Author Archive
The Messenger
This is an atypical war movie, where the soldiers are not actually at war, they instead have an emotionally tough job: notify the family of deceased soldiers. Foster and Harrelson are great in this movie, they are dealing with lots of emotions and sometimes it's just too much for them (and for us). Their relationship starts awkward, but soon [...]
Crazy Heart
Jeff Bridges is the reason to watch this movie. He's great as Bad Blake, an old country singer who's down on his luck, with alcohol problems. He encounters a shining light in his life, Jean and her son Buddy, who turn his life around. Although the story is nothing too original, it's the characterization and the performances that make this [...]
Thunderbolts #110-121
In the next few days, I'll be reading the various Avengers-related titles during the Dark Reign period. However, before I do that I need to catch up on this Thunderbolts run by Warren Ellis, which is the basis for the whole Dark Reign stories. Norman Osborn is in charge of Thunderbolts, and he transforms them into a group of superheroes who [...]
Precious
This movie is very hard to watch. That's the main thing to know about this movie. The way Precious is treated by her mother is just appalling, I just don't understand how can some mothers treat their own flesh and blood that way. It's a miracle that Precious is not even worse than she is, especially at the beginning of the story. She is [...]
The Lovely Bones
This is a more personal movie from director Peter Jackson, it's more about characters than it is about big action and spectacle. That being said he's still using visual effects heavily, in this case to create the world in-between where Susie is stuck after she is murdered. I must admit I was more interested in what happens in the real world [...]
Amazing Spider-Man #589-600
Catching up on Amazing. Issue 589 is a standalone story about Spot and the Russian mob. Nothing fancy, but good. Dan Slott writes the next two issues with Barry Kitson on art, starring the Fantastic Four. The adventure takes place in the Macroverse, but what's interesting here is the explanation that Peter knows about Mephisto's mindwipe. [...]
Nine
I recently watched Glee, and I've been pumped about musicals, but watching this movie reminded why I never liked them before. To me this is not a coherent story or character study. To me it's just a series of musical performances by many different actors that don't have a common thread, except for being inspired by Fellini. The music numbers [...]
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths
As a fan of the Justice League animated series, I was very happy to learn about this DVD movie. Even though the animation is slightly different, and the voices are different, this still has a similar feeling to that series. The story is a typical alternate universe story that we can find in many DC stories. Our Justice League is pit against the [...]
Dexter: Season 4
SPOILER WARNING!! After a lighter season, this is the darkest season yet. It is so dark that my wife stopped watching it, even though she really liked the series. It all centers around the bad guy of the season: the Trinity Killer, Arthur, played perfectly by John Lithgow. His killing scenes are horrific, a worthy "adversary" for [...]
Dexter: Season 3
SPOILER WARNING!! This third season is similar to the second one in terms of themes. The guest star of the season is Jimmy Smits, who plays Miguel, the assistant DA. They meet and by chance Miguel slowly starts to know the real Dexter. But he's not repulsed, on the contrary he offers his friendship and help in killing criminal who get away from [...]
Dexter: Season 2
SPOILERS!! The second season picks up with last season's finale. Debby is traumatized by Rudy's revelation as the ice-truck killer. Doakes is following Dexter at night, he suspects he had something to do with the ice-truck killer. Meantime Dexter doesn't have too many opportunities to kill, but when he does he can't seem to do it. That was [...]
Dexter: Season 1
This is one very special series that can only exist on cable TV, with a tight and focused 12 episodes season. The protagonist is a serial killer, and although he only kills murderers, he does because he has the urge to kill, and channels it on murderers. He's not a normal vigilante that kills bad people, he's a monster. That's the key: he has evil [...]
Wednesday Comics
I'll skip all comments about the format, everybody is pretty much in agreement that it was an interesting one. Let's get to the stories. There are 15 stories in this 12 issue series, and to me they are pretty evenly distributed in terms of quality. The good, the bad and the meh. I first started to read each issue every week, then stopped at [...]
Castle: Season 1
I've been a fan of Nathan Fillion ever since I watched Firefly, so I wanted to check out his current TV series. I'm glad I did, as the title suggests, the main reason to watch it is Fillion. The police procedural is a tried and true formula for US TV series. Law & Order and CSI are the biggest franchises, but there are so many of them I can [...]
The Blind Side
After receiving an Oscar nomination for best movie as well as best actress, I had to check out this movie. After watching it, I can see why it was nominated. It's a feel good story about family and poverty, and it's also tied to American's favorite sport: football. It's about the story of a white rich family who adopts a poor African-American [...]
Grease
After watching Glee, I discovered that my wife had never watched Grease, so I decide to watch this classic with her. I obviously watched it before, I knew most of the famous songs, but I have a hard time remembering when I watched it. I don't think it was in Italy, they usually translate all the songs in Italian. Anyway, watching it again it [...]
Glee: Season 1 Part 1
In the past few years I've come across some musicals that I've enjoyed a great deal. The movie Once, the web episodes Dr. Horrible, the Buffy episode "Once more with feeling", even a recent episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold. It made sense then for me to watch the new musical series of the season, Glee. My wife and I watched all 13 [...]
Dollhouse: Season 2
After a disappointing but promising first season, I was looking forward to a much improved second season of Joss Whedon's latest series. Unfortunately the season did not start well. We still got some stand alone stories. There was a slight improvement, in that there was a little more progress regarding the characters and the overall plot. Then [...]
Avatar
After almost 3 years, I went back to watching a movie in a movie theater, and what better movie than Avatar? It's definitely worth it, since we won't have 3D TVs for a while, at least at an affordable price. I pretty much knew what I was getting before I watched it. It's a cool looking movie with great effects, but a lame or unoriginal story. I [...]
Adventure Comics 1-6
This is where some of the stories in Legion of 3 Worlds are continued, and it looked like Johns was going to put any other plot thread not related to Flash or Green Lantern in this book. There are a few different stories in this series, the main one is about Conner. He's trying to find his identity after his resurrection, since his DNA is half [...]