Archive for category: Movie Review

Movie Review: Moneyball

October 16, 2011 | Baseball, Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

I must admit, I had my misgivings about the prospects of a movie based upon Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball. After all, Moneyball is a book about how Billy Beane took the Oakland Athletics to unheard of success on one of the most meager payrolls in the major leagues using a (then) unconventional view of baseball […]

Movie Review: This Is It (2009)

October 30, 2009 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Tonight’s movie screening at work was Michael Jackson’s This is It, essentially a concert movie starring the recently deceased King of Pop, Michael Jackson as he prepared for his first tour in a decade. Unfortunately the preparations for this tour were for naught when he died (under somewhat mysterious circumstances) on June 25th, 2009. Jackson […]

Short Movie Review: Twilight

December 13, 2008 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Okay, it was Carmen’s turn to pick. I wanted to go see The Day The Earth Stood Still, but I usually pick movies, and Carmen has been wanting to see Twilight since it opened, and I can (usually) deny her nothing, so Twilight is what we saw. It’s complete drek. It’s not that it’s badly […]

Movie Review: Bolt, in 3D

November 28, 2008 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Tonight I took my wife, son and future daughter-in-law out to see Bolt, Disney’s newest animated feature. For extra bonus points, we went to go see it in 3D (yep, with the Real D glasses and everything). I am somewhat skeptical about the long term viability of 3D. People seem to be highly variable in […]

Renaissance (2006)

April 4, 2006 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

During lunch today, we had a preview screening of the new French sci-fi film Renaissance (2006), I posted this review on imdb.com: I highly recommend this film. Set in the Bladerunner-esquire future of2054 Paris, it is in most respect a classic film noir script: lady in peril, sister trying to find her, honest cop fighting […]

Movie Review: V for Vendetta

March 19, 2006 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Well, it’s Saturday again, and once again Carmen and I trundled off to the movie theater. In spite of our misgivings about the state of movies lately, fueled no doubt by the bitter pill that was the steaming pile known as Ultraviolet, it was with some general hopefulness and enthusiasm that I approached the subject […]

Movie Review: Ultraviolet

March 4, 2006 | General, Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Yesterday I took Carmen to go see the latest film in the genre of “hot chicks with weapons”: Ultraviolet starring Milla Jovovich and directed and written (as it were) by Kurt Wimmer. Ms. Jovovich has done an excellent job in previous fun movies like Resident Evil and The Fifth Element (both high on my “guilty […]

The Evil Dead (1981)

February 27, 2006 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Well, Carmen and I haven’t gotten out to see many first run movies lately, but tonight Pixar’s Monday Film series stumbed on an old favorite: Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981). Back when this film was made, Raimi was a mere 21 years old. In some ways, this shows: the movie has a fairly slim […]

Bonus Movie Review: Old Hope vs. New Hope

January 14, 2006 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Tonight, I had the pleasure of being able to watch a copy of the original video disc release of Star Wars: A New Hope. You know, the one where Han Solo gets the drop on Greedo by firing first? I recently watched the Special Edition too, and I must admit, there is really nothing that […]

Movie Review: Hoodwinked

January 13, 2006 | Computer Graphics, Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Last night we had a screening of Hoodwinked, the new animated feature by director Cory Edwards and co-directed by Todd Edwards. It’s a retelling of the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood, and features the vocal talents of Glenn Close as Granny, Ann Hathaway as Red, James Belushi as the Woodsman, veteran voice over […]

King Kong

January 3, 2006 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Last night was the first opportunity that Carmen and I felt we could spare the three hours necessary to view Peter Jackson’s latest blockbuster film, his remake of the classic 1933 film King Kong.    It’s a colossal film, much in the same visual style of Jackson’s earlier Lord of the Rings trilogy, with many big, […]

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

December 11, 2005 | General, Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Went to see this last night with my wife Carmen, and all I can say is wow. Really well done. We both enjoyed it, although I thought that the pacing was initially a bit slow. Comparisons with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings are inevitable, and I must say: I found the effects to be […]

Chicken Little

November 6, 2005 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

This weekend’s movie was the new Disney animated film Chicken Little, starring the vocal talents of Zach Braff. Young Chicken Little is, well, a little chicken who panics the town with the claim that a piece of the sky fell and hit him on the head. Now the entire town views him with contempt and […]

Halloween Screening

November 1, 2005 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Well, to avoid pigging out on tons of candy that we bought “for the kids”, we decided to spend Halloween doing something else (apologies to the kiddies). It turns out that Pixar had a screening of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, the classic Steven King story starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. I hadn’t seen this […]

Doom (2005)

October 28, 2005 | Movie Review | By: Mark VandeWettering

Last night there was not that much going on, Tivo showed nothing really worth watching, the baseball season is over, and Carmen and I needed something to do. What do you do when you don’t know what to do? Why, the movies of course! And yesterday’s movie was the movie version of the video game […]