Reel Reviews

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 -- Everybody else seems to be on board with this go-around as better than the first set. I'm not so sure. I can fairly vividly remember certain scenes from those earlier movies; I can't say much the same about the first in this series. And while this and its predecessor are certainly entertaining in the moment, it is the long term impact that makes for a great movie, or even a very good one. I liked this flick, but I'm just not sure how much. I guess you're on your own here.

Reel Reviews

Noah -- If it had been all theology, this movie would have been a dud. With the human dimensions added to the story--which is already at its core a pretty good story--the equation changes in this flick's favor. It still suffers somewhat from its bible story origins--pieces of the narrative feel like those children's books based on the scriptures that your weird aunt or uncle gives you for a birthday present--but the overall effect of good performances, interesting direction, and universal themes make the movie worth the effort.

Structural Change

If you've stumbled across this site in the past, and are coming back now for some benighted reason, you may be noticing a change in the way the Reel Reviews are being posted. No longer will individual movie reviews be organized according to the old habit of lumping everything together by alphabetical title. Now, each individual review will be its own post.

This make sense on a number of levels, and the change should have been implemented much sooner. For one thing, individual posts makes each of the reviews substantially more search friendly. While organizing all of the reviews alphabetically allowed for easier browsing of reviews that were not the object of the original search--just scroll through the list and find something interesting--the plain fact is that anyone reading this site probably is not really that interested in scrolling through that long list (especially under popular alphabetical titles, as with the 'S' or 'M' titles). Also, individual posts make creating the links in the sidebar substantially easier. They also make manually date-stamping each post's content unnecessary, since every post is automatically date and time stamped. Overall, I think it will be a cleaner, more efficient way of recording these reviews.

It will still be possible to browse reviews alphabetically, since all review posts will still get the individual letter-appropriate 'Reel Reviews -- ?' tag (where the ? represents a given alphabetical). Just click on the tag from the list in the sidebar and up will pop all the titles under that letter--except in 'most recent' rather than alphabetical order. Plus, individual posts will allow for other tags to be applied to a review, such as 'Comedy' or 'Drama' for an appropriate film, so that a complete list of any genre can be called up just with a click.

As time and gumption permits, I will be converting old, lumped together review posts to individual postings. The 'new-old' posts will get a new date and time stamp, but I'll keep the original 'Posted 00/00/00' date in the copy to distinguish those reviews from more recent stuff. Let's hope this all works out well and makes this database of movie reviews even more useful than ever before.

UPDATE: I've realized after the fact that I can back date posts if I so choose, and I'll do so on the older Reel Reviews posts. But I'll still keep the original 'posted on' dates in the text to easily distinguish old posts from the newer reviews.

Reel Reviews

The Grand Budapest Hotel -- As with every Wes Anderson film, you get quite the avalanche of quirky here. The effect is almost overwhelming at first, but eventually the film settles into its own little groove and winds up telling a story that’s clever, engaging, and ultimately both satisfying and a little bit heartbreaking. I don’t know if this movie would actually pull in anyone who isn’t already an Anderson fan, but for those who appreciate his oeuvre, this one is certainly worth a look.