Movie Review Time! BEOWULF, CRAZY HEART, SHERLOCK HOLMES, more!

I just saw BEOWULF (2007). I liked it. It's a big cartoon, cut it some slack, OK? It was more fun than 300 and it already looks better than THOR. (Now I know why they cast Anthony Hopkins as Odin....Thanks, BEOWULF!) Grendel, Grendel's mother....naughty, naughty!

CRAZY HEART (2009) I really enjoyed this country music-flavored movie. A simple story with rock solid acting by likable actors. Even Colin Farrell does well here! Maggie Gyllenhall is good. Jeff Bridges is good. Bad Blake abides....

Speaking of alluding to the Coen Bros., I finally saw their live-action cartoon, INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (2003) and I liked it more than I thought I would. It's a trifle, for sure. This was no BIG LEBOWSKI or HUDSUCKER PROXY, but it was kind of fun. Coen Bros. Lite. I'm feeling generous...I'm cutting George Clooney some slack after FANTASTIC MR. FOX. "Gus Petch will nail your ASS!" "The Massey prenup! It's ironclad!" I've run out of quotes....

None of my friends enjoyed SHOPGIRL (2005) so I might be unfriended for admitting that I enjoyed this mushball movie. Steve Martin wrote this movie as well as starred in it. When Steve Martin writes a movie, it's usually good (as opposed to 98 percent of his movies). Steve Martin is kind of pathetic in this one. Claire Danes is good and I always enjoy the quirky Jason Schwartzman. This is kind of Steve Martin's LOST IN TRANSLATION (which is a better film for sure) and he's a little full of himself, even narrating the movie. Still, it held my interest.

SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009) is a snoozer. Y-a-a-a-aaawn! God awful in its inert dullness. I'm so 3008, it's so 1008!  They should have lit a few more candles in certain scenes so we can see what's happening. None of the stars have chemistry, Robert Downey, Jr. is an unconvincing Brit riding on IRON MAN good will (and good marketing, I guess ---- how and why did this do well?) A Bloomingdales mannequin can act better than the lead actress, whoever she was. Whose idea was it to pair up RDJR with Jude Law as Doc Watson? JUDE LAW??? He's not even fat! Oh, God, even the score is annoying: that fiddle is in pain!! Someone put that violin out of its misery. It was like a Holocaust movie soundtrack gone awry! What gives? This film should have been titled LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (minus the LEAGUE OF EXTRA). Skip this mess!

The YOGI BEAR movie trailer (2010)....(Don't even get me started on how wrong this movie looks! I'll sooner rent MARMADUKE!!!!)

The trailer for THOR (2010). It's no secret that I was let down by the logic-challenged IRON MAN 2, which I felt, following the atrociously mindless and irrational WOLVERINE, signaled the jumping of the Marvel superhero movie shark (named Bruce). Well, the trailer for THOR seems to confirm this. WHAT THE HELL IS THOR DOING RUNNING AROUND NEW MEXICO, FENDING OFF GOVERNMENT AGENTS? HE'S NOT THE HULK!!! DID ANYONE READ THE COMIC BEFORE MAKING THIS MOVIE? DID ANYONE SEE "BEOWULF"? THAT's what the THOR movie should look like! Crazy blood and guts and demons and dragons and sword and sorcery and larger-than-life deities...And how about Manhattan? Donald Blake is an urbane doctor with a limp living in the big city, not some wandering beach-bum transient! What giveth?

The biggest problem with THOR is the same affliction that plagued the FANTASTIC FOUR flicks: it's missing the Kirby flair. Someone needs to replicate and incorporate Kirby's cosmic aesthetic. ESPECIALLY with stuff like the FF and THOR. Those are SO Kirby....

If Jack Kirby were alive today, he'd show up on the set of THOR and shoot 11 people, then turn the gun on himself. Since he's no longer around, someone should've done that for him! (now THAT's a movie shoot....LOL).

Here's a better Thor than anything in that damn film:

It's a redesign of the Mighty Thor, inked by Don Heck. Hell, this is almost as great as the original Thor costume design. I love the gloves, where can I get a pair?Burberry? Kirby probably pooped this out......but even Kirby's throwaways are genius!