Category Archives: Science Fiction/Fantasy

The Avengers review

Directed by Joss Whedon Written by Whedon and Zak Penn From the Marvel comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby I'm at a bit of a loss to describe the scale of this thing, this Avengers movie. It's been in the works for some time, going back to Iron Man and Hulk in 2008.…Read More

The Hunger Games review

Directed by Gary Ross Written by Ross, Billy Ray and Suzanne Collins, from Collins' novel Do I need to explain the plot of this movie? As I write I'm seeing the box office totals come in, and it's larger than even the generous predictions made three days ago: $155 million is a lot of samolians.…Read More

John Carter reviewed

Directed by Andrew Stanton Written by Stanton, Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon, based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs book, A Princess of Mars In a TED Talk, director Andrew Stanton said that the biggest thing a story needs to do is "make you care." I really wanted to care about John Carter. At times I…Read More

Chronicle review

Directed by Josh TrankWritten by Trank and Max LandisThe idea of super powers: still inspiring filmmakers in 2012. It's amazing to me that there are still fresh ways to approach ye olde "with great power comes great responsibility" story, and credit to Trank and Landis for succeeding, for the most part, in that department.Andrew (Dane…Read More

Melancholia review

Written and directed by Lars von TrierI've said it before and will again: von Trier is a provocateur. That he's from Denmark, my mother's homeland, the most prominent director to emerge from 1995's Dogma movement—a rigorous aesthetic that he's long since shirked—makes his films interesting to me, but I rarely want to see them again.…Read More

Conan the Barbarian (2011) review

Directed by Marcus NispelWritten by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Sean Hood, fromthe Robert E. Howard characterConan The Barbarian is violent, bloody fantasy, a relentless collection of action sequences barely strung together around a revenge plot and a couple of nasty supernatural villains. It's big, burly and not very smart. In other words, it's…Read More

Super 8 review

Written and Directed by JJ AbramsAs I was stretching my legs after the conclusion of Super 8, along with some of the end credits, the audience gets to see an edited version of the Super 8 film our young heroes are shooting through the duration of the movie we've been watching. It's really sweet and…Read More