Movie Round-Up: June 18th, 2010

Toy Story 3:

It’s Pixar.  The closest thing they’ve come to making a bad movie, in my opinion, was Cars, and even that wasn’t so bad.  The first two Toy Story movies were awesome, and I expect no less from this third installment.  Seeing this in the theater would be a pretty safe bet, especially if you have kids.  I’m going to try, but other plans may prevail.

Jonah Hex:

I managed to see a screening of this movie and I’m glad I did.  It wasn’t horrible, but when I left the theater the thing foremost on my mind was all the potential they wasted.  I had a similar feeling after seeing Ghost Rider, which is the comic book movie I would most liken Jonah Hex to.  There were some scenes I enjoyed, but overall the film was… underwhelming.  On top of the film being a moderately entertaining squandering of potential for a good story, you get Megan Fox.  I’ve read so many people saying she is very talented and that she just needs the right material to showcase it.  If that is true, then I submit that she needs to find someone else to pick her material, because she keeps making films that are clearly unable to showcase the talent she supposedly has.  In this film she continues her career of passionless dialog delivery, inability to do accents, and blankly staring into the camera in a way that apparently turns on sections of the male population who prefer that a woman have nothing going on in her head and just look pretty.  For me, it’s the vacant stare that ruins her beauty.  I generally want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but after enough performances like this I’m going to have to assume that the people who say she has acting talent are full of shit and performances like this are all we are going to get out of Megan Fox.  All in all, I’d have to say… wait for rental.

Movie Round-Up: September 18th, 2009

Love Happens:

So I’m looking at the list of this week’s releases and I say to myself, “What is Love Happens?”  I hadn’t heard of it. No commercials, no previews. And it’s not like it is some low budget thing starring no names. Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart are in there.  Anyway, it looks like a nice romantic comedy drama thing. I’ll probably see it, but maybe not at the theater.

Jennifer’s Body:

I love horror films, and I dig Diablo Cody’s writing style, so I want to see this. But it does have Megan Fox in it, who I think is one of the worst actors in the biz today who gets parts purely on her looks, and I’m on the fence.  Sorry Diablo, I’ll probably be waiting for DVD on this one.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs:

This movie looks like a lot of fun for the whole family.  But not being a Pixar film means I won’t be rushing to see it.  DVD.

The Informant!:

I got to see this film at a free screening.  It is… interesting.  More a character study than an actual story, it stars Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, an executive at ADM in the early 90’s who blows the whistle on lysine price fixing.  But its not about the price fixing as much as it is how Mark goes about the whistle blowing.  It turns out that he’s bipolar and an embezzler and a fairly compulsive lier.  The unfolding of his actions and deeds and the performance by Damon is the reason to see this film.  It is, as I said, interesting, but not a particularly good film.  You won’t be on the edge of your seat, you won’t be howling with laughter, but you’ll be raising an eyebrow and snickering as you watch the whole situation spiral out of control.  I’m not sure I’d want to pay full price for this, but its definitely worth a DVD rental, or even a matinee if you are into this sort of film.