Friday, May 25, 2012 If you’re like me, you may have pondered, “Why, 10 years after an MIB sequel that stunk up the theatre like Edgar the Bug’s rotting human skin, are they releasing another sequel? How can it possibly be worth seeing?” Well, you ask, is it? Oh yeah! Definitely the best of the …
Battleship: A Waterlogged Absurdity You Can Cheer For
Friday, May 18, 2012 Battleship feels like a two-hour Navy recruitment video. I’m surprised blue and gold aren’t the colors used on the movie poster, along with “GO NAVY!” and “BEAT ALIENS!” If you leave your brain at the front door of the multiplex on a day you feel like rooting for the home team, …
Dark Shadows: A Mere Shadow of What it Could Be
Friday, May 11, 2012 Tim Burton, as the stylized director of such glorious oddities as Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and Ed Wood, is the pied piper to the inner goth in all of us. So it is with a heavy heart Cinema Siren has to report Dark Shadows, while it might have moments of loopy greatness …
2012 Summer Movie Preview
Friday, April 27, 2012 Every year about this time, it’s the calm before the theatrical storm. Things are winding up in Hollywood, as the studios prepare for their marketing onslaught. Should we, the movie viewing public, be getting excited? What can we expect this summer? What spectacles are headed our way? You can take stock …
Cabin in the Woods: A Genre-Busting, Blood-Soaked, and Great
Friday, April 13, 2012 If you are a horror fan, you must see The Cabin in the Woods. If you aren’t a horror fan but like your movies full of surprises, or your movie genres scrambled like eggs, you must see The Cabin in the Woods. Joss is boss. Or so say his devoted fans, …
10 Documentaries that Changed the World for Children
Friday, April 6, 2012 The Weinstein Co. has made the choice to open the new documentary Bully on April 13th, the same day as Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods and Luc Besson’s Lockdown, hoping to appeal to the more sophisticated and socially aware film goers. In advance of this release, Cinema Siren thought …
Mirror, Mirror: Fair But Flawed
Friday, March 30, 2012 Mirror, Mirror is the first and lighter of two movies based on the tale of Snow White to be released this year. It’s a charming, sweet, albeit flawed little confection, worth seeing if you love inventive production and costume design, but especially if you have a soft spot for the work …
The Hunger Games: Odds Ever In Their Favor
Friday, March 23, 2012 For many teenagers, life feels like a matter of life and death. In The Hunger Games, it actually is. The new release, destined to be a blockbuster from the pre-sold tickets alone, is a beautiful, deeply affecting, and riveting film with a heroine for the ages. Actress Jennifer Lawrence, luminous and …
21 Jump Street: A Surprisingly Funny New Take on an Old Address
Friday, March 16, 2012 We reviewers are supposed to stay objective. However, I went into 21 Jump Street, which I expected to be a derivative soulless pile of cliches, with little hope of enjoying the next 109 minutes. To my surprise it turned out to be the big hulking anatomical joke-spewing genuine bromance-building raunchcom that …
John Carter
Friday, March 9, 2012 Here Cinema Siren goes again, going against the critical masses. I love John Carter. While it groans under the pressure of its need for exposition, it is an exotic and thrilling space tale that embraces it’s awkward hugeness with such a sense of fun and excitement, I, along with much of …