Shameless Self Expression

After discovering consulting psychologist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Sir Anthony Hopkins) is the very serial killer he was supposed to be helping to apprehend, FBI agent Will Graham (Edward Norton) has retired to family life with wife Mary Louise Parker and son. However, Graham (who was injured by Lecter) is drawn back into the fold several years later by FBI director Crawford (Harvey Keitel) with a new serial killer nicknamed ‘The Tooth Fairy’. And the only way Graham is going to nab this sicko is to once again seek the counsel of Dr. Lecter. Meanwhile, we get to know ‘The Tooth Fairy’ AKA Francis Dollarhyde (Ralph Fiennes), a disfigured, surprisingly meek and heavily withdrawn and lonely man who is striking up a tentative relationship with a sweet-natured, blind co-worker (Emily Watson). Philip Seymour Hoffman plays repugnant, tabloid reporter Freddy Lounds, who is always skulking about, whilst Frank Whaley plays Watson’s sleazy co-worker, and both Anthony Heald and Frankie Faison repr...

Formerly at Epinions.com Written in 2010, at the age of 30. That last part is the truth, I swear.   A sci-fi flick charting the first manned trip to Uranus, led by Carl Ottosen. The planet , Uranus, that is. What they find there (aside from a surprising amount of vegetation for such a supposedly gaseous planet) is the stuff of their dreams, nightmares, and Earthly remembrances, as a one-eyed alien brain somehow uses all of this in its plot to destroy them. Oh, and they encounter some hot chicks, who may or may not be illusionary, and may or may not be the ex-girlfriends of the crew members. B-movie stalwart John Agar (whose career used to be somewhat legit before this) plays one of the crew members, presumably for B-grade marquee value (at best).   Depending on your sense of humour, this review is either going to be the funniest thing you’ve ever read, or the most juvenile. I’d like to think it’s somewhere in the middle. When I looked at my notes, I realised pr...

The title family find themselves shipwrecked on an island deserted save for wild animals. Eventually the Robinsons adapt to their new surroundings, and dad (Sir John Mills, flexing whatever he has instead of muscles) even builds a home in the trees. Meanwhile, the youngest Robinson (Kevin Corcoran) sets about trying to trap himself a wild animal (presumably out of some kind of idiotic death wish). Oh, and Mum Robinson (Dorothy McGuire) gets all depressed because she’s a useless homemaker stuck on an island without an oven (Don’t blame the author, blame the screenwriter, apparently she was far more useful in the novel). Cecil Parker and Janet Munro play a grandfather/granddaughter team who are set upon by vicious pirates (Led by Sessue Hayakawa). Brawny Fritz (James MacArthur) and brainy Ernst (Tommy Kirk) rescue the girl, squabble over her, and then join the rest of the family in preparing for the inevitable moment the pirates discover their island home.   This 1960 Ken A...

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is back as Dave, but when we first meet him here, he has hung up his Kick-Ass costume to return to normal teenage life. But it just doesn’t feel right, he decides to seek out Hit Girl, AKA Mindy (Chloe Grace Moretz), who is now 15, and her vigilante activities are getting hard for her guardian Marcus (Morris Chestnut) to contain. Dave wants to team up with Mindy, but before they can start training together, Marcus gets wise to what’s going on and puts a stop to it. Mindy ends up falling into line with the societal norms of high school life…puberty and joining a clique! This leaves Dave looking for a sidekick, and the ultra-lame Dr. Gravity (Donald Faison), who introduces Dave/Kick-Ass to a team of superheroes led by the gruff Colonel Stars and Stripes (Jim Carrey), whilst also hooking up with the spunky Night Bitch (Lindy Booth). Meanwhile the former Red Mist, AKA rich twit Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) is still nursing a grudge against Kick-Ass, and...

1968, and the Vietnam War is raging. D.B. Sweeney plays a soldier (and son of a soldier) who wants nothing more than to do his bit fighting over in Vietnam. Instead, he’s in the U.S. as a part of the ‘Old Guard’, in charge of guarding the Arlington National Cemetery, and their main duty is to pay their respects to the fallen soldiers at their funerals, killed while fighting in Vietnam. Sweeney is taken under the wing of Sergeants James Caan and his more upbeat and easygoing pal James Earl Jones. Caan would like to be doing something more constructive, even though he personally disagrees with this particular war. The more gung-ho, but far less experienced Sweeney just can’t wrap his head around such complexities. Meanwhile, Caan strikes up a relationship with liberal Washington Post reporter (Anjelica Huston), who lives just down the hall from him, and Sweeney bumps into his former sweetheart (Mary Stuart Masterson), whose Colonel father disapproves of dating below one’s rank (Maste...