The true torture associated with my movie watching addiction is my inability to remember the release dates. It was easier when I worked at a movie theatre and the information was basically shoved down my throat week after week. Now though I manage to always get excited about seeing the movie a week earlier than it will come out. Which means I usually end up seeing a desperation movie. It hasn’t gotten so bad that I’ll watch something like “Ninja Assassin” twice and pay $9 each time, but I will watch a movie I really think I won’t like just so I can get a fix.

Just remember, it isn’t a problem unless other people have a problem with you doing it. Or something like that.

Another movie bites the dust. I put it off as long as I could, hoping that the movie “Date Night” would come out and I could go watch that but it has taken too long and I needed a free popcorn fix. I went and saw “Alice in Wonderland” and I learned *SPOILER ALERT* that I don’t need to get married to find fulfillment, that “watching” someone will prevent them from cheating and that talking to someone will cure a person’s schizoid behavior. And that I should definitely turn down Johhny Depp if he asks me to stay in Underland.

I would like to say that my favorite part was when Alice used the severed heads floating in the moat as lily pads and walked right across the water (very Biblical – and very bad for kids in my opinion).

The onslaught of 3d movies has thrilled my children but I find the craze to be a huge disappointment. There will never be a time in my life where watching 3D movies is enjoyable unless they manage to make it so I don’t have to wear those heavy 3d glasses. I wear glasses and it just ends up hurting my nose a whole lot. The weight of my glasses and theor glasses add together and I end up with a nose ache.

ARGHH!

I must be on a Pierce Brosnan kick or something. I saw two of his movies this week and I didn’t really like either. One was the Percy Jackson movie and the other was Remember Me. About the first, I’d like to know how they expect me to believe that an entire horse’s body is hidden in a normal sized wheel chair (go watch it – you’ll see me confusion pretty darn fast). And about the second movie – let’s just say it’s not a chick flick like I must admit I hoped for. Look at me dangling that participle there. Gotta love it.

I keep wondering if our minivan can handle the hitch that it will take to haul a camper around the the countryside for our next vacation. It will probably work, I just hope that it doesn’t cost too much. I’m a big fan of the new commercial featuring the couple that brags about the awesomeness of their Sienna. If it truly is that awesome, then it should handle a hitch just fine. I do know that while on vacation, we won’t be watching the movie Hitch. That’s something completely different and unrelated to a hitch to haul around a camper.

I don’t think that I’ll be rushing to the theaters next week to see the new Alice in Wonderland flick. Even the amazing 3D effects, Johnny Depp, and Tim Burton combined couldn’t save this return of the classic story from an early March release. Shouldn’t this have been a summer blockbuster, or at least a holiday hit. The producers and distributors must know something that the rest of us will soon find out. Alice in Wonderland in 3D may not be very wonderful.

“Leap Year” is the best romantic comedy so far this year.

Make sure you don’t count romantic comedies that were released at the end of last year and were still out when this year started.

And make sure you don’t think I mean it is the best romantic comedy there will be this year (let us all hope).

But for sure, when you’ve got a yearning for a chick flick (whatever your motivations) and you’ve already seen “It’s Complicated”, you can go see this and you won’t leave feeling disappointed. Because the end is way better than the beginning and the beginning is what makes you feel disappointed so by the time you get to the end, you feel somewhat surprised that it ended as well as it does.

I am a huge Amy Adams fan but this movie does her no justice. Her character (Anna) has no direction and her back story is limited. Our exposure to her father could easily have been left on the cutting room floor – and he’s the character that reveals the reason for the the entire plot line. The other main character (Declan) is verbally abusive and too offensive for me to really get on board with the shift from enemy to love interest – unless I purposefully forgot the first half of the movie.

Which I managed to do. Thereby making my 6 bucks worth my time last night.

I really can’t believe how many people are praising the merits of Avatar. As I said in my previous review of the movie, I think that it is pretty much terrible. I am in the strange position of still encouraging people to see it because it looks so good, but it is a terrible story. It’s an uninteresting story that we have all seen or heard many times before.

The thing I find amazing is that people are calling Avatar a ‘good’ movie. I think the phrase that you’re looking for is a bad movie with great special effects. Or maybe, a boring movie with amazing special effects.

I saw Sherlock Holmes last night and liked it. (I liked the Iron Man preview even better but who wouldn’t?) Jude Law did a good job for his part even though I never pictured him as the Watson type and Robert Downey Jr looked his usual crazed self which worked well for the role of Sherlock. It is possible that I’m too interested in Harry Potter but everytime they talked about Lord Blackwood I thought they were going to say Lord Voldemort. He even looked a bit like Voldemort with his smooth face and slicked back hair.

The pace of the movie is quick and sometimes that makes it hard to follow but Holmes almost always explains what he was doing (or is about to do) at a more reasonable pace so if you see the movie try to accept the fast pace as a cinematic delight instead of an annoyance — you won’t be lost for long.

You can see on imdb.com that there is an ‘Untitled Sherlock Holmes Sequel’ in the works so you won’t be surprised that the ending of this movie is a set up for that.

I’d recommend this movie if you like Sherlock Holmes, mysteries or any of the actors as they all do good jobs.

To some up a review in six words: Boo you, James Cameron. Boo you.

This is what we’ve been waiting over a decade for. Sheesh!

Avatar is a visually stunning feast for the eyes with special effects that dazzle and amaze but also become completely immerse the audience in another world of amazement. The 3D effects soon blend into the background along with most of the other computer wizardry allowing the viewer to focus on the story that takes place in this fantastic foreign world. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a story to tell. If you have ever seen Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest, Dances with Wolves, or any episode of “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” then you shouldn’t even bother showing up for Avatar.

This is story that we have been told over and over and over again. The White Man menace is destroying the environment, this time the environment of another planet. The EEE-vil humans are no longer connected to the natural world and therefore want to destroy it to obtain the elusive (and expensive) UNOBTAINIUM. (snicker; not joking) The native species on this alien world are so in touch with nature that their pony tails are actually environmental USB ports that can plug in to any plant or animal in the world. They can talk to nature in a very literal sense. An ex-marine is recruited to come to this alien world. Technology has been developed that allows him to experience the world through an artificial alien. He can run and jump and see and talk and become this alien while remaining safe inside the controller bed. From here every point of the story can be seen coming a mile away (and in 3D!). The characters are paper-thin constructs with no depth and little emotional connection to the audience. There is no inner turmoil or mystery as to what choice someone will make. The good guys make the good choices and the bad guys make the bad choices. Every time.

Sam Worthington plays the central character in this story but does only a passable job in the role. Granted, there wasn’t much to the role, but he is not exceptional in it. His Australian accent repeatedly slips through and reminds us that this is just an actor. Sigourney Weaver channels her Gorillas in the Mist role but gives us nothing new or surprising. Most other actors are nothing more than broad generalizations.

The movie’s central idea that White Men destroy the world and that native cultures are in tune with the environment, live in harmony with nature, and cry for every tree or animal that dies is ridiculous and racist. An Average Joe is given the chance to become a native and live like the natives while remaining safe and secure in the modern world. This environmentalist dream of becoming a perfect native but remaining safe in the world of steel and electronics must be the unconscious wish of James Cameron and those that share his world view but is obviously a dream held by those that have no real connection with nature. This is the kind of dream that people have who love the idea of nature but don’t like being in nature. They love to see pictures of a pristine and untouched world but would never actually travel to such a place. They give money to charities to protect nature but would never hike into the wilderness and live off the land. The movie ends with the perfect dream of assuaging White Guilt: passing through nature to become a perfect native person and leaving your imperfect and destructive White body behind. Attaining perfection by becoming all-natural.

The story is what really makes this movie fall apart. It is a truly terrible story. The world is a poorer place for this story existing. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

I am not exaggerating to say that the movie ends with everyone sitting around a tree, holding hands, and singing “Kumbaya”. Boo you, James Cameron. Boo you!

One of the more intriguing trailers to come out recently is the teaser for the new Buck Rogers in the 25th Century movie. The trailer features a retro rocket racing across a sunset sky. (How’s that for an awesome sentence!) If the rest of the film has the quality retro design of the 30-second teaser, than the movie could be a fun sci-fi flick with all the fun of Flash Gordon but without all the cheese.

Hopefully they don’t completely fall off the end and go for the Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow route. It was fun but lacked the direction and focus to tell a complete story. Serials were great as serials. Forcing the erratic locations changes of a serial onto a modern feature gave Sky Captain an unfocused feel.

Here’s hoping for a great retro sci-fi.

Oh, and PS. Don’t do retro like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Make it actually good.

I wasn’t expecting a whole lot going in to see Ninja Assassin, but I was expecting to be entertained by a violent and over-the-top movie. I fell asleep.

What kind of action movie with supernaturally sneaky ninjas and multiple decapitations and dozens of amputations puts the audience to sleep?

The movie begins with a nasty bad guy making fun of ninjas when a wise old man explains how dangerous and deadly they are. Bad idea. Enter dangerous and deadly, super-sneaky ninja who kills everyone with a super sharp flying blade and machine gun ninja stars. Even the old man gets it.

Through very boring flashbacks, we find that the ninja families force children to train in the deadly ninja arts. We EVENTUALLY learn that our main character is on the run from the rest of his ninja family. There’s a woman that’s targeted for learning that ninjas charge 100 pounds of gold to kill someone, and then some multinational company or police organization or newspaper or something, I don’t know, it wasn’t that interesting.

Don’t go see this movie. Don’t rent it or even download it illegally. It wasn’t entertaining, suspenseful, creative, or comprehensible. It makes me reconsider whether the Wachoski brothers (who produced it) have ever made any worthwhile movie.

The movie of the year has the hype of the century.

Avatar comes to theaters in just days and I am no less excited then when I first saw the teaser trailer or when I first heard the news of the project in pre-production. The commercials have not shied away from trying to increase the hype, billing this movie as the “Greatest Adventure of All Time”.

I know the movie will be awesome. The only question is whether reviewers will judge the film on its merits or if they’ll judge it against what everyone is imagining the greatest adventure of all time to be.

Danger, James Cameron, Danger.

A Christmas Carol was wonderful. I’ve always been partial to the older version that comes on TV each Christmas season, but this is definitely right up there as well. It’s the first time I’ve had to separate my kids based on the fact that some could handle the scariness and some I knew could not. If you’re thinking of taking your kids, I’d draw the line somewhere above 4 years old and probably above 6 (though my 6 year old made it through with just a couple heart attacks).

I’ve never read the book, but this movie well reflects the other version a with a few differences. The Ghost of Christmas is a flame instead of a woman. Jim Carrey does four different voices and they are so different you’ll have difficulty figuring out which ones they are without the cast list in the credits. The motion capture animation is usually really good with the notable exception of Scrooge’s nephew whose mouth moves in odd ways and who gestures in odd ways. He doesn’t have a big part, so it’s no a big deal.

I”d recommend watching this movie and even adding it to the collection once it comes out on DVD (or blue ray – whichever).