Mostly, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. I’ll go see just about anything involving either of them, even more quickly if it’s both. I went into the film not knowing much about the half-century old soap opera on which it was based, which I think hurt it in the end. There were a number of plot points that felt a bit rushed and didn’t need to be there (like the werewolf-daughter bit).
Oof. So what do these two actually have in common again? I can feel a bit of the pain that they’re going through doing the PhD dance myself, but the extent they take it to just seems a bit extensive. If you can’t talk about things, then move on–particularly before spending five years growing a(n admittedly pretty awesome) beard and making just about everything out of local wildlife.
Lockout was a pretty good action movie–in space! I don’t really mind movies like that, where they take a premise that has been done before and just change the setting. Although in general, I’d like for the science of the movie to be a bit more sensical. And the whole premise of just sending up one man to save the president’s daughter seems a bit off. Sure, the prisoners might kill her off if they send more, but isn’t the entire point that they don’t at first realize who they have? So it goes.
I generally don’t go for horror movies, but the general premise intrigued me. And it doesn’t hurt that Joss Whedon co-wrote it. He’s had his ups and downs, but in general he’s earned at least a second look in my book.
Mirror Mirror was cute enough for a retelling of that old Snow White story, but I don’t think it has quite the strength to stand on cuteness alone. Visually, it’s beautiful, but that’s all it is. It feels like a series of set pieces each of them self satisfied in a rather distracting manner.
I have a confession to make. I have not read the Hunger Games books. That being said, most everyone that I know has so when they wanted to go see the Hunger Games, I went along with them.
Another year (more or less), another year of movies. I realy like going to the movies, it’s a nice distraction from the grin of PhD work. And what’s better, being a grad student leaves my schedule flexible enough so that I can go to the weekday matinees for a mere $5 ticket. Not too bad for ~2 hours of entertainment.