Into the Woods
♫ This Is Bad, Please Help ♫ Starring: Meryl Streep, Chris Pine Review written by Robert D. Patrick It’s a grisly business to adapt a musical to screen, there is no doubt, particularly when the source material is beloved. Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods shoehorns a myriad of fairy tale characters into an allegoric hornet’s nest. Culled from various stories, everything from Little Red Riding Hood to Jack and the...
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Glenn Yarbrough, Where Are You? Review written by Robert Patrick Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan Peter Jackson’s frenetic, bombastic, whirling and prosthetic-inundated Lord of the Rings franchise lassoed imaginations by utilizing computer animation and the pastoral New Zealand landscape. After a few years of toiling on projects such as the moribund King Kong and the pastel washed The Lovely Bones, Jackson, reaching for...
Tron: Legacy
Right Click, Delete Starring: Jeff Bridges, Jeff Bridges Written by Robert Patrick “Tron: Legacy” is about a videogame programmer (Jeff Bridges), who launches into the world of his game, never gets out, and antagonizes his son, unintentionally, by leaving a portal open so that his offspring can get into the digital universe. And what a universe it is! If anyone remembers the original “Tron”, you will be familiar with the idea that...
Let Me In
This Remake Has Teeth…Sort Of Starring: Chloe Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee By Robert Patrick “Let The Right One In”, a Swedish vampire movie where mood and suspense coexist in a shadowy tandem, should be, by all accounts, immune to remake territory. Unfortunately, because Americans think reading subtitles are as deadly as staring into the eyes of Medusa, Hollywood thought this re-imagination was a necessary evil. And while I’m glad...
Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus
A Prehistoric Shark Ate My Whale?! Starring: Deborah Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas By Robert Patrick Instead of watching “Salt,” the Angelina Jolie action vehicle, I decided to see a more character driven film, “Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus.” The premise of the film, behind all of the existentialism and dramatic plot-points, is basically about two prehistoric creatures that attack boats, planes, submarines, Lorenzo Lamas. I cant really...
Metropolis
It’s Not Road House, But… Starring: Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frohlich By Robert Patrick I can see the 25 minutes of lost “Metropolis” footage, in all of its holy glory, being unearthed from a dusty vault in Argentina. In the background, much like an “Indiana Jones” movie, a John Williams score inundates the scene with acute tension. The 16 mm reduction, having been seen by the mad eyes of film...
A Nightmare on Elm Street
They Were More Like Finger-Knives Starring: Rooney Mara, Jackie Earle Haley By Tom Bevis Freddy Krueger and his line of Nightmare films can easily be considered one of horror’s greatest and most influential contributions to the horror genre, but what a lot of people forget about him – the very same thing people forget about most of the slasher movies to come our way – is the undeniable and overwhelming camp involved with them. It’s...
Clash of the Titans
Wicked/Winged Things Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson By Robert Patrick The people, with hubris beyond their body capacity, have lost their faith in Zeus. A demigod has arisen in the wake of this spiritual uproar. And the Gods, upset by the humans and their disrespect for the heavens, mount a counter strike. The dusty, yet barely archaic, premise of 1981’s “Clash of the Titans” is given a makeover by the powder...
The Lovely Bones
Where’s Robin Williams? Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg By Robert Patrick Everybody, no matter what the demographic, seems to be reading Alice Sebold’s surrealistic novel, The Lovely Bones. I’m pretty sure most households, especially since the film has been released, has at least one edition of the buoyant thriller on their bookshelf. The subject matter, dealing with the mercurial dreamscape of a murdered child, lost...
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Most Nauseating Ride of the Year Starring: Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer By Robert Patrick Terry Gilliam is a madhatter. Plain and simple. The old director likes his movies strange, maniacal and full of the broodiest whimsy fathomable. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is not atypical of Gilliam’s manic prose; the film is aplomb with macabre absurdities and cartoonish characters that, at their most foolish, look like...
