2011 ~ The Larsen Film Review

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011)

Morgan Spurlock [Super Size Me] is back with a documentary about brand marketing in movies. Spurlock has made just one feature documentary between this and the 2004 McDonald's documentary that was so popular, mainly because he has had a documentary TV series, 30 Days, that he...

Blue Sky Studio's latest animated film, the company that brought you The Ice Age Series, Horton Hears a Who, and Robots, brought out their latest animated film earlier this year. A good year for a weak computer animated film since Pixar's film was a flop and Disney and Dreamworks...

Like Flash of Genius I struggled to commit my time to watching this one because I felt I already knew the entire story. It only takes reading the imdb synopsis to get the whole story, but this is one of those films that knowing what happens really doesn't ruin the story itself....

Director Will Gluck, who brought us Easy A, last year. Brings us a movie that at one point was going to be called "Fuck Buddies." Good luck marketing that. It was actually in production around the same time as No Strings Attached which features Natalie Portman who was paired...

Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor star in an interesting comedy based on a true story. The film which was produced in 2009 and released in three other countries before the production company decided not to bring it to the US. The rights were purchased by two other companies and release...

A little late for horror month, this one came out on blu-ray earlier in the year and was the last horror movie in my possession, yay! Folder complete now. This 70's horror film has taken a little bit of flack for actually killing a lizard on screen. I can't say that screams...

The full title of the film makes it pretty self explanatory. The film is a look inside The New York Times newspaper at a time when newspapers are a dying breed. Considered a front runner for an Oscar nomination I felt that the film had the perfect scope on an interesting subject...

After watching documentaries on Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam this year I thought it would be interesting to watch a documentary on a musical group that I DIDN'T group up liking. I know of this hip-hop group and heard a few of there song in CMJ [College Music Journal] back in 1993...

A dangerous formula of combining Werner Herzog and documentary leads to the first film I've fallen asleep in this year. Considered a potential Oscar documentary contender I thought I'd get a jump on the eligible films knowing that some won't get shortlisted. Of all the ones...

In a pretty weak year for animated films look for this average film to get an Oscar nomination. A sequel to the 2008 Oscar nominated film with the same director, writer, and star put it in line for another nomination. In 2009 they lost to the far superior Wall-E, but with no...

Directed by Cameron Crowe, this film documents the twenty years that the band Pearl Jam has been together. Lead singer Eddie Vedder was greatly influenced by The Who, and Crowe who is fan of The Who and their documentary The Kids Are Alright (1979) constructed this film partially...

The film starts at an American lab where the boss is telling the Japanese assistant to go ahead an dump all of the chemicals down the drain. The water empties into the river and the chemicals create a sea creature that attacks the people. The family in the story run convenience...

Michael Bay is back with his third installment of the surprisingly successful [box office-wise] series. The first one made Megan Fox a star, the 2nd one showed she isn't a very nice person, the 3rd one drops her completely. I have to say that I did like the first film, it was...

Another new Alfred Hitchcock for me, as some of you know I really like Hitchcock and have been trying to force myself to ration out his films for years so I always have some new ones. This one is actually in the 1001 Movies book, and gets the horror label simply because I haven't...

Considered in some regards to be a sequel to The Island of Dr. Moreau, in more regards to the storyline than to the actual character or a film. Also, one of those Criterion films that is held in higher regards years after being made than on initial release. This is the type...

David Cronenberg is famous for making creative science fiction films on small budgets. Known as the Baron of Blood he has made films like Scanners, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, and one I need to see Naked Lunch. Lately he has made the switch to dramatic...

A modern retelling of the classic film Nosferatu (1922), in Werner Herzog fashion. Herzog writes very slow panning scenes that just don't fit well in the horror genre, and this film ends up being more creepy and odd than scary. It stars Bruno Ganz [Hitler in Downfall] as Jonathan,...

Catherine Deneuve [Repulsion], David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon star in this 80's film that made it into the 101 Horror Films book. The first major film that Tony Scott directed; he went on to direct films like Top Gun, True Romance, and now his fourth Denzel Washington movie...

Slowly but surely I've been working through Ingmar Bergman's catalog of films. Considering he directed more than 60 and wrote more than 80 I have a long way to go. He made this one right after Persona, a surprisingly good film, and is probably the closest he has been to the...

At the end of horror month reviews, I'm starting to get writers block. An older film in the 101 Horror Movies book, this is by anyone's standards a B Horror Film.You can actually watch this for free here: archive.org. So the film starts with a car full of girls next to a car...

Easily one of the most bizarre films I've seen. A lot about this one just makes no sense at all. Those that like this film call it a "Fun" B-Horror film. The film is in Italian... and German and French... but all of the German and French actors have been dubbed into Italian....

Hard to believe that it has been two years. In some ways I feel like I've been writing for much, much longer. Maybe that is because I've written 700 reviews now. I can definitely say that I watch movies differently now that I'm a blogger. Maybe this is good, maybe not. It forces me to pay attention more, it motivates me to plow through the bad films,...

This marks the first film that I watched with my older daughter. Pretty cool. It is also the first film to get a 1/5 on the Kids Scare Factor scale... as I was hoping. This is "almost" a remake of 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, I say this because they treat...

I won't lie about it, I really didn't completely pay attention to this one. I had something else going on and it was playing in the background. Maybe if I would have focused it would have had a higher rating... then again my wife was paying attention and agrees it was this bad. This...

One of the #1 films at the box office this past summer, this comedy stars a number of well known actors and a director [Seth Gordon] with a pretty decent track record. The film is about three people with completely different bosses, all awful in their own way. Nick's [Jason...

Funny that I just spoke in my last post about leaning toward originals [review] over remakes. Well this is a good example. My goodness, I really should have liked this huh? Directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro, Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis. The...

With High Tension [review] out of the way, this was my newest film from my 101 horror movies book to watch. Since the names aren't close at all I didn't catch that there has actually been an American remake of this film. The remake was called The Uninvited, it came out in 2009...

Directed by Luke Greenfield, who has been making tv movies and is responsible for The Animal. Starring Ginnifer Goodwin & Kate Hudson then Colin Egglesfield & John Krasinski as the boyfriend/friend relationships. Rachel [Goodwin] is the main character of the film,...

Many people are probably familiar with Deborah Kerr from films like From Here to Eternity and The King and I, but when asked what she felt was her finest performance she chose this film. A film that is listed in the 101 Horror Films, and considered one of the most chilling...

Directed by Erle C. Kenton, who was known more for his two reel comedies, but branched out into horror on a few occasions. This will probably be his only lasting film. Recently released in high definition, sadly I didn't know this until I had already watched a very grainy version. The...

Director Roman Polanski is originally from Poland. He directed his first film Knife in the Water in Poland before moving to France where he directed this film for a company in Britain. A film that proceeds Rosemary's Baby and a few other thriller films. I guess I didn't...

Another documentary that doesn't fit into horror month. Why? Well because my wife and I are done with our horror films for the month, and I'll be watching the rest of the horror movies on my own this month. We jumped to see this one as soon as it went to dvd because we are Conan...

So I didn't remember the "stars" of the original film enough to realize that they are also in the sequel. And that this isn't a sequel but a prequel to the first film. The film is about the month or so leading up to the original film and centers around Katie's sister who is...

Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe star in a vampire film that is more science fiction that suspense or horror. I've been saving this for horror month viewing for a couple years, and it isn't the first time I've saved a film I didn't need to. It doesn't help that the film is now both...

The most recent film in Schneider's 101 Horror Films that I had left to see, this French film stars Cécile De France [seen recently in Hereafter]. I can't think or a French film that is more gory, and it is the kind of film I expected more of in the 101 book. The film...

Watched just in time to make my 10 worst films of the year [with my two year anniversary a week away]. This documentary was actually pushed pretty hard, I saw ads online, it was in theaters, and was pushed as an Oscar contender. The documentary short list came out and there...

I really didn't know much about this independent thriller film that came out last year. It was made on a $10 million budget, and grossed more than three times that, but was it worth my time? Directed by John Erick Dowdle and written by M. Night Shyamalan. The film stars a group...

Insidious might be the most popular horror movie from the 1st half of 2011. Hitting the theaters around Valentine's Day the critics ratings were good, and it did well at the box office. The film stars Rose Byrne [also in Bridesmaids], Patrick Wilson [you'd recognize him], and...

It seems like the number of exorcism films has been on the rise lately. Both sequels to the original and knock offs. I have to say this is the best one I seen in a while, and it even had me fooled for a while. The film is shot as if it is a documentary. We follow around Cotton...

So this isn't a horror film. I never though it was, and I'm not sure how it got misplaced in my horror/thriller directory. If anything it should have been watched back in action movie month this last June. If you have seen Grindhouse then you might remember the fake movie trailers...

I was reluctant to watch this film. The 4th film in a series that should have never been a series. The more of these I see the more I forget just how much I liked the original. The original, which came out in 2000, was a pretty neat concept. Boy has premonition that plane will...

As the movie poster suggests, this is the most controversial film ever made. This one of the less gory posters I could find, and I still had to edit it. The film, made by Italian Ruggero Deodato was rumored to actually be a snuff film [meaning that someone died on film], and...

The newest film in the 101 Horror Movies book, and one that I have been putting off for years. For some reason I really thought this was a Guillermo del Toro [Pan's Labyrinth and The Devil's Backbone] film. Now I feel ignorant because Del Toro is Mexican and the actual director...

I really didn't think this was a "horror" but I was expecting it to be a thriller. I was under the assumption that this was some sort of combination of The Abyss and The Descent. I was quite wrong. James Cameron was an executive producer on this film, again I was under the...

It has been a tradition of mine to start horror month off with the latest Saw film. Partially because I'm sure it will the gore, bad acting, and runtime of typical movies for the rest of the month. I'm always a year behind, but I'm not going to the theater for films of this...

A straight-to-video release in the US, this film was actually in the theaters in Japan. It is very loosely based on a true story of a Japanese professor in the 1930's (maybe 40's I forget), who's dog waited every day for him at the train station even after he died. Entertainment...

Have you ever heard the scientific study that says that humans actually only use 10% of their brain? Well this movie... that I'll go ahead and call a science fiction... plays to the idea that a drug can allow you to use all 100% and achieve your full potential. Great concept......

Rip blogspot

Nổi Bật

Labels

Blog Archive