What fun.  Can a bloody, gory, super-violent film be funny and even sweet?  Yes.  Bill Murray’s cameo as himself is worth the price alone.

FF=1

I was kind of disappointed in this because the hero was written as a childish, spoiled brat.  I’m not a Holmes purist but, if you’re going to call the film “Sherlock Holmes,” then you owe the source material some respect or at least regard.  Give the character another name and this would have been a serviceable period action flick, but with the title as is, the thing doesn’t work.  Watching Robert Downey, Jr, is never a waste of time, however.

FF=1

What an odd mix of horror, spectacle, and mordant humor. I’m sure I’m not the first to say this (gimme props if I am), but imagine The Poseidon Adventure written by HPL and Robert Bloch.

FF=1

When Worlds Collide meets Day After Tomorrow meets Twister meets…you get the picture?  I had an excellent time with this, but then, I’ve always suffered from a weakness for disaster porn.  The story is a checklist of disaster cliches, but the tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanoes are amazing.

FF=1

Not as good as I expected.  A locked-room (actually a locked-island) mystery procedural crossed with Antonioni’s =Blow Up=.  I haven’t read the book, so I can’t compare. A few harrowing scenes that earn its R rating, but the movie is a bit plodding as you sift through all the evidence.  The eponymous girl saves it.  She has great presence.

FF=1

Pretty damn good. The storyline unfocuses a little now and again but things keep moving. Some very intense scenes. I think Timothy Olyphant would make a good Jack (but I’ve said that since “Deadwood”).

FF=1

A pleasant surprise. A mistaken-identity farce that requires ninja-class ability to suspend disbelief, but has some laugh-aloud lines. James Franco (as “Taste”) gives a lesson in how to steal a scene from the stars.

FF=1

NOT a feel-good film. Good performances but the spectacle of this self-destructive, compulsive womanizer making one horrendous decision after another gets old very quickly.  I didn’t FF much because I was waiting to see some glimmer of self-awareness, some hint of a possibility of redemption, but alas…

FF=1

A fact-based story of 2 Orthodox Jewish teens (one of them played by Jesse Eisenberg) in the late 90s who become Ecstasy mules for the Israeli mob. (Really, who’s going to hassle a Hasid returning from the Holy Land?) A fascinating peek inside the bizarre Hasidic culture (glad I wasn’t born into that) and the Israeli drug trade.

FF=1

Another fascinating look into yet another culture, this time Japanese. A sort of slice-of-Yokusuka (a small town at the lower end of Tokyo Bay) family life, skewed by a fifteen-year-old tragedy that still haunts the parents. If this leisurely paced (I’m being generous – it’s plodding) film had been about an American family, the FF would have been 8, but the Japanese…with their different architecture, food, furniture, and customs, it’s like peeking at life on another planet.

FF=1