>> BNAT X: The Stuff We Didn’t See

Everyone expected Watchmen but no, I didn’t see Watchmen, the one film everyone thought would play BNAT X. Two years ago, director Zak Snyder came to town and showed off an unfinished version of 300 to the crowd at Octo-BNAT, so everyone assumed that he’d be back to dazzle us with an unfinished version of [...]

>> The Wrestler (9/10)

The Wrestler is not an underdog story.  It’s not the story of a man with an unattainable dream who works beyond all odds to get within reach of his dream.  If that story is a part of The Wrestler at all, then it happened a good twenty-five years or so before this film starts.  Randy [...]

>> The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (7.5/10)

Benjamin Button is born old.  Left by his father, a button tycoon, on the doorstep of a Louisiana nursing home, his wrinkly, decrepit baby body is raised by one of the caregivers in the home.  As he grows older in years, his body grows younger.  He meets a little girl named Daisy, and though he [...]

>> Slumdog Millionaire (8.5/10)

The new Danny Boyle film Slumdog Millionaire opens with torture and ends with dancing, and the journey that takes place between these bookends is one of the best times I’ve had at the movies all year long.  Boyle (28 Days Later, Millions, Trainspotting) is gutsy, a filmmaker who seems to enjoy taking big artistic risks [...]

>> Bolt (7.5/10)

When it comes to movies, the folks at Disney know how to craft one heck of a pop song.  Their movies keep the beat, they’re cheerful, and they have a memorable hook.  I know “pop” is almost a dirty word nowadays, due to a badly smudged line between actual creativity and the creation of corporate [...]

>> Punisher War Zone (5.5/10)

“Let me axe you a question,” says Doug Hutchison as the villainous Loony Bin Jim, seconds before repeatedly bringing an axe down into the body of a hapless accomplice of vigilante Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) in Punisher War Zone.  Later, when Castle aka The Punisher comes across his wounded buddy, he begs of him, “Don’t [...]

>> Synecdoche, New York (8.5/10)

What does this film say to me as an overweight writer with health issues and women problems?  Nothing I didn’t already know.  And what does this film say to me about death–the larger theme at work throughout Synecdoche, New York?  Again, nothing I didn’t already know.  But this movie isn’t about me; it’s about screenwriter/director [...]