Movies & TV Archive

[Movie Review] The Crazies (2010)

Zac Pritcher

Published: March 5, 2010Posted in: Movies & TV

The Crazies is a remake of a 1973 George A. Romero film by the same name. Directed by Breck Eisner, this film takes place in a small Iowa town where, after Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his Deputy, Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) find themselves with a handful of dead bodies, things seem to go straight to Hell. In one of the earlier scenes a man locks his wife and son inside of their country home and sets it ablaze.

Shortly after this scene I set my hopes high for a frightening, heartless celebration of gore and violence. What The Crazies delivers instead is a tale of survival against a disease cause by government corruption and dishonesty. It turns out the entire epidemic was caused by the crash of a plane carrying some chemical weapon into the town’s drinking water. When David and Russell stumble across this problem, things in the story finally start to progress.

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[Movie Review] In The Loop

Casual Clay Cunningham

Published: March 5, 2010Posted in: Movies & TV

Overview:

I’m not a particularly political person. That is to say, I’m not a political person in any imaginable sense. While the Obama stickers I have plastered all over my car and laptop computation device make an undeniably impressive statement, they are there not because of my bleeding heart liberal passion, but rather because I was too lazy to remove them after receiving both the car and the computer as hand-me-downs from my tree-hugging younger brother.

I do, however, know funny (a fact confirmed indisputably by the Tri-County High School Class of 2003, who voted me the “funniest” graduate of our 53 member graduating class), so I think it certainly deserves noting when I say the new British political ensemble comedy In The Loop is as funny a movie as I have seen in several years.

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[Movies] A Nightmare on Elm Street Trailer

Zac Pritcher

Published: March 1, 2010Posted in: Movies & TV

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Trailer

[Movie Review] The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Andrew Majors

Published: February 20, 2010Posted in: Movies & TV

It’s a risky move driving sixty miles to see a movie you have been anticipating for over a year. It very quickly puts the movie into a rarified air, and you view it under a different kind of microscope because of the distance you traveled to view it. This was exactly my situation with The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Some might not recognize the film by it’s title, but it is the film that has the dubious distinction of being the final film of Heath Ledger.

The film focuses on a traveling London stage show of the same name, one that looks for people to throw away their inhibitions and prior machinations about what the show appears to be (another cheap, dirty nickel show), and to free their minds to their imaginations. Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) and his band of misfits, including his daughter Valentina and a brash little person Percy (Verne Troyer).

One night after a particularly rough outing, the group is crossing a bridge when a flash of lightning allows them to see the silhouette of a man hanging under the bridge. After a rescue operation, we are now introduced to Tony (Ledger), and the rest of the film follows his impact on the traveling show, as well as the on-going gambles between Dr. Parnassus and Mr. Nick/The Devil, played fantastically by Tom Waits.

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[Movie Review] Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

Casual Clay Cunningham

Published: February 16, 2010Posted in: Books, Movies & TV

Overview:

Having already achieved stardom with his role as Jim Halpert on NBC’s The Office, the naturally charming John Krasinski could likely coast through his movie career doing light, fluffy romantic comedies. Knowing that, he certainly does deserve credit for taking a huge leap of ambition with his feature directorial debut Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, which he adapted from a scattershot collection of stories of the same name by the late David Foster Wallace.

But ambition alone doesn’t make for a good movie. Having recently read Wallace’s book, I thought frequently that the material simply could not be adapted effectively. That thought still lingers after watching the film.

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[Movie Review] A Serious Man

Casual Clay Cunningham

Published: February 12, 2010Posted in: Movies & TV

Plot Outline:

A Serious Man, the latest film from eccentric filmmaking duo Joel and Ethan Coen, is set in 1967 and tells the story of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlberg), a miserably unhappy physics professor whose life is an almost unbearable mess. His cheating wife wants a divorce, his kids are annoying and he’s sharing his house with his obnoxious loser of a brother all the while dealing with an assortment of professional problems. To try and alleviate some of his emotional pain, Gopnik seeks the council of various rabbis in order to get his life on track.

Review:

The film (which recently received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture) is a strange movie to say the least. It isn’t so much about following a linear storyline, rather focusing on a series of events in the life of a very desperate man seeking something resembling relief. Some will find the movie to be slow and convoluted, yet it was so well done I had no problem following it on every odd detour.

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[T.V. Review] Lost: The Final Season Premiere

Andrew Majors

Published: February 4, 2010Posted in: Movies & TV

Few shows achieve what Lost has been able to achieve. Not only does the show do gangbusters in ratings and have a freakishly devoted set of die-hard fans, but also has proven to be one of the best shows that has ever graced American Television. Hi, I’m Andrew, and I’m a Lostaholic.

My addiction to the show has only developed in the last year. I resisted because I was sure the show was all hype, a product of a lot of people wanting something to be awesome AND good at the same time. But it’s not hype at all. This show delivers week in and week out, and nothing proves that more than Tuesday nights Premiere Event on ABC. I’m glad I waited until the first four seasons were available on DVD, because otherwise I don’t think I could’ve handled the anticipation between episodes, because this show finds a way to wow you during every episode.

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[Movie Review] Hobgoblins 2

Casual Clay Cunningham

Published: January 28, 2010Posted in: Movies & TV

As a fan of both wise-ass comedy and trashy b-movies, it’s only natural for Mystery Science Theater 3000, a show about a man and two robots who hilariously poke fun at some of the worst movies of all time, to be one of my favorite television creations. While there’s certainly room to debate the worst movie ever shown on MST3K, my money is on Hobgoblins, a stunningly inept 1988 creature feature which character Tom Servo accused of giving him “current traumatic stress disorder.”

The film has earned itself a cult following, largely in part to the Mystery Science Theater send-up. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the film, writer/director Rick Sloan, who’s actually gone on record declaring himself to be a crack addicted total idiot who had his brains replaced with rat droppings, filmed an alleged sequel called Hobgoblins 2. At the risk of summing up my review before it concludes, the movie sucks as bad as anything you’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, unlike the original, that’s not intended to be complimentary in any way.

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The 5 Most Underappreciated Actors in Hollywood

Andrew Majors

Published: January 27, 2010Posted in: Featured, Movies & TV

The 5 Most Underappreciated Actors in Hollywood

Let’s face it. Some of us go to the movies to see a specific actor on screen. But for every Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, there are lesser known actors who light up the screen just as, if not more, often. This is a list of those actors:

Colin Farrell

Yes, folks, I’m dead serious. And this isn’t because I have been a major fan of the guy since Hart’s War. Take a look at his filmography for a moment. There are a number of quality films on there, and in each of them Farrell has shined. Minority Report was his true breakout, and is one of the best films of the decade. A smaller film like Phone Booth showed his range, but it wasn’t until The New World that I really started to see Farrell as the incredibly gifted actor he is. In that film he gives such a nuanced performance it truly shows his development. His performance in In Bruges garnered him a Golden Globe, and his script selection seems to be much better than it was in the early 2000s. The sky is the limit for this talented Irishmen.

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