The Movie Adviser

Today we are going to talk about recent movies that did not get quite the attention they deserved.  Before we get right into it, I want to talk about a movie that did get attention.  I recently saw The Artist, the movie that won best picture last year. Don’t get me wrong, The Artist was [...]

I am generally not a fan of sequels.  All too often they are cynical attempts to cash in on a movie that did well, and thus stink.  Today we are going to discuss the best sequels of all time.  Let’s first define a sequel, or more importantly what a sequel is not.  For purposes of [...]

People who read this blog read it for one reason and one reason only….they are related to me and are afraid they will offend me if they don’t read it.  OK, they also read it to learn about and appreciate movies a little more. It is in the spirit of this second (albeit much less [...]

Today we are going to be talking about crazy movies.  And I don’t mean your everyday Tarantino craziness either.  I am talking about movies that have gone completely around the bend and taken a sharp left at crazy town.  And I am not going to stop until I have introduced you to the most insane [...]

Today we are going to be talking about something very near and dear to my heart.   I love movies, but I enjoy a good book as much as anyone.  In fact more than most people, unless that person is my wife or son.  But sometimes these two worlds merge and the results can be fabulous.  [...]

Did you ever know that one person who was top of your class, and a great athlete and really good looking, who everybody loved?  Didn’t you hate that guy?  Yeah..me too.  This post is dedicated to that guy.  In that spirit of unfair perfection we will be looking at actors who gave great musical performances [...]

There is a fine line between pretentious and profound.  Movies have a very hard time straddling that line.  Very rarely have I seen a movie that did a better job of it than one I recently saw, and I am going to use a word I have never used in this blog before, art.  Tree [...]

Today, rather than just list my favorite films on a certain topic, I am going to try something different.  Now I know that it seems that recently I have only been trying different things, and a return to a list would in itself be different (that smell you are noticing is the wood burning as [...]

I apologize for the delay since the last blog, but sometimes life gets away from you.  I have been working on a specific idea for some time now, but it is still percolating.  In the meantime I would like to share some movies I have not discussed before, and go in depth into one I [...]

Passion, hunger and love.  They really mean the same thing.  Thankfully, in my life I have all three.   I love my wife and kids, for any one who has ever seen me, I obviously have a great hunger for food, and I have a great passion for movies.   I recently saw a movie [...]

Everybody likes a movie tough guy.  Watching a great tough guy in a movie is equal parts hero worship and wish fulfillment.  We all wish we had the nerve to solve our problems with the judicious application of a flamethrower.  So today we are going to discuss my favorite movie tough guys (and a girl, but more [...]

Today we are going to do something a little unusual for me.  I am going to focus just on two movies.  I recently saw two very different movies and I am not sure how I feel about them.  So I am going to use this blog to examine them and try to sort out my [...]

Ahh to be a geek.  Truly it is a glorious thing, particularly today.  Never before has the geek been more powerful, more sought after, more beloved, more, dare I say it, cool.  A couple of weeks ago, the world experienced the annual nerd-vana that is Comicon.  The most highly sought after pop cultural marketing event [...]

Every now and again I see a movie that makes me laugh and cry and think.  I treasure these movies.  Sometimes they are universally regarded as great movies, sometimes they are more personal.  The Coen brothers are film makers that speak to me in this way more than most.  I recently watched “A serious man”  [...]

Many times when people talk about what are considered to be the greatest movies they find them perplexing, slow and downright inaccessible.  This is not necessarily because they are stupid or unwilling to move past their comfort zone, it is because they are correct.  Many of the great movies are great precisely because they are [...]

Death is a part of life.  That cannot be denied.  It is also a very big part of movies.  Often a death scene is the emotional highpoint of a movie, the satisfactory cathartic ending, a shocking punch in the gut, or even, as we will find, pretty funny.   In today’s edition we will be looking [...]

Today we are going to talk about super heroes.  It is a given that I am a geek. (What, you thought a suave sophisticate writes a movie blog?) But what kind of geek am I?  In truth, I am a wholesale geek.  I am a fantasy geek, a music geek, a sci-fi geek, but today [...]

Welcome to the biggest post ever!  I wanted to make a nice short ten movie list of my favorite guilty pleasure movies, but after ten minutes of thought I had a list of 30 movies!  I don’t know whether that means I see way too many movies, or whether I like really bad movies.  I [...]

The above qoute from the Tom Cruise trifle “Cocktail” leads into a subject I have been dancing around for a long time.  At long last it is time to discuss bleakest endings to movies.  These are not simply sad endings, or endings where you don’t feel good about how it left off, but endings that [...]

Before I begin this posting I would like to address a comment I received about the holocaust blog.  A particularly astute reader asked me why, knowing my devotion to all things Tarantino, I did not include The Inglorious Basterds on my list.  There are several good reasons, it did not fit the tone, it was [...]