Tag: Movies

Movie Review: Goosebumps

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews3 Comments

GoosebumpsSo, a little history: I have only ever read one book in the Goosebumps series. You see, they were wildly popular when I was a kid, when I was right in the throes of the “I won’t be into something because it’s popular” stage. Also, I was pretty sure they’d be creepy and gross. So I vowed to never read an R. L. Stine book, and only broke it some 15 years later to read The Phantom of the Auditorium because, well…

And perhaps I sort of broke it recently to watch Goosebumps. I’ve long since gotten over my R. L. Stine hostility, but I’m still pretty sure he’s just not my style, and I felt that way about the movie too. But—I had a writer friend who said it was a great writer movie, and we watched it at our monthly movie night. And it was great!

Jack Black stars as R. L. Stine, weird and antisocial and slightly crazed. Teenage Zach gets interested after he moves in next door and starts to fall for Stine’s daughter Hannah. And Stine’s craziness all begins to make more sense when Zach and Hannah accidentally open one of Stine’s manuscripts—and the creatures from the book come out. More books open and pretty soon monsters are rampaging all over town.

The teen romance was cute enough. The monsters were interesting mostly in their incredible variety. But the writer side of it all was so much fun! Continue reading “Movie Review: Goosebumps” →

Movie Review: Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon version)

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews1 Comment

much-ado-posterI kicked off my Shakespeare reading/viewing goals this year with Joss Whedon’s production of Much Ado About Nothing.  It’s my favorite Shakespearean comedy, and so the perfect place to start–especially since I’ve been meaning to watch this one pretty much since it came out (in 2012!)

Much Ado tells the story of Beatrice and Benedick, verbal sparring partners who are tricked by their friends into falling in love.  Meanwhile Beatrice’s cousin Hero and Benedick’s friend Claudio have fallen in love and are set to wed, but nasty Don John arranges to disrupt the match with false allegations on Hero.  Because it’s a comedy, we all know it ends with a wedding, despite the un-smooth course of true love along the way.

I actually have a theory about why it took me so long to watch this movie.  Whenever I first heard about it from someone (I forget who), I think the conversation went something like, “Joss Whedon is doing Much Ado, and Nathan Fillion is in it.”  And in the next brief pause between sentences my brain went, Nathan Fillion as Benedick–I want to see that!  Before my friend concluded, “He’s playing Dogberry.”  Who has never been a character I much enjoyed.  And I just couldn’t get the same enthusiasm for the movie after that.

However!  It was a quite good version.  Continue reading “Movie Review: Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon version)” →

Top Ten 2015 Movies I Meant To See…

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations4 Comments

The Broke and the Bookish, home of the Top Ten Tuesday meme, had for their topic recently 2015 books you meant to read but didn’t.  I’m actually pretty on top of book releases (there just aren’t that many new releases I want to keep track of) but movies are a completely different story.  Some time last January, I actually put a bunch of movie release dates into my calendar for the entire year.  And then…yeah.  Well.

I went to the theater three times in 2015: Age of Adaline, Inside Out and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  All of them were excellent, so in that way I made good choices!

I saw on Home on DVD, and watched Jupiter Ascending and Cinderella on a plane…didn’t love any of them, so I guess it’s just as well I didn’t go to the theater for those.  But that leaves quite a few still unknown quantities!  So, top 2015 movies I haven’t seen…

By release date order:

  1. Mortdecai
  2. Tomorrowland
  3. The Walk
  4. Victor Frankenstein
  5. The Martian
  6. The Jungle Book
  7. Suffragette
  8. The Peanuts Movie
  9. Mockingjay 2 (…and 1, actually)
  10. The Good Dinosaur

Looks like I have some DVDs to track down!  Have you seen any of these?  Any I should rush out and watch, or any I’m better off not spending two hours of my life on? 🙂

Movie Review: Star Wars – The Force Awakens

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction6 Comments

star_wars_poster_full.0.0If your friends are like my friends, then you will understand why many of the conversations I’ve had recently began with a variation of, “So have you seen it yet?”  And by “it” we all understood that we meant Star Wars.  We’ve been comparing excitement and concerns for a good two years now, so we all have a good grounding of discussion.  I’m not getting this review up immediately, but I went to see the movie on Saturday of opening weekend.  I was clinging to caution right up until the lights dimmed (and maybe for an hour after that…) but the final verdict?  I liked it!

And from here on out, spoilers abound.  I warned you!

The story is set thirty years after Return of the Jedi.  The politics are slightly confusing, but the Rebel Alliance has evolved into/been replaced by the Resistance, who are fighting the First Order, heir apparent of the Empire.  And there’s a New Republic, but we’re not sure how powerful they are.  Much more importantly, Luke has disappeared, General Leia Organa is heading the Resistance and hoping to find her brother, a renegade Stormtrooper named Finn gets mixed up in galactic complications, then drags Rey, a scavenger on a desert world (but not Tattooine) into the mix too.  And there are battles and uses of the Force and funny droids.  Of course.

That is not a good summary, but you’ve probably seen it by now, so it doesn’t matter that much.  We know what I’m talking about, right? Continue reading “Movie Review: Star Wars – The Force Awakens” →

Movie Review: Home (Formerly, The True Meaning of Smekday)

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction2 Comments

You may remember that I really loved The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex.  This left me both excited and leery of the movie version, the inexplicably renamed Home.  I finally watched this recently, an impulse pick-up at Redbox, and…it was neither as good as I hoped nor as bad as I feared, turning out to be an enjoyable movie based on a better book.

HomeThe basic premise is the same: the Boovs land on Christmas (of course), conquer Earth and relocate all the humans.  Eleven-year-old Gratuity (her friends call her Tip) sets out in her car with her cat Pig to find her mother, who was abducted.  She connects with J.Lo–or, in the movie version, Oh–a Boov being hunted by the other Boovs for accidentally summoning their dreaded enemy, the Gorg.  Tip and J.Lo/Oh travel together, bonding along the way.

Pretty much everything else has changed–namely, everything that happens along the way as they travel (apart from the bonding).  It was actually a somewhat disconcerting adaptation, because some of the small details (like naming the car Slushious) stayed precisely the same, while great big massive things (going to Paris, for example, instead of Happy Mouse Kingdom and Roswell) were completely different.  Maybe it helped me try to take this as just a different story though? Continue reading “Movie Review: Home (Formerly, The True Meaning of Smekday)” →