On Christmas Eve in Victorian England, Ebenezer Scrooge, a bitter and miserly old moneylender, holds everything that embodies the joys and spirit of Christmas in contempt, refusing to visit his cheerful nephew Fred’s Christmas dinner party with his family, and forcing his underpaid employee Bob Cratchit to beg to take the day off for his own family. That night, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who had died seven years prior on Christmas Eve and is now forced to spend his afterlife carrying heavy chains forged from his own greedy ways. Marley warns Scrooge that he will suffer an even worse fate if he doesn’t repent, and foretells that he will be haunted by three spirits that will help guide him. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Movie’ Category
Disney’s – A Christmas Carol
Wednesday, November 18th, 20092012
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
The film begins in year 2009, when there is a huge explosion on the surface of the sun. We then see Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an American scientist, traveling to a copper mine in India to meet his friend, who discovered that Earth’s temperature is increasing rapidly. He returns to Washington D.C. and submits a report to his supervisor, who immediately takes him to the president. In 2010, we see the President of the United States tell other heads of state the situation (the world is ending) and we also see billionaires all over the world buying plane tickets for untold sums of money. In 2011 the original of The Mona Lisa in the Louvre is replaced with a decoy, and is sealed away for unknown reasons. (more…)
Zombieland (2009)
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Zombie films about a core group of survivors are, at this point, a staple of the genre and with that comes coming to terms that some of these people are going to die. You might actually care about these people, and it’s a horrible thing. Shaun of the Dead, which is probably the best zombie film in the last 20 years, was keenly aware of this and while it was laugh out loud funny, it was also heart-wrenching and suspenseful. Zombieland is funny, but that’s about it. Zombieland is no Shaun of the Dead, that’s for sure. While amusing at times, brutally violent at others, the story and the characters just don’t resonate as real people. Their motivations are simplistic and mostly two-note and the story is utterly predictable. Which is shame because the opening 10 minutes or so are fantastic. (more…)
Edges of Darkness (2009)
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
The film opens with a few quotes from the Bible, more specifically the “Book of Revelation” – The writers add an –s to the end of this word, which irritates me beyond sanity – and this tells us that a) this is an end of times film and b) we’ll be seeing some zombies. And we do. A group of them are noshing on all sorts of bloody body parts with great relish. Many extreme close-ups are added for a gross out effect. In this zombie throng is Heather (Michelle Rose), a Lara Croft look-alike who is touted as a “warrior.” She saves a mother (Kelly Murray) and her young son and takes them back to her apartment. Later in the film, she will tangle with several bad acting, literally and figuratively, priests who are looking for this boy. (more…)