D.Moore

Question: When will people stop comparing all animation to what Pixar does? Answer: When there are more films of such quality for everyone, like Bolt. A clever, brisk and funny film with likeable animal heroes (Bolt is great, but the ironic cat, the moronic pigeons and the maniac hamster are not at all bad either), a beginning that perfectly takes its cues from action movies and TV series of all kinds, something for the youngest viewers and a wink to the adult audience... The moral lesson at the end is there, of course, but it is delivered so nicely (no tears or long hugs) that it cannot offend. Plus Powell's great music, good dubbing (Travolta is Travolta)... Four pure stars.

Three and a half stars. In 9, form triumphs over content, and it does so with ease. The film is really nice to look at, the animation is almost flawless, all the technical toys are well thought out and the post-apocalyptic world is beautifully demolished and dead. But the script is also dead - it likely won't surprise anyone, and if it does, it's only because of how boring it is. That’s really unfortunate - the action scenes are nicely and imaginatively shot, the rag dolls are likeable and the robots appropriately "dark"... But the plot...

Everything was as it should be in this movie. The actors weren't acting, the unknown director didn't become known, the cheap special effects weren't good, the script was written by a stoned monkey that had seen Transformers, War of the Worlds, Alien and a few other sci-fi movies that he shamelessly ripped off and pillaged. I give it one star for the courage to make something like this and for the fact that it is not a mega-catastrophe, but simply a B-movie. There are definitely worse ones out there (and they sometimes make it to the movie theaters).

I can’t say Kinsey surprised me. I expected it to be good, but THIS good? I could have only hoped that. Four and a half stars and I’m looking forward to watching it again.

I stopped resisting and finally watched this film after getting a recommendation from someone. In bits and pieces and on YouTube, but I watched it. Well folks, that was a blast (can you feel the irony?). Seriously! Spectacular action scenes (irony) are interspersed with witty dialogue (still irony), all underscored by catchy music, spiced up with good special effects and played by quite likeable actors (irony, irony, irony). And you know what's the funniest part of all this? I don't even know why I gave it one star. Probably because I survived it. And I'm actually something of a hero now. (Maybe one day someone will make something about me too - yeah, that would be great)

The visuals (they are great!) of The City of Lost Children look like a cross between Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam and let's say... Pitof. Beautifully stylized images create the right atmosphere that a grim fantasy tale should have. What brought the film down was the super weird and super uninteresting script. There was hardly anything going on in it, damn it! And when something was happening, it was so stupid it was shameful. In addition to all this, I was annoyed by the character of the little "cute" brother, who was always eating something and then burping... and the cloned idiots also didn't make it any better. At least the well-acted duo of Ron Perlman and Judith Vittet showed up in the lead roles and saved what they could. I give it a two and a half (I almost didn't finish the film), which I round up (for sticking it out in the end, and for the final youthful and aging scene).

If Nicolas Cage has something to act in, he does it. In the case of Knowing, he was lucky to have both a decently atmospheric and chillingly escalating script and a director who really knows how to play with films. After a long time, Knowing is a Cage film (i.e., starring Cage) that I can recommend to just about anyone. Suspenseful from the beginning until the great final 25 minutes, with decent special effects and Marc Beltrami's music, which you will notice especially during the more dramatic scenes. Clean four stars, good job!

Criminal Bob Hoskins drives a posh hooker around London who (like him) works for the ultra-slimy Michael Caine and has a sort of unresolved, slowly surfacing past. The film shuffles along just like George's sedan (he also hits the accelerator in a similar way at times) and takes him an hour and three quarters to say what he wanted to say. Unfortunately, I think he could have said a lot more - the script, especially in the last third, is a bit bland and confused. It does, however, lead to a fairly logical conclusion, for which I thank the filmmakers. The actors are great in Mona Lisa, and Kamen's music and the cinematography are also great... But it's no match for its older American cousin, Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Will Ferrell didn't convince me he was a comedian this time either. I only smiled at his smug jerk a few times in the whole movie (I didn't laugh once) and nothing else. But I watched Bewitched mainly for the presence of Michael Caine, who thankfully did not disappoint. The scenes in which this bard appears are among the best. Too bad the filmmakers didn't conclude his storyline at all... So, one star for Caine, another for the (literally) charming Nicole, a couple of jokes he makes about filming sitcoms, and the final exit.

A small moralizing film that can make one think big. Guillermo del Toro would have been happy with all those cogs. Interesting idea, available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gxf_KGdcMaI&feature=related