Category Archives: Film

Yun Kouga and Yuu Kou: Loveless

Yun Kouga’s Loveless has been a very successful manga series and a widely praised anime series, which was developed from the first four volumes of the manga. I’m warning you, whatever preconceptions you have about anime had best be jettisoned … Continue reading

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Kazuya Minekura and Hayato Date: Saiyuki

As seems to be inevitable, Kazuya Minekura’s popular manga series Saiyuki was adapated to an anime TV series. What is perhaps less usual is that the series ran for two seasons and was followed by two more TV series. After … Continue reading

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Milos Forman’s Amadeus

The story of Amadeus is by now fairly well known. From a screenplay by Peter Shaffer based in turn on his original stage play, the film is told in flashback from the viewpoint of Italian composer Antonio Salieri, who lived and worked … Continue reading

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Renny Harlin’s The Legend of Hercules

Once upon a time, after having been pretty much housebound for most of a week, I decided to go to the movies and wound up seeing The Legend of Hercules. No particular desire on my part to see it, but … Continue reading

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James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy

If you’re longing for a superhero/science fiction action-adventure film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, Guardians of the Galaxy is it. I’ll readily admit that I’m not terribly enthusiastic about action-adventure films that take themselves without a grain of salt, … Continue reading

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Norberto Barba, et al.: Grimm, Seasons One and Two

The NBC Television series Grimm entered my life quite by chance, when our esteemed publisher e-mailed me asking whether I wanted to review it. Knowing absolutely nothing about it, but having a newly acquired TV and DVD player, of course … Continue reading

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The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: The 20th Anniversary Edition

With The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, alas, the malign gods were paying attention and behaving not unlike Terry Pratchett’s Auditors, practically warping time and space to mess with Terry Gilliam. They failed to ruin the film — Munchausen is magnificent, … Continue reading

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Chris Butler and Sam Fell’s ParaNorman

I saw a trailer for ParaNorman, and also read about the “controversy” (in quotes because some people will invent a controversy where there is none), and decided I had to see it. Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a rather exceptional … Continue reading

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Pitof’s Catwoman

James wrote this review. If all you need in a movie is Halle Berry in a tight, revealing leather outfit cracking a whip, stop reading this right now and go see Catwoman. If you care about anything else in a … Continue reading

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Harold Zwart’s Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Along with the recent surge of superhero movies, we seem to have had a spate of films based on fantasy/dystopian future science fiction series oriented toward teenagers. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although the results, as might be … Continue reading

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