Thor: The Dark World Movie Review
Score: 8/10 Thor: The Dark World (“TDW”) is the sequel to 2011’s Thor. It also takes place after the events in the Avengers. At the end of first movie, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) destroys the Bifrost in order to stop his adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from destroying Jotunheim, Loki’s true homeworld as he was born a Frost Giant. The destruction of the Bifrost cuts Asgard off from the rest of the nine realms and his love,...
Retroactive Review: Thor
Score: 7.5/10 “Whosoever holds this hammer [Mjolnir], if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor!” – Odin When I first saw “Thor”, I thought it was a decent comic book movie that serves its purpose of introducing the character Thor for the Avengers movie but would not have much appeal outside of comic book fans. After watching the movie again, I have a higher appreciation for the movie. There are a lot of things I...
We Need to Talk About We Need to Talk About Kevin
There are films meant to scare, and there are films meant to disturb, and come Halloween I’m much more inclined toward the latter. The scariest films I know of aren’t actually meant for fright-fest marathons. The everyone-hits-rock-bottom sequence in Requiem for a Dream, for instance, unsettles me way more than Freddy Krueger wielding a glove of knives at some horny teenagers. I shut my eyes in fear of losing sleep when the dead baby...
Captain Phillips Movie Review
Score: 9.5/10 “Captain Phillips” is based on the true story of the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama off the Somali Coast by pirates. During the incident, the pirates eventually take the ship’s captain, Richard Phillips, hostage in a lifeboat. It leads to a standoff between the pirates and the United States Navy. It ends with Navy Seals intervening to free the captain. The movie is an excellent and thrilling account of the...
Cheesyball
A Retrospective Review of Moneyball “How can you not be romantic about baseball?” asks Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) in the penultimate scene of Moneyball, echoing his earlier declaration that “it’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.” Perhaps the reason the theme gets underlined is because the makers of Moneyball themselves ran into this problem a lot during production. Indeed, the source material, Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: The...
Retroactive Review: The Last Samurai
Score: 9/10 “They say Japan was made by a sword. They say the old gods dipped a coral blade into the ocean, and when they pulled it out four perfect drops fell back into the sea, and those drops became the islands of Japan. I say, Japan was made by a handful of brave men. Warriors, willing to give their lives for what seems to have become a forgotten word: honor.” – Simon Graham narrating beginning of film When Commodore Matthew...