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Pandorum (2009), Rated “R”
Starring Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet, Antje Traue, Cung Le
Directed by Christian Alvart
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (2.5/5):

Have I mentioned how much I like streaming Netflix movies over my Wii? I honestly think stream-on-demand is the future of home TV/movie entertainment. The only question is how long it will take movie companies to figure it out.


A quick search for Pandorum reviews reveals mostly negative opinions, but it seems to be one of those films that has divided viewers: critics mostly trashed it, but the average viewer didn’t seem to think it was so bad. I’m in the latter camp. ...

Predators (2010), Rated "R"
Starring Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Oleg Taktarov, Laurence Fishburne, and Danny Trejo
Directed by Nimród Antal
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (2.5/5):

If you going to watch Predators, hopefully you already know what type of movie you're in for. This isn't an award winner or an Academy nominee. It's not going to pose Great Questions and inspire deep thought or reflection. It doesn't offer insight into the human condition and you aren't going to leave the theater the bearer of new philosophical enlightenment. What is does do, and does fairly well, is offer up a fun-filled 107 minutes of alien versus human mayhem, evoking some, if not all, of the spirit of the first one from way back in 1987 (has it really been that long?). ...

Deadgirl (2008), Rated "R"
Starring Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Jenny Spain
Directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (2/5):

High-schoolers J.T. (Noah Segan) and Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) occupy the bottom rung on the social ladder at their local high school, so ignored they aren't even picked on. Bored and with an opportunity presenting itself, they decide to ditch. J.T. has a warm six-pack of beer in his backpack, and the two decide a good place to drink it - and engage in some beer inspired vandalism - is the abandoned mental hospital locally known as the 'nuthouse'. ...

Inception (2010), Rated PG-13
Starring
Directed by
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (4.5/5):


I'm not a ‘release night' kind of guy. As yet, I've never been so intrigued by a movie release that I was tempted to see it opening night. However, my wife has a ‘cougar' crush on Joseph Gordon-Levitt, so we made it a family event (extra-family if you count my daughter's boyfriend) and headed out. Arrival: about 11:00. Movie start (well, previews anyway): 12:01. Arrive home: 3:24. I can't remember the last time I was out past midnight. When did I get so stodgy? ...

Firefly Rain by Richard Dansky
Reviewed by Paul Weiss

Publisher:Gallery; Reprint edition
Year Published: 2010

Not your average haunted house! (****)

Jacob Logan is drawing a deep mental breath and trying to use a change of pace to gather his thoughts and restore some peace, calm and order to his life. Five years after his mother died and with a business venture in Boston having just failed, Logan returns to small town Mayfield, North Carolina to take up residence in his childhood home. But a series of inexplicable events overtake him and it's clear that nobody is happy about Logan's return to a town and a lifestyle that he had summarily abandoned many years earlier. Ultimately Logan comes to the conclusion that his departed parents have not fully departed and, from within the house, are trying to communicate with him. He just isn't understanding the message but he knows that he'd better figure it out before someone is hurt!
...

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2
Reviewed by Paul Weiss

Publisher:Wildstorm
Year Published: 2004


THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, VOL 2, like its stellar predecessor, is a graphic novel and is most assuredly not a comic book intended for children. Rather it is solid proof that mainstream comic books can be combined with exciting, imaginative adventure and story-telling, illustrated with serious, skilled artwork that merits close examination in each and every panel aimed at serious adult readers with eclectic tastes in classic literature. THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, VOL 2 is at once a pastiche and a tribute to the skills of an extraordinary, lengthy and almost bewildering list of adventure, mystery and horror writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
...

Ship of Destiny by Robin Hobb
Reviewed by Joshua Palmatier

Publisher:Spectra
Year Published: 2001

Ship of Destiny is the third book in the Liveship Traders series by Robin Hobb. Like the previous two volumes, this one was good. All of the various plotlines (and there were many) came together and a generally believable way (I'll get to the hesitation here in a moment) and I really think that the character arcs ended where they should have ended. Nearly everything that happened in the previous two books was set-up for this novel, which takes all of that and ties it all up. By that I mean that there wasn't anything new introduced in this book. It's the culmination of everything she began in the first two.
...

Code Noir by Marianne de Pierres
Reviewed by S. J. Higbee

Publisher:Roc
Year Published: 2006

It took me a while to get into this cyberpunk thriller, partly because it is the second in the series and I haven’t read the first book. With no ‘Story So Far’, I found it difficult to get my bearings as de Pierres clearly expected those of us reading Code Noir to have already read the first book.

The other issue is that the pace is breathless. So much so, that it took some time before I warmed to Parrish, which is unusual because I’m generally a real sucker for your gutsy, tough-but-misunderstood-heroine. Having for more years than I care to recall, waded through books with female characters either adorning the hero’s arm or providing action in the sex scenes, it’ll be sometime in the next century before I tire of heroines punching/shooting their way into and out of more trouble than you can aim a neuron disrupter at. So I thought, anyway. Parrish came perilously close to exhausting my patience.
...

Stays Crunchy in Milk by Adam P. Knave
Reviewed by Kelly A. Harmon

Publisher:Creative Guy Publishing
Year Published: 2009

Stays Crunchy in Milk is a classic quest tale, based on pop culture icons of the 1980s.
Choco-Ra, the chocolate Mummy, Wereberry, the strawberry werewolf, and T.C., The Creature from the Fruit Lagoon must find their friend Cherrygeist, the ghost, who is missing. They have sworn to search to the ends of the world and beyond and to find her. ...

Jeremiah Season 1 (2002)
Starring Luke Perry, Malcomb-Jamal Warner, Peter Stebbings, Ingrid Kavelaars
Various Directors
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (2/5):

I've known about Netflix delivering streaming movies for a while, but watching shows on the computer just isn't for me, though I suspect my children won't be bothered by it. Then I learned I could stream right through my Wii! I ordered the disk from Netflix (free), it showed up in 2 days, and a few minutes later I was browsing available View Now movies and shows. I'm not an early adoptor by any means, but that was pretty cool. And convenient. Most of the stuff available for immediate streaming is older or less well known, but I rarely catch stuff when it's new, so there was plenty I was interested in. ...

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), Rated PG-13
Starring Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene
Directed by David Slade
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (2/5):

Yeah, I saw Twilight Eclipse yesterday, along with my wife and kids. My son was the only one for whom the burden was too great: too much kissing he reported as the credits rolled. Except for some action packed vampire/werewolf battle scenes, he spent most of the time squirming. My daughter read the books a few years ago, tore through them in a month or two. I'm not going to discuss their merits. Suffice to say that I think anything that gets kids reading is a positive. ...

Toy Story 3 (2010), Rated "G"
Starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Michael Keaton, Ned Beatty, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles
Directed by Lee Unkrich
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (4/5):


The buzz is on the street - Toy Story 3 is good, bound to be enjoyed by all. I dragged my reluctant son to see it the other day. Reluctant, because at age 11, he's beginning to think he's getting a little long in the tooth for cartoons. I knew he'd like it though, and he did. But I think he's pretty close to the top end as far as kid age goes. I'm not sure a 13 or 14 year-olds would be that interested, unless they'd seen the first or second one on DVD or VHS. After that point, I don't think it hits the mark again until the viewer is a parent, or at least someone who has a vested interest in kids (like a grandparent). ...

Kick-Ass (2010), Rate "R"
Starring Aaron Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Grace Moretz
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (1.5/5):

Kick-Ass was confusing to me. Not the movie itself, but as to what audience it was intended for. The main characters (except for the villian) were all kids, high school age at the oldest and elementary school at the youngest. It was violent and profane, with the youngest cast member, Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), voicing some of the choicer vulgarities. ...

Splice (2010)
Starring Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chanéac
Directed by Vincenzo Natali
Review by Dave Felts
Rating (3/5):

My daughter is a fan of horror movies and I enjoy the occasional one myself, so one Sunday afternoon we headed down to the cinema to catch Splice. The movie's rated R, primarily for some sex scenes (one topless), so 16 or over is my recommended age, although it might depend on how mature your 14 or 15 year old is. ...