Judson's Blog (9)

Well, the wait is finally over and the most anticipated movie of the year and possibly the decade is finally here. And boy, does it live up to the overwhelming hype. There's a ton of praise for this movie going around so I'm simply going to list the reasons why The Dark Knight is not only the best comic book movie ever but also an amazing stand alone film. The Joker and Harvey Dent. The most notable change in the sequel to Batman Begins is the addition of two great villians. The Joker is argua… Continue

After all the various superhero movies that Hollywood's put out lately, we finally get Hancock, something original that's not based on a comic. From the previews this movie looked like gold because it had 1) Will Smith as a superhero and 2) a unique twist on the superhero genre that looked funny. Will Smith has pretty much become the world's biggest movie star, now having had 8 straight movies open at #1 and gross at least $100 million. The man has charm and is also a great actor (if you still d… Continue

Vantage Point is a case where the idea is really great but the movie just doesn't deliver. The story takes place in Spain where the President is giving a speech and is shot. Everything is in chaos and then a couple of bombs go off. But who did it and how? Well, we find that out through the vantage points of various characters that were at the scene. The premise is very original and I give the film points for that. However, the acting is cheesy and some of the scenarios are just plain silly. Fore… Continue

Persepolis tells the story of Marjane Statrapi, a girl growing up in 1970's Iran. It shows the state of Iran and the defeat of the hated Shah through her young eyes. In essence it's a coming of age story but it's really eye opening. The conditions that women have to live through in Iran is truly horrifying and Marjane refuses to remain quiet. She fights back and refuses to be treated like a dog. Every time I hear or see something about the treatment of women in foreign countries like this I get… Continue

If every action movie fan around the world had one big dream where anything was possible, bullet time was always involved, hot chicks kicked ass, and superhumans could curve bullets around street corners....it'd probably be something like Wanted. This movie is every action fan's dream come true. Possibly the most amazing action sequences and visuals are in this flick. In one scene, Fox (Angelina Jolie) is leaning out of her niceass car with a gun shooting at a gunman that is chasing her from beh… Continue

As the highly anticipated Pixar movie WALL-E begins, we meet perhaps the most lovable character ever put on screen next to E.T. Left on Earth all by his lonesome, WALL-E lives his life day to day doing what he was built to do: clean up all the trash on the planet that we humans have left. There are mountains and sky scrapers of garbage everywhere which WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) and other robots of his kind have been sorting into squares and placing them in order. There's… Continue

HULK SMASH!!!! Everyone's favorite misunderstood, loving green beastie is back and better than ever in this summer's The Incredible Hulk. Many people probably have reservations about this movie because only five years ago Ang Lee's Hulk left a bad taste in everyone's mouths. I'm happy to say that the taste has been completely washed out with this reboot of the franchise. Now I didn't completely hate 2003's Hulk when it came out, but after watching The Incredible Hulk I can now say I do hate the… Continue

Get Smart is a movie that I was only really interested to see because of its fabulous cast. The story looked alright and I didn't really know much about the TV show it's based on. So, I decided to check it out mainly because of Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. I'm a big fan of Carell's work and Hathaway is proving that she can play any role out there (Princess Diaries, Brokeback Mountain, Devil Wears Prada, etc). But could they both pull off being the stars of an action comedy based on a TV show… Continue

I really wanted to like The Happening, I really did. I consider myself a fan of M. Night Shyamalan and really liked The Village even though lots of others didn't. This movie, however, is really bad. I would definitely consider it Night's worst film as well. The thing that's so unfortunate is that the movie actually started out looking promising. The story involves a mysterious "gas" that is released in various parks across the northeast which makes people kill themselves. Mark Wahlberg plays Ell… Continue