The Crazies
More Bad Press for Small Towns Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell By Tom Bevis The town is burning. The audience is greeted with the ominous sounds of burning timbers and the whistling of wind. The night hangs over the chaos like a hungry reaper, then the screen blinks out, and just like that, the story begins. There are no opening credits. The story, a fast-paced thriller about a military quarantine of a small town in Iowa...
The Road
Into the Darkness Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee By Colleen Dillon Something about the Dark Ages creeps me out. There’s a lot to be afraid of: wars, plague, famine, infections, contaminations – pretty much anything relating to the very obvious mortality rates of the time. But even more terrifying to me was the bleakness of life then. Despite all the progress humanity had made up to that point, the Dark Ages were a...
District 9
Alien Apartheid Starring: Sharlton Copley By Robert Patrick What happens when aliens make contact with us? Apparently we coral them into a ghetto in Johannesburg, watch after them for several years, then serve them eviction notices. District 9, barely a blip on the radar, is a rogue wave in the middle of conventional Hollywood blockbusters. This movie, backed by the jolly hands and twisting curls of mega director Peter Jackson, is...
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
World War Robot: Transformers Go Global Staring: Shia LaBouf, Megan Fox By Tom Bevis Transformers really take me back to the simpler days of childhood. The first film in the rebooted series was an entirely effective kids movie that was capable of entertaining the entire age spectrum and worked, as well, as a tour de force of the power behind the CGI movement. The sequel is the first true blockbuster of the year, but it’s lost much...
Terminator Salvation
Arnold: Brought to You by CGI! Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington By Tom Bevis Here’s the deal: I’m becoming increasingly angry on early reviews for Terminator Salvation that call for a return to the franchise’s earlier hallmarks. A few reviews have even gone far enough to say that the earlier films actually made sense, especially when compared to the franchise’s newest offering. Well, here are a few basic notes. First of...
Star Trek
The Wrath of Eric Bana Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto By Tom Bevis The black of space. A massive alien vessel exits from a vortex and engages a much smaller ship in a firefight. Bright flashes fill the screen as the two ships take part in a digitally choreographed battle of lights. We glance into the smaller ship, we see the engine rooms as sparks fly and jets of flame shoot from the walls. We feel the turbulence as the ship...
Monsters vs Aliens
Monsters are Always Bigger in 3D Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogan By Tom Bevis The Blob! The Creature From the Black Lagoon! The Fly! Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman! These movies will forever be cradled in our memories as monster flicks that shook our souls. Okay, maybe that last one is a little obscure, but there’s no denying that the others were trademarks in a genre still struggling for legitimacy in our market. It...
Watchmen
Lifestyle of the American Superhero Starring: Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman By Tom Bevis I want to begin by talking about Zack Snyder. I want to find the person who started calling him ‘visionary’ and punch him in the throat. Let’s take a look at his catalog. He’s got the Dawn of the Dead remake, which is mediocre at best. Then he’s got 300, which most people went with their base instincts and latent homosexuality and dug the film...
Outlander
No, That’s Not Russell Brand to the Right Starring: Jim Caviezel, John Hurt By Robert Patrick For those of you who wondered what would occur if a cave-dwelling dragon from another universe attacked a clan of disheveled Vikings, I have the movie for you. Not only does Outlander, the film in question, have a fire-spewing winged-beast, but it also stars James Caviezel as a spaceman from another world that’s sent to destroy the...
The Day the Earth Stood Still
IMAX Has Never Been Less Impressive Starring: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly By Robert Patrick Director Scott Derrickson’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the supposed 1950s sci-fi classic, is conceptually boiling over with thoughts and ideas. Originally conceived as a way for screenwriter Edmund H. North to wax philosophical about the hyper-violent nature of human beings, The Day the Earth Stood Still became canonized as...
