TheShrike222

I am not a superhero movie person but I couldn't wait to see Black Panther. What a great film! It has marvelous attention to detail, showing small aspects of life that make the story feel genuine. I also liked that it wasn't all good or evil with nothing in between, but included a lot of moral questions that characters had to struggle with. It doesn't hurt that its beautifully filmed with great music.

This is an unexpectedly amusing movie. It's not a sendup of slasher flicks like Scream, it plays it relatively straight, but that makes it better. Not so campy. The lead actress definitely makes the film, since she's on the screen so much, if she couldn't do a modest Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (of course there's a shout out) the movie wouldn't work. But it's not a copy, the movie takes its own direction. It was worth watching even for those who aren't murder movie fans.

I found the movie pretty interesting, but I don't see how it qualifies as a kids movie. I've seen Rol Dahl movies like The Witches so I know dark kids fantasy but this is a little too much. I could manage the kids who has jars of hearts to animate things, but the eating eyeballs, especially with the optic nerve wiggling as people speared them with forks was way too much. Ignoring that, it had the usual Burton attention to staging and the use of color and some sharp dialog. I wish Eva Green had a character with more range because she is almost a cardboard cut out here. I did find the story enjoyable, and I do like that the kids' powers aren't all destroy the world like x-men or other comic book characters. Odd powers are just as likely as cool powers after all. A good try for this movie. I'd give it a seven if Burton did something about the eyeball eating.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

To watch this documentary only once would be to do it a disservice. It needs to be watched again, with intense focus, an open mind, and an open heart if you are to see what James Baldwin demands, rightfully, be seen, understood and acted on.

I think one of the biggest problems with Tarzan is it just doesn't work if you were born anytime after imperial colonization of Africa became a fad in the 1800s. You can turn your brain off for a while and watch Africans (unfortunately led by a white man) successfully repel colonists, diamond miners, ivory hunters and slave owners. The problem is, every time the action slows down below fifty in the film you start to think about how things turned out for the Congo and it gives the story a cruel sadness. I give the film credit for showing native tribes, as unique, distinct groups of people, mostly fighting for themselves. Demerits for the binary, all good or all bad portrayal of many characters. This is a very old, overused trope. Also for animals that behave nothing like animals. Nothing. At. All. Cuddling with grown lions. A gorilla behaving like a betrayed little brother, a human not getting ripped apart like a rag doll fighting a silverback gorilla, lions herding zebras, and crocodiles responding to calls. (Can crocodiles even venture out into a harbor full of salt water?) Anthropomorphic animals work best in animated or CG movies. After about the third animal scene, I started to cringe every time a new one started. When the humans outrun a hippo made me laugh out loud. If you know anything about hippos, you know the only way a human can outrun one is if it is a wind-up toy. When the big finale started with the final attack of nature on the colonizers, all I could think was, "wow, where's Simba and Mustafa after that wildebeest stampede?" I would have rated this movie lower, but I love Samuel Jackson (woefully underused and in a dumb role) and Margot Robbie (similar problem).

One of those documentaries where you ask, how many times can your heart break. To see the devastation of millions of people, mostly through the eyes of children. It's a hard documentary to watch because the dead and dying are never hidden, but its important because it reminds us we need to stand against hate, not forget there are always innocents trapped by bombs and armies, and, hopefully, try to find the humane in humanity.

This movie is all I yearn for in science fiction and so rarely find. Its not about fabulous technologies, or operatic galaxy wide conflicts of good versus evil. That's just sparkle and glitter. The best science fiction challenges us to ask. Who are we? How do we see and understand the world around us. How do we balance joy and loss. And this movie does it all without drowning ideas with the usual sci-fi pitfalls. All the creatures, tech babble, stunts, CG work and the rest are firmly tethered to the plot. No, wow I designed a wicked cool spacecraft, it's got to go in somewhere. Science fiction has so much potential as a genre. It's nice to see a movie that delves into that potential for once.

This is a story about a band that finds joy in making music and making their fans happy, the anguish of seeing that lost to fear and death, and the people, both the band and fans, having the courage to come back and say "you will not take anything from us" to their attackers.

I must say, I was impressed with Sully. These based on real dramas are so easy to mess up, dropping into the same cliched scenes and dialogue. Clint Eastwood is a talented director who knows when to use less, and who is better at communicating through so little dialogue like Tom Hanks? His best roles focus on seeing situations through his eyes and this is no exception. Aaron Eckhart, as always, does a fantastic job holding that second strong role. The non linear approach was also critical to keeping the story from falling flat, by giving us scattered bits and pieces of a disaster that was over in less than three minutes throughout the film. I thought there were a few too many could-have-been flashbacks that took away from the narrative, but that's my only real gripe.

It seems that many of the best movies I've seen this year are ones that are quietly waiting to be discovered, not the mainstream fare. After watching Kubo, I sat stunned through the credits and spent two days analyzing every last detail of the picture. It was delicate, sublime, sad, triumphant, exciting.... put in another 200 adjectives and that should cover it. It was also mind blowing to realize how much exacting work went into a stop-motion movie with quite a lot of action. I could watch this again forever. That's my favorite type of movie.

I rarely find a post-apocalyptic movie I like and was wary going into this one, but it blew me away. The amazing growth of the director from his last Mad Max to this one is amazing. The way he slipped in modern issues was great, and, as a woman, I had to say, Furiosa rocked!! Charlize Theron does her best playing strong women and here she is magnificent. That Tom Hardy managed to meet her character without overwhelming it or getting lost is a testament to his acting and the brilliant script.

This is a fantastic movie. I've watched it multiple times and get something new out of it each time. Its hard to get a strong ensemble cast like this and they also got a lot of good character actors in the smaller parts. I love that they don't go for many dramatic film tricks, just let the material speak for itself. Some of the best moments are quiet where you get so absorbed that you almost forget to breathe. As a final note, it's wonderful to see Michael Keaton making a comeback. What a wonderful actor!

Beautiful visuals and lots of interesting problem-solving. I liked that they saved fully articulating Matt Damon's philosophy of how to survive until the end. Damon did a good job with the material he had. However. The story is Robinson Crusoe with MacGyver thrown in. I didn't like Crusoe when I read it years ago and every move treatment I've seen hasn't changed my mind. I watched the whole movie, but came away with that Robinson Crusoe feeling. I could have watched the first half hour, skipped to the end and missed nothing. This is not a criticism of of the actors, directors or crew. They made a beautiful movie. I just wish people would stop using this particular plot. It was old in 1719 when Daniel Defoe wrote it.