items tagged with 500 Days of Summer

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION

If you were at a Friday-afternoon screening of Resident Evil: Retribution and heard, some 30 seconds before the end credits, an audible groan of frustration and annoyance, I apologize if my unplanned outburst was distracting. I just couldn’t believe that this mindless, endless series was going to require yet another freakin’ sequel.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

The Amazing Spider-Man is, without question, the absolute best superhero movie to be released this week. Of course, I say this not having seen Katy Perry: Part of Me yet, but I also say this because it’s polite, whenever possible, to begin a review with words of high praise, and in this instance, I’m going to have a tough time coming up with others.

THE GHOST WRITER

Calling Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer "lighthearted" isn't entirely accurate, as the movie is a moody suspense thriller concerning high-level government conspiracies, and its color palette seems to shift only from gray to very dark gray. Then again, this is a Polanski film we're talking about - coming from the man who gave us Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion, Chinatown, and The Pianist, it's practically Gidget Goes Hawaiian.

As one calendar year ends and another begins, it feels like a good time to give thanks. And amidst the lame romantic comedies and thrill-less thrillers and unending stream of remakes, sequels, and - in the case of Rob Zombie's Halloween II - even the remake of a sequel, there was actually quite a lot that I was thankful for in the movie year of 2009.

JULIE & JULIA

I'm not necessarily as confident about this prediction as I was when Heath Ledger's Joker arrived last summer, but if Meryl Streep doesn't win an Oscar for Julie & Julia, I'll eat my hat. God knows, after the seeing the movie, I was dying to eat something. A saliva-inducing comedy of gastronomic pleasures, writer/director Nora Ephron's latest is a buoyant and ceaselessly watchable celebration of food and the people who love it, and it offers an utterly sensational performance by Streep, who plays legendary chef Julia Child as a resplendently happy woman who would hungrily devour the entire world if she could.