Walt Disney, part LXVI: Disney Princess enchanted tales

ENCHANTED

2007

Directed by Kevin Lima

Written by Bill Kelly, Rita Hsiao, Todd Alcott, Bob Schooley, and Mark McCorkle

Spoilers: high

Walt Disney, part LXV: Keep moving forward

MEET THE ROBINSONS

2007

Directed by Stephen Anderson

Written by more people than I'd prefer to list (based on the book A Day With Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce)

Spoilers: high

Ocean's Week: Screw Sinatra's hand

OCEAN'S THIRTEEN

2007

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien

Spoilers: moderate

You know I can't let you leave without tapping that ass one more time

DEATH PROOF

The car chase movie to beat them all, and that's only the beginning of its appeal.

2007

Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

Spoiler alert: since there's no use talking about it without talking about it, high

On mass-murder considered as one of the fine arts, part II

DEATH NOTE

Part Two of a review of my very favorite TV cartoon.  (Part One can be found here.)

2006-2007

Directed by Tetsuro Araki

Written by Toshiki Inoue et al (based on the comic by Tsuhumi Obha and Takeshi Obata)

With Kappei Yamaguchi/Alessandro Juliani (L), Noriko Hikada/Cathy Weseluck (Near), Nozomo Sasaki/David Robert (Mello), Naoya Uchida/Chris Britton (Soichiro Yagami), Ryo Naito/Vincent Tong (Touta Matsuda), Kimiko Saito/Colleen Wheeler (Rem), Shido Nakamura/Brian Drummond (Ryuk), Issei Futamata/Andrew Kavadas (Kyosuke Higuchi), Masaya Mazukaze/Kirby Morrow (Teru Mikami), Musumi Okamura/Heather Doerksen (Kiyomi Takada), Aya Hirano/Shannon Chan-Kent (Misa Amane), and Mamoru Miyano/Brad Swaile (Light Yagami)

Spoiler alert: severe (no, seriously)
Content warning: unsupportably long even as a two-part piece, but as a hyperindulgent birthday present to myself, that is also several weeks late, could it even get any more "me"?

On mass-murder considered as one of the fine arts, part I

DEATH NOTE

Like it needs an introduction?  Part One of a review of my very favorite TV cartoon.  (Part Two can be found here.)

2006-2007

Directed by Tetsuro Araki

Written by Toshiki Inoue et al (based on the comic by Tsuhumi Obha and Takeshi Obata)

With Kappei Yamaguchi/Alessandro Juliani (L), Noriko Hikada/Cathy Weseluck (Near), Nozomo Sasaki/David Robert (Mello), Naoya Uchida/Chris Britton (Soichiro Yagami), Ryo Naito/Vincent Tong (Touta Matsuda), Kimiko Saito/Colleen Wheeler (Rem), Shido Nakamura/Brian Drummond (Ryuk), Issei Futamata/Andrew Kavadas (Kyosuke Higuchi), Masaya Mazukaze/Kirby Morrow (Teru Mikami), Musumi Okamura/Heather Doerksen (Kiyomi Takada), Aya Hirano/Shannon Chan-Kent (Misa Amane), and Mamoru Miyano/Brad Swaile (Light Yagami)

Spoiler alert: severe (no, seriously)
Content warning: unsupportably long even as a two-part piece, but as a hyperindulgent birthday present to myself, that is also several weeks late, could it even get any more "me"?

Alien Week, part VI: The war of the worlds

ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM

Oh, right: this is the one that really pissed everyone off.  As well it should have, for Requiem isn't just the nadir of this franchise; it's perilously close to being the nadir of 21st century filmmaking, period.  Truly, it is inept in ways you've never seen before, will never see again, and—not to put too fine a point on it—it's inept in ways you don't even see at all.  What a calamity this film is.

2007

Directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause

Written by Shane Salerno

With Johnny Lewis (Ricky), Steven Pasquale (Dallas), Kristen Hager (Jesse), Reiko Aylesworth (Kelly), Ian Whyte ("Wolf"), and Tom Woodruff, Jr. (the Predalien)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Robert Zemeckis, part XV: Ripper, tearer, slasher, gouger, and so forth

BEOWULF

Not the abject artistic failure you might have expected, Beowulf at least suggests why Zemeckis kept at the mo-cap thing.

2007
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary (based on the poem)
With Ray Winstone (Beowulf), Anthony Hopkins (Hrothgar), Robin Wright (Wealthow), Brendan Gleeson (Wigraf), John Malkovich (Unferth), Crispin Glover (Grendel), and Angelina Jolie (Grendel's Mother)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Putting the "list" in "miserablist"! (or, the films of David Fincher ranked, no. 5)

For going on twenty years now—my how time flies—David Fincher has been our preeminent auteur of gross, depressing tales of murder and mayhem.  Almost uniquely, Fincher has mastered a high-wire balancing act in the thriller genre, crafting films that are formally pristine, morally bracing, thematically insidious, emotionally devastating, and—most important of all—highly entertaining.  Though chiefly noted for this selfsame prediliction toward the pleasantly unpleasant, Fincher has tried his hand at other things, too—one time it was good, one time it was the worst thing ever.  On this episode: there's enough murder, but it's a little light on the mayhem.

Spoiler alert: turns out the Zodiac wasn't the surgeon general after all

The amazing web of the spectacular Spider-Man unlimited, part III: "Dear God... kill Peter Parker"

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