Following the summer trend of 1980’s throwbacks like Super 8 and Captain America, British sci-fi/comedy Attack the Block serves up a creature-feature that echoes back to movies like Gremlins and Critters. Where Super 8 was all wide-eyed innocence, Attack the Block is darker, grittier, and much more grown-up. I can’t say this enough—I FUCKING LOVE THIS MOVIE. I’m a huge fan of Edgar Wright’s genre parodies Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and Attack the Block works in a similar vein (Wright was an executive producer on the project).Continue reading “Attack the Block: Worth it, find it, see it”
Category Archives: Movies
Storytelling 101: Why Captain America works
If you’ve been following me here or on LaineyGossip for the last year, you know that I’ve been nervous for Captain America. Nervous because Marvel’s plan is so ambitious that I want to see it work just to see what happens, and nervous because I like Chris Evans, generally (lately he’s been revolting, though), and I want him to break out like he’s been trying to do for ages. And if you’ve been following along you also know that my initial skepticism about Captain America: The First Avenger began morphing into cautious optimism earlier this year. I even thought it would end up the winner amongst the four superhero movies this summer, and if the weekend estimate holds, it will indeed be the big winner.Continue reading “Storytelling 101: Why Captain America works”
The end of the end of Harry Potter
It was a long time coming. First the book, then through part 1—we’ve had years to say goodbye to Harry Potter. And yet, I wasn’t ready. Walking into the theater, I got really sad. I was eighteen and a college freshman when I started my time at Hogwarts. I’m twenty-eight and an adult now. I shouldn’t be maudlin over a young adult series, yet I am. I generally don’t have a hard time leaving behind the places a good book creates inside oneself, but I never wanted to leave Hogwarts. Of all the literary worlds I’ve read about or imagined, the only one I would actually want to live in is the world of Harry Potter. Please. Like we all wouldn’t want to be there. So yes, I was choked up going into the theater and only half-ready to say goodbye.Continue reading “The end of the end of Harry Potter”
Horrible Bosses is a group hug for anyone who’s suffered under a bad boss
Which, I assume, is most of us. Right off the top, let’s get this out of the way. Horrible Bosses is not ground-breaking comedy. It’s definitely not ground-breaking filmmaking. If you’re looking for a comedy that colors outside the lines, check out Four Lions, if you want one that uses non-traditional filmmaking techniques, go see The Trip. I don’t think American comedy is hopeless—far, far from it—but I do think the best comics aren’t getting their scripts produced. Horrible Bosses could’ve gone so much further, been so much darker, pushed into truly unleashed comic territory, but at the end of the day it’s a product to be sold on the mass market which means pleasing the masses. So it’s got baby teeth where it could’ve had fangs.Continue reading “Horrible Bosses is a group hug for anyone who’s suffered under a bad boss”
Transformers 3: The artistic merit of Michael Bay
There’s a string of words you probably never thought to see together.
A few weeks ago I got a sneak peek at twenty minutes of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the third entry into Michael Bay’s increasingly loud franchise. At that time, I said that, based on twenty minutes from the climactic “destruction of Chicago” scene, that I thought TF3 would be “big and dumb and loud”. After seeing it over the weekend, it is in fact big and dumb and loud, with an emphasis on dumb. What’s most interesting about TF3, though, isn’t the plot (because there almost isn’t one), or the characters (because they’re little more than cardboard stand-ups of what Bay thinks real people are like), or even the visual effects (because they’re as elaborate and over the top as one expects in a Michael Bay movie). No, what has evolved from TF3 is an interesting discussion about Michael Bay and his status as an auteur.Continue reading “Transformers 3: The artistic merit of Michael Bay”
Movie watching round-up: The Green Lantern, Bad Teacher and Captain America
First, last week I made my first trip to Toronto for the 6th Annual Smut Soiree with LaineyGossip. Big ups to everyone who came out and stayed to chat afterward. It was a lot of fun and it was great to meet readers of this blog. To address your top concerns for Cinesnark: 
1) I wish I posted more, too, but I’m lazy and motivation comes in fits and starts. 2) I also wish I could write shorter posts but I can’t. I try to break it up with pictures. Does that help? 3) I don’t know what to do about your surprise that I am “not like I seem on [my blog] at all”. Real life friends recognize a lot of my opinions, nicknames, phraseology, etc, from normal every-day conversations we have, and a former teacher I hadn’t spoken to in years identified me after reading only one post, so obviously I am somehow failing to translate online to those who don’t know me. I’ll try harder? Unless saying that I “wasn’t what you were expecting” was a nice way of saying, “I expected you to be way bitchier”, in which case, I won’t try any harder? We’ll work on this.Continue reading “Movie watching round-up: The Green Lantern, Bad Teacher and Captain America”
Arthouse Audit: Tree of Life & Cave of Forgotten Dreams
I waited to review Cave of Forgotten Dreams until I could pair it with The Tree of Life. I finally got to Tree of Life over the weekend, so now I can hammer out these two reviews together. First, let’s talk about Terrence Malick’s (The Thin Red Line) long-awaited Tree of Life. After a much-ballyhooed two-year delay in post-production—Malick is a notorious tinkerer who would probably still be editing his first feature film, Badlands (1973) today if left to his own devices. In a forty-year career, Malick has completed five feature films. His sixth just shot last year in Oklahoma and is estimated for a 2012 release, and there are plans for a seventh film to immediately follow. This burst of three films in three years—assuming Malick sticks to the schedule—is the most prolific he’s ever been.Continue reading “Arthouse Audit: Tree of Life & Cave of Forgotten Dreams”
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