Tag: movies 2010

  • Hijinks Movie Reviews: Green Zone

    I first heard about Green Zone during it’s release week, which was March 12, 2010. It was wrapped in a fancy package:

    Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93) re-team for the electrifying thriller Green Zone.

    So of course, I saw the first 10 words or so, combined with the description of ‘electrifying thriller’ and I thought, “Sweet! It’s going to be like a Bourne movie!” Well, it wasn’t exactly like a Bourne movie.

    Released on DVD and Blu-Ray on June 22, 2010, I had to wait until late July to get it because of the stupid limitations and delays Netflix gets. I finally got around to watching it the other night and it was very different from what I expected. Matt Damon is another of my ‘movie crushes’, I’ll often watch a movie simply because his name is in the credits. Stuck on You is a good example of another Damon movie I watched just because he was in it (coincidentally, Damon’s co-star Greg Kinnear was also in that one, and I kept teasing my wife asking her how long after Stuck on You this movie took place because they didn’t even seem to recognize each other anymore since they were separated.)

    Stupid jokes aside, we’ll get into what Green Zone was, the good and the bad, after the jump. (more…)

  • Hijinks Movie Reviews: Toy Story 3

    I’d like to begin this review by saying I actually went to the 3D version of this movie. This was my first experience with the new digital 3D movies and I must say, I don’t see what the big deal was. Maybe this movie just didn’t take full advantage of the 3D (it seems everything is hyping the fact that they are in 3D these days, do we really need this many?), but if this is what a regular 3D experience is like in the theaters, it’s totally not worth the extra money. Yeah, the movie trailers at the beginning were really cool because it was this brand new experience and my eyeballs were all like, “Whoa! I can see things in a whole new way, this is fantastic!”, but as the movie went along it quickly started to look like the regular version. It was at this point that my eyes were like, “Alright, why did I pay the extra money for this? I can hardly remember this thing is in 3D in the first place until I pay attention to the added depth, but then I’m not paying attention to the actual movie anymore, just the novelty of the 3D.” Maybe I just missed it, maybe I’m not evolved enough to truly enjoy the 3D experience, but I digress.

    The movie itself was fantastic, but what I really walked away from the theater with was an appreciation for the short that Pixar included before the movie, as they do with all their flicks. This one was called Day & Night, here’s the official write up for it:

    “When Day, a sunny fellow, encounters Night, a stranger of distinctly darker moods, sparks fly! Day and Night are frightened and suspicious of each other at first, and quickly get off on the wrong foot. But as they discover each other’s unique qualities — and come to realize that each of them offers a different window onto the same world — the friendship helps both to gain a new perspective.”

    At this point, my eyes were still on their visual joyride and I was really digging the 3D experience. It was such a simple little film and I was busy laughing at how these two animated little guys were showing off and trying to one up each other, and next thing I knew I was being hit by this really touching, meaningful story about friendship and overcoming each other’s differences to grow as individuals and work together. It was pretty cool.

    But anyway, on to the actual review of Toy Story 3 after the jump. Possible spoilers included. (more…)

  • Hijinks Movie Reviews: Shutter Island

    Welcome to our first movie review! (Well, technically the 2nd movie we’ve reviewed I guess, but the first from our ‘new look’ Hijinks Inc. And even then, that movie was reviewed twice as you’ll find here and here… and I’ll be wrapping up this rabbit trail right about…. now)

    Shutter Island is based on a book by the same name and was released in theaters February 19, 2010 and on Blu-ray and DVD June 8, 2010. A quick lookup on Wikipedia will give you this blurb:

    Shutter Island is a 2010 American psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese. The film is based on Dennis Lehane‘s 2003 novel of the same name. Production started in March 2008. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as U.S. Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels, who is investigating the psychiatric facility on Shutter Island.

    I’ve always had tepid anticipation for pretty much every Leonardo DiCaprio movie because I still kind of hold it against him that a crappy movie like Titanic (the boat sinks people! We all knew that going in and it STILL held the box office record!) sat atop the box office mostly due to little girls repetitively attending and fawning over Leo. However, he’s been in some really good movies lately, The Departed being my favorite, so maybe I need to re-evaluate my opinion of him. The fact that this was another Martin Scorsese film also grabbed my attention, but still, it looked like it was just trying to be the next creepy horror-ish type movie, probably with a twist at the end that nobody was supposed to see coming. I guess, to an extent, this holds true, but it’s done very well. More after the jump, including possible spoilers.

    (more…)