My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Uma Thurman plays a female version of Spiderman. Unlike Spiderman, G-Girl has a bad temper and has trouble keeping a boyfriend. When she is dumped yet again, she becomes exceedingly angry and vindictive. Now she uses her supernatural powers not only to rescue people in need but also to cause mountains of trouble for her Ex. The movie does not work and should never have been made.
Cars
The two previous blockbuster movies by Pixar, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, became such an artistic success because the animal and cartoon characters were more human than most characters in films populated by humans. I was skeptical whether you could turn automobiles into believable human characters. After all, people often love their cars, but they don’t transfer onto the inanimate objects the same emotional energy as they do onto their pets. Cars is not on the same level as Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, but it turned out surprisingly good. It is a great movie for kids, communicating lessons that every parent would like to teach. Adults will also enjoy the film because the computer animations are once again done so well. Imagine what car racing through the Arizona landscape will look like in a computer animation. You will be surprised
King Kong
Good writing goes a long way. I have seen the famous picture of King Kong on the Empire State Building in New York many times. “Isn’t that silly. Such an ape would never climb on top of the New York skyline,” was my reaction every single time. I was never much interested in seeing the original (1933) film, let alone the recent remake. But King Kong held me hostage on the airplane. The film is too long (you can skip the first 40 minutes until the film crew arrives on the island) but from then on Peter Jackson unleashes incredible special effects and the storyline of King Kong is excellent (much better than Jurassic Park), taking you along for a splendid ride. For me, the most amazing feature of the film was how Jackson got the animated animal to display emotions. Jack Black and Adrian Brody were miscast. The only Hollywood star that gives a good performance is Naomi Watts. Now I know where the expression “Beauty and the Beast” comes from.
Match Point
I buried Woody Allen tonight. The first 90 minutes of Match Point were entirely repetitive of his previous films, with the exception the location: the film takes place in London and not Manhattan. I wished I had stayed home and not wasted time on such a trivial movie. Allen’s final mission in life seems to be to prove right Freud’s theory that human beings are entirely controlled by their desires for sex. Allen has devolved into a puppeteer, incapable of creating human characters. But as an artist he has become sterile. His creative impotence is painful to watch. The last thirty minutes of the film relieve the pain only because Allen let’s a murder take place and you want to know whether the murderer gets away with the crime. If a young film student had made this movie, the critics would have buried the person’s career before it ever started. It obviously pays to have a large loyal audience, but I am no longer part of it.
Continue Reading
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie is charming poor boy who lives not far from the world largest chocolate factory. Besides mom and dad, the four grandparents stay in Charlie’s small Hansel and Gretel house whose holes in the roof provide Charlie more with a sense of adventure than discomfort. Presenting an unusual picture of inter-family bliss, the four grandparents of Charlie stay in the same bed all day, always ready to support Charlie in his aspirations. A marvelous story teller, Charlie’s grandfather on the left side of the bed used to work in the chocolate factory. He shares with his grandson the dream of visiting the chocolate factory one more time. Together they try to find a way to make it happen. The imagination powering the film is stunning. This is one of the rare films that will please adults and children alike. Bring a piece of chocolate to the show!
The Island
The Island takes you on a surprising trip. You think that you will end up on a tropical paradise, but the films takes you to lands that you never expected. And it will make you think about your own life in ways that you may have never dared before. It’s a journey worth taking.
Continue Reading
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sixth
Both the recent Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings trilogies baffle me. I thought the first Lord of the Rings film was fantastic. The story built on thousands of years of human mythology and offered visually arresting pictures of a fantasy world inhabited by humans, almost humans, and many other strange creatures that you have never dreamed of. The movie’s special effects went beyond everything that Hollywood had pulled off until then. Since I had not seen any of first three Star Wars movies, my eyes enjoyed the adventure of seeing George Lucas’s vision of what life of the human species in science fiction world on distant stars and out in space would look like. But for me, the second and third episodes in the two trilogies were repetitive and boring. The drama and the script in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sixth are so poor that excellent actors such as Samuel Jackson and Natalie Portman lose their ability to act. Now here is what baffles me. The horrendously boring third episodes draw in more visitors than the much better predecessors. How do you explain that lower-quality films are more successful at the box office than their superior siblings? My guess is: the movies become an event that everyone wants to be a part of and when people go home and tell other people about the film, people evaluate not the films but the social event they were just participating in. The final episodes of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings were marketed into gigantic social events!
The Incredibles
Would Pixar Studios be able to put out another movie in the league of Finding Nemo? During the first hour I became skeptical but the second hour proved this film to be amazingly good as well. I am awed by the creativity of Pixar. How do these people continue to crank out one commercial and artistic hit after another? The Incredibles manages to mix Superman, Spiderman, Catwoman, Speed, The Matrix, James Bond, and Austin Powers all into one film. Incredible, isn
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
The movie has a standard plot of a science fiction film: a madman tries to destroy the world as we know it. What renders this airplane movie charming, however, is that it makes a serious attempt to recreate how people in 1939 would have imagined a sci-fi world. At the time, German technological prowess inspired the imagination of science fiction writers.
The Notebook
I asked the stewardess just after the plane had taken off: “Do you know what movie is going to be shown today?” “The Notebook,” she replied. “It is a chick flick, but it is really good.” The film turned out to be a love story where everything goes right. When misfortune seems to deliver a fatal blow to the bliss of the charming young lovers, a force intervenes to keep the story moving toward its happy end. If you want to take a break from the challenges of earthly romantic life, this film provides you an escape into fantasyland. The big advantage over “Titanic” is that the fiance who stands between the match made in heaven is a real nice guy. But don’t expect to get a deeper appreciation of your own life. This is all about what life could be…if it were a fantasy.
© 2026 Peter Murmann. Powered by ExpressionEngine.
