Movie Muse

Last Tuesday, — so exactly a week ago — Movie Muse turned one year old! Although moviemusereviews.com still has a few more months to go, I still thought it fit to reflect on my first year of movie blogging.

As amateur as the word “blogging” has sounded to the human ear since the term’s inception, there’s a remarkable lot that you can learn as a blogger and more surprisingly, a lot of ways in which you can grow as a writer and person. I thought I would share some of those with you today. Read the rest of this entry »

Most aspiring filmmakers don’t even dare to dream about suddenly rising to fame; Edgar Wright is one of the few who has actually lived it. Even the most successful directors today would probably wish they were in his position at the young age of 36. Basically, who wouldn’t want to be Edgar Wright? The British filmmaker is on the verge of releasing “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” based on the comic series of the same name, and it’s one of 2010′s most anticipated films. Read the rest of this entry »

“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” just bombed at the box office. We’ve come a long way since “Homeward Bound,” people.

Now that you’ve had a paragraph break to dab the mist in the corners of your eyes at the mere mention of the 1993 classic featuring Chance, Sassy and Shadow, I can evoke your anger at the destruction of the live-action animal film, let alone the ones where the animals move their mouths and famous actors’ voices come out. Read the rest of this entry »

So it seems that everyone’s talking about “Inception” these days, and yes,  it’s for good reason. The film is a towering achievement of creativity/originality and provides some challenging thoughts about our dreams and subconsciouses. Plus, as you can tell by the title of this post, it provides a brilliant closing shot just to make sure everyone leaves the theater talking.

If I need to tell you not to read any further if you haven’t seen the film because “here be spoilers,” then you’re a particularly clueless human being a.) because obviously I’m about to talk about the end of a movie you haven’t seen and b.) you should be out seeing it right now. If you haven’t had a meaningful film discussion since “Avatar” you need to go see this movie. That’s mainly because “Avatar” doesn’t provide any meaningful film discussion. Hence, I’ve just duped you into realizing you haven’t seen a seriously intellectual film in a long time.

So, on to the ending of “Inception” for those of you who go see a good movie when you’re told. Thank you. As for the idiots still reading, you were warned. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m living in the city now, which is exciting, but if you’re not a cinephile like myself, you’re probably not thinking that this would have any impact on my ability to watch movies. You would be wrong. For one thing, theaters are much more scarce down here whereas in the suburbs they cater to specific towns/regions and are never more than 15 minutes away by car. There’s also parking. But that’s another matter. Right now, I’m talking specifically about watching movies that I missed in theaters that have just come out on DVD. In the burbs, the library was my best option. Brand new releases were tough to get, but they were free. Now, I’ve discovered the wonders of Redbox. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been looking for an excuse to say Twilight is bad for you health, but apparently it wasn’t just wishful thinking. ABC News released this report Friday investigating the teenage phenomenon of biting, which is exactly what it sounds like: guys and girls biting each other’s necks, sometimes with the intention of drawing blood. Read the rest of this entry »

I figured I would use the weekend to muse a bit more often that I’ve been doing lately. Today, I thought I would discuss my thoughts on what it’s like seeing movies in the theater by myself and why it’s not the ideal situation for a film critic.

—

As an independent film blogger and section editor/chief critic for a website, I’ve had to do something these past few months that I’d never done more than maybe twice my entire life prior: go see movies alone.

It must be a terrifying thought to the average theater-goer. There you are in a giant theater with nothing but your cell phone handy to either occupy time or pretend that you’re waiting for someone who never shows up. Imagine doing this in the ’90s or earlier and not even having your cell phone. Sorry, I didn’t mean to take you down that dark pit of despair. But this has been my reality on a few occasions lately. Read the rest of this entry »

Not really sure what all this “The Last Airbender” business is about? Neither am I — and neither is anyone born before 1990. Join me as a fumble my way through flash websites, Wikipedia and more in attempt to learn something about one of this summer’s biggest fantasy films. I’ve scrummaged through the elemental nations, character, trailers, clips and more, so at least respect how much time I’ve put in and read.

Read the rest of this entry »

Walt Disney Pictures is taking a big risk this weekend. Well, actually, the risk was taken awhile back and now it’s time to see if “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” can pay off.

When Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer realized it would be quite some time before another Pirates of the Caribbean film would be able to come together, they began looking for solutions. Interestingly enough, they zeroed in on a video game, “Prince of Persia,” a title that’s been around since 1989, managing to find life on the 3-D gaming platform, first on Sega Dreamcast and then on Play Station 2 and 3 thanks to Ubisoft.

Seeing as video game adaptations have been cursed for ages as nothing more than cult hits for a segment of the male population, the risk by Disney of all people to bring the first fantasy/adventure game (one not involving sci-fi, fighting or guns) is tremendous. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite disappointing at the box office by comparison to its predecessors, “Shrek Forever After” did manage to set records this weekend: 3-D IMAX tickets for the film in some parts of the country cost as much as $20 for a single adult ticket.

The Wall Street Journal reported just prior to this weekend that at least four AMC theaters in the New York City area would be charging those kind of prices for 3-D IMAX showings and the breaking of the $20 threshold has avid moviegoers in arms. Earlier this year in March, 3-D and IMAX prices were hiked for the last DreamWorks film, “How to Train Your Dragon,” with tickets going up more than 25 percent in some parts of the country. Read the rest of this entry »

Amanda Seyfried is such an “it” actress right now that you probably forgot she used to be a mean girl. Remember Karen, the girl whose nipples possessed the ability to tell when it was going to rain? That was Seyfried, and almost needless to say she’s come a long way from the dumb blonde stereotype in “Mean Girls” over the last six years.

That’s it. Six years is all it’s taken for Seyfried to go from one of many in a teen comedy to bona-fide romance actress, playing the lead in the second-most successful romance film of 2010 in “Dear John” and Friday’s “Letters to Juliet,” Summit Entertainment’s best non-Twilight shot at making money this year. Read the rest of this entry »

At some point, every movie-watcher grows really tired of the horror film or thriller where a mysterious or overpowering killer knocks off one main character at a time and then only two survive long enough to make it to the final showdown and usually one of them is a minority. See, at least a dozen movies just popped into your head.

Yet the formula has withstood the test of time, and what began with “Jaws” in the ’70s  and evolved into the slasher movie has become a staple of cinema. The terrifying Freddy Kreuger, who stars in Friday’s remake of the tremendously successful Wes Craven slasher “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” is an example of a successful execution of the formula. It’s sequels? Maybe not so much. But rather than dwell on all the terrible head-shaking examples of slasher films, why not try something a bit different?

That’s why I’ve created this list of ten movies that actually would’ve been way better had they been conceived as slasher films. I’d love to hear some of your ideas, but here are some solid ones I came up with. You can tell that I took this half seriously and half jokingly, which I think is fair. Read the rest of this entry »

If you look at the Best Leading and Supporting Actress categories at last month’s Oscars, it was a good year for emerging female talent. Carey Mulligan got off to what’s sure to be a prestigious career and “Up in the Air” co-stars Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga got deserved attention too. None, however, broke into the mainstream quite like Zoe Saldana. With a comedy already out this month (“Death at a Funeral”) and an action flick due Friday (“The Losers”), she’s quickly becoming as versatile as she is sexy and it’s about time the credit follows Read the rest of this entry »

If there were a constitution of cinema and Hollywood had its own government along with separation of powers and in all likelihood a Supreme Court of the most powerful figures in the industry, not only would that be awesome and open up hundreds more press jobs which I would be qualified for, but also at some point within the last two years, some cinematic lawmaker would’ve proposed an amendment to write in “superhero” as its own genre. Read the rest of this entry »

I normally hate child actors, especially the prolific ones. Every time I saw a preview with 9-year-old Dakota Fanning I rolled my eyes. Spencer Breslin in his day was painful to look at and his sister Abigail was not in anything good outside of Little Miss Sunshine. Freddie Highmore of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was acceptable but did he have to be in everything back then?

But now there’s finally a kid actor worth liking and her name is Chloe Moretz. Playing the smart kid sister to Joseph Gordon-Levitt in (500) Days of Summer, she instantly jumped out as being more than just an annoying little girl. She’s mature and she’s actually funny; she has good comedic timing. She’s also about to explode onto the scene in next month’s highly anticipated Kick-Ass. Read the rest of this entry »