Category Archives: Movies

Movie Recap: The Avengers

Posted on May 7, 2012 by | 27 Comments


The Avengers is in theaters now.

Also, for further reading: previous recaps for Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.

The Avengers! Or, Armvengers: Operation Beefcake Extravaganza! It did not disappoint. In fact, it surpassed my wildest dreams. Yes, even those ones! Any reservations I had—Joss Whedon (STOP HISSING AT ME, INTERNET), too many main characters to give adequate time to everybody, fan-pandering in either the too much plot or too much character introspection directions, etc.—proved to be neither true nor particularly relevant. This was a fantastic example of an ensemble film, the character and the action were woven into each other quite seamlessly, and the writing was an absolute delight. Everybody had their own stuff going on, and all of their stuff interacted with everybody else’s stuff wonderfully.

I cannot overstate how happy I am with The Avengers, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. On to the recap!

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Movie Recap: The Hunger Games

Posted on March 26, 2012 by | 11 Comments

Before we begin, it’s necessary to remember that hunger is a serious ongoing problem in the United States—please consider matching the cost of your movie ticket in a donation to one of the charities with an A or B rating on Charity Watch (or four stars on Charity Navigator).

IT’S HERE IT’S HERE IT’S FINALLY HERE. There are not words for how enjoyable this movie was, but you’re going to get several thousand of them anyway. Short version, no spoilers: yes, go see it. If you are a fan of the books, go see it. If you are considering reading the books, go see it (and then read the books). If you have no interest in reading the books, stop breaking my heart (and go see it) (and then read the books).

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Movie Recap: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Posted on December 20, 2011 by | 1 Comment

(Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows is in theaters now.)

Image from Fanpop

A "game of shadows" is obscure slang for homoerotic fisticuffs. I would never lie to you about this.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows! More like Sherlock Holmes: a Gayme of Shadows, am I right? (I am right.) Godawful title aside, this sequel was really fun and a worthy successor to the original, though it’s pretty obvious that this is not going to be a franchise where each film is more innovative than the last, plotwise. It’s no big deal, because the characters and the sheer, absolute glee everyone involved seems to have for these movies will be more than enough to carry it forward for the foreseeable future.

Returning from the first film are, duh, Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law). Apparently they made a bet about who could look more like they wanted to have tender kisses in the moonlight. Spoiler alert: both of them won. It’s intense. Also returning are Mary Watson (Kelly Reilly) and Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), though the latter is more of a cameo. It’s also one of the few things that really bothered me, but that is a discussion for later.

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Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One

Posted on November 18, 2011 by | 71 Comments

Um, this is going to hurt. A lot. Love you!

 

I’m breaking the rules here at HDJM by reviewing something that I do NOT love.  Well, I love to hate it, so there we go.  If you’re interested in my views on Twilight, I posted a series where I point out all of the flaws and how Mormon the books are, the LDS Sparkledammerung.  This is more of an MSTK3, because we all kinda hate it, don’t we?

First off, let’s just establish right off the bat that this did not need to be two damn movies. Do you have a frantic race from orcs in the Mines of Moria? Or a massive battle with The Bride and the Crazy 88s? No? Then learn how to edit. Oh, wait, that’s a problem with the books, too. Then again, these movies are total lady-bait with loads of staring and breathing and staring intensely and intense breathing.  Continue reading →

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Movie Recap: Fright Night

Posted on August 26, 2011 by | 8 Comments

As much as I enjoyed this remake, the original’s poster was a lot cooler than the new one:

The remake’s poster could easily be the poster for, say, some parallel universe’s version of Hard Candy (an excellent film about a teenaged girl who traps a creep and wreaks seven kinds of violent hell upon his person/life) that switched out Ellen Page for Anton Yelchin.

AM I RIGHT?

This movie was fun, a great action flick for the tail end of summer before we head into Autumn with all its horror-dramas and pumpkins and school and whatnot. It was delightfully paced, well-acted, and just creepy enough to remind you that vampires were terrifying for a reason, once upon a time. There’s enough of the old Polidori/Stoker theme of “vampires are sex fiends who will suck the life out of you, MALE OR FEMALE” to make it sexy-scary, and enough of the terrifying gross mutant body-horror rape murder mindgames vampire stuff to make it scary-scary. The one Twilight joke was in the trailer, which was a relief.

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Posted on August 8, 2011 by | 4 Comments

As Hollywood continues its relentless cannibalization of ideas that weren’t even that good the first time around in the hopes of milking a few more million from yet another decades-old franchise, let’s just be glad I’m not recapping The Smurfs, yo. Agreed? Agreed.

Our tale begins at the Gen~Sys labs, where our hero Will Rodman (no relation to Dennis) works himself into exhaustion trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s. At least, I’m guessing it’s exhaustion because our hero is played by James Franco, who always acts like he’s one unfortunate blood infection away from turning into a zombie. Will is working on a serum that lets brain cells regenerate or whatever the hell hand wave the writers want us to swallow so we can get chimped up and ready to pump. It’s not just a job for Will though, it’s personal: Will’s dad Charles (the inestimable John Lithgow, ridiculously hamming it up like Dexter was all a dream) is spiraling ever downward into dementia.   Continue reading →

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Movie Recap: Captain America: The First Avenger

Posted on July 31, 2011 by | 11 Comments

Captain America! 

This film and Dan DiDio’s douchery during DC’s d…dpanel? at SDCC put me firmly on Team Marvel Movies for life. I wasn’t expecting to like Captain America: The First Avenger as much as I did–I haven’t read the comics, but I have seen Generation Kill and consumed a lot of post-September 11th pop culture, so Steve Rogers’s story–brave but physically unimpressive specimen becomes brave built superhero, loses none of his patriotic earnestness–made me worry that this was going to be on one side of the AMERICA! Spectrum, which looks like this: Continue reading →

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Movie Recap: X-Men: First Class

Posted on June 7, 2011 by | 12 Comments

Film poster

X-Men: First Class is now threatening the metallic structural integrity of a theater near you.

Since this is more of a recap than a review, I’ll take a minute to address the people who (justifiably!) maybe don’t want to read a ton of words just to hear a stranger on the internet say “yeah, I liked this movie” at the very end: yeah, I liked this movie. It was everything a summer blockbuster should be, plus some subtle, thoughtful commentary and a fresh take on the old “mutants as allegory for disenfranchised social groups” theme. You will enjoy it if you like to think too much about movies, and you will also enjoy it if you like to watch Michael Fassbender toss around nuclear warheads like Vader on a bad day. It’s smart but accessible and full of good-looking people kicking bad-guy ass, and Don Draper himself would raise his glass to the sweet Sixties wardrobe.

If you’re still here and weren’t just looking for a brief opinion on the film (or googling the phrase “michael fassbender ass”) (justifiably!), hello! Get comfortable. Snap into a Slim Jim. We’re gonna be here a while.

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Movie Recap: Thor

Posted on May 10, 2011 by | 11 Comments

Film poster.

(See it in 2D, as 3D actually detracts from the visuals/your wallet and adds nothing to your experience.)

Bring out your hammers and prepare for imminent metal umlauts, düdes: Thor is a cinematic Ragnarök. Well, the good parts. None of the all-consuming wolf monsters or planet-sized sea snakes or zombie armies (unfortunately). Actually, Ragnarök isn’t brought up at all in the film, which surprised me. I haven’t read the comics, so I don’t know how important it is there.

Moving on!

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Movie Review: Scream 4

Posted on April 22, 2011 by | Leave a comment

There are two ridiculous loves I’ve carried with me from my teenage years: 1) horrendous pop music, and 2) the Scream franchise.  So basically, when Scream 4 was announced, it was like an ‘N Sync reunion tour on the heels of Britney and Justin finally reconciling (come on, guys, you know you want it, too).

Needless to say, I went in with high expectations.  I wanted my vulnerable, badass Sidney Prescott, my intelligent, bitchy Gale Weathers, and my earnest, adorable Deputy Dewey Riley.  I wanted to laugh one minute and jump out of my seat the next.  I wanted my obvious red herring and my even more obvious killer(s) wrapped up in a shiny, quasi-meta, (post-post?) post-modern examination of horror, all with the movie’s tongue placed firmly in cheek.

What I got was exactly that.  Continue reading →

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