.
Probably my third favourite Marvel movie after Iron Man and X-Men: First Class.
Grade: ****
You know that this movie is a failure when you spend most of it wondering if Robert Downey Jr. has lost his charm. It can’t be true. He’s one of those guys who will be oozing charisma even when it has to fight its way through the eventually saggy, wrinkled folds of his geriatric flesh. He is that cool. But I watched this and I couldn’t see it at all. It all seemed so laboured I felt like I’d had enough after five minutes. RDJ’s charm should be the seasoning, but here it’s served as the meal.
If there’s another movie in this franchise I won’t be watching it.
Grade: **
I thought this was a pretty impressive movie, but the truth is I couldn’t truly enjoy it because everything it’s about is just too alien to me. It’s about these young lovers feeling all these things I’ve never felt and I’m just not equipped to engage with it properly. Mostly it just left me feeling confused as to how and why anyone would put themselves through such drama. But hey, if you think you have the answer to that question, I guess this movie is more for you than me. Enjoy it with your significant other while I sit here wishing I lived alone in the woods.
Grade: ***
