The Adventures of Tintin Review

The Adventures of Tintin is a solid if not slightly dry action/adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones. Based on the series of books by Hergé, and masterfully directed by Steven Spielberg, Tintin does almost everything right but just enough wrong not to earn my love. The movie, filmed through a process known as performance capture, is a thrilling ride from start to finish, with some truly awe inspiring action, including a chase through an Arabian town that takes place in one 5 minute long unbroken tracking shot, and unfortunately only one interesting character. Tintin, played by Jamie Bell's thirst for mystery and adventure is unquenchable, but that's really all Spielberg gives us on the character. He is a purely an expository force, pushing himself through the film by chance and circumstance, constantly expressing out loud, sometimes to his dog Snowy, what's happening around them. This kind of storytelling shows a lack of respect for the audience, but it is with the real star of the show, Captain Haddock, played by Andy Serkis that Spielberg shows us he has the utmost respect for his audience. Haddock is a drunk of the highest class, and a descendent of honorable ship captain Sir Francis Haddock. Haddock's alcohol fueled behavior is a major plot point in the film, his breath literally doubles as rocket fuel. This movie takes place in the real world, where real things, sometimes bad, really happen. Haddock is a drunk. Tintin carries a gun. A man is shot to death in his very doorstep. The film has real consequences. This is a good thing, it raises the stakes and makes for a much more interesting, and believable experience. The story couldn't be more straightforward; Parisian reporter Tintin sets off on a journey to discover the secret of the lost ship, the Unicorn, captained by Sir Francis Haddock himself. Along the way he meets the drunken hero, Archibald Haddock, and the icy villain, ironically named Sakharine. Sakharine played by Daniel Craig isn't particularly interesting as a character but Craig brings enough palpable menace to the table to make him utterly watchable.

Super 8 Review

"I think the trailer did more for me than the movie" is not something I wanted to say when walking out of Super 8, probably my most anticipated release of the Summer. It's something I've dreaded saying for a year now. However this quote is still a ringing endorsement of the lovingly reminiscent and admittedly messy new film by director/producer JJ Abrams. Abrams who envisioned the movie as a throwback to classic Spielberg films like Close Encounters or E.T., with a little Cloverfield mixed in, mostly hits every mark he should, but only after walking out of the theater does one realize how much he did wrong as well. The story takes place in fictional Lillian, Ohio where a young Joe Lamb has just lost his mother to a gruesome factory accident. Joes father Jackson barely knows him and seems unable to cope with their loss. Joes friends, a rag tag group of mostly one note characters, the chubby bossy one, the pyro who doesn't seem to have any parents, the one who vomits every time he gets scared, and the one who's jewish, or italian, are in the middle of their

X-Men: First Class Review

What a great movie to start the site off with. Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class has been called a last attempt at revitalizing a sinking franchise. The first few in the series helmed by Bryan Singer were met with critical acclaim, success at the box office, and it's been said began the influx of comic book related properties in Hollywood. The third in the series X-Men: The Last Stand, put out by "director for hire" Brett Ratner, and its subsequent prequel/follow up X-Men Origins: Wolverine were again, undoubtedly box office smashes. Whether these last two films were warranted or of any worthwhile quality is another story entirely (they aren't).  Originally planned as another prequel under the X-Men Origins banner, First Class was to be the origin story of Erik Lensherr aka Magneto played by Michael Fassbender. During the tumultuous process that is the Hollywood "fast track," Vaughn was hired, and the story retooled as a prequel/reboot of the original series, in which we witness the growth and later deterioration of the relationship between Magneto and Charles Xavier aka Professor X. Now before I get on to whether the movie is any good or not, I believe it should be of great interest to anyone seeing the film, that it started shooting in September of 2010. That means Matthew Vaughn was able to put this movie together from script to release in a little less than eleven months. For any of you who that doesn't make jump out of your seat, go ahead, jump out of your seat. This is a 120 million dollar X-Men movie people! It's not supposed to be a rush job. I'll say this, First Class is a feat of rushed film making and a pretty damn good X-Men movie too. The movie takes the Inglourious Basterds route, and inserts itself into a real historical event. In this case, the Cuban missile crisis. The big baddie moving the story forward, Sebastian Shaw played by Kevin Bacon is somehow both a mustache twirling Bond villain and nicely underplayed at the same time. We meet him in the 1940's as the SS Officer Klaus Schmidt who runs the concentration camp where Erik discovers his powers. Meanwhile in Westchester, NY we're introduced to Charles Xavier, a young and wealthy telepath who takes in a shapeshifter named Raven. These opening scenes

Welcome to CinemaBowl

I love film, plain and simple. I'm usually out to see one or more of the weeks releases or home trying to catch up with the Criterion Collection. I'm going to be updating at often as I can convince myself to. There should be at least a review a week and hopefully some original articles, and news too. I guess we'll see how this all works out.