Epinions Recent Reviews for bilavideo

Santa's Got A Brand New Bag of Heads

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:57:17 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - When it comes to northern towns, Barrow, Alaska is about as far north as you can go - this side of the world - without shaking Santa's hand. Perched on the northern coast of Alaska, this place is so far north, there's a period - from late November to...

Step Brothers: A Brady Bunch for Morons

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 02:52:54 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - Comedy is about honesty and exaggeration. Anything painful or unpleasant can be effectively defanged by stretching it beyond credibility. The makers of Step Brothers know that, which is why this uber-silly comedy - about two forty-year-olds whose...

The Dark Knight: The Dark Knight - The Ultimate Insane Clown Posse

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:30:45 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - Most sequels suck. If they can't recapture the magic, the producers at least try to milk the market by either selling the same story flipped - or just bigger and louder. The Dark Knight does none of that. Writer/director Christopher Nolan (Following,...

Sparkling Detail

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:34:52 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - I love music but I don't have the money to be a true "audiophile." After discovering what my music could sound like - through a pair of Grado headphones - I decided to build a system by focusing on OEM speakers (the generic stuff that ends up with...

The Funny Thing About Death

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:02:06 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - British comedies come in two types: the silly Monty Python stuff that Americans get, and the dry, intelligent, stuff that Americans don't. I'm speaking in the broadest of terms, which is why Death at a Funeral is so exceptional. This is great stuff,...

Forbidden Kingdom: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Valium

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:16:32 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - The Forbidden Kingdom is to Kung Fu flicks - like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - what The Last Starfighter was to Star Wars. This movie doesn't blow. If anything, it's breezy, warmhearted fun. It's just that the genre has lost its novelty and is now...

Speed Racer: Melted Crayons of Motoerotic Madness

Sat, 5 Jul 2008 17:15:59 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - There was a moment, in watching Speed Racer, when I wondered how I'd got there. When I first heard that this film was being made, I doubted I'd be among those in attendance. Growing up in the 70s, I remember the cartoon on which it was based, the cult...

Hancock: Superman Goes Off The Wagon

Thu, 3 Jul 2008 21:58:07 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - What would it be like if Superman weren't a super guy, just super - like a basketball player charged with rape? Or a running back who beats the rap for slashing his ex-wife - only to go down for a half-baked robbery of his own memorabilia? Without a...

sex, lies and my brother's lifesize sex doll

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 04:04:21 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - Hollywood pumps out so many of the same movies, year after year, that it's no small miracle when a film comes along that stands out from the pack. To all the movies that weren't like Lars and the Real Girl, I have just one thing to say: better luck next...

WALL-E: What A BOR-E

Tue, 1 Jul 2008 22:06:32 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - There's a scene in 1999's The Matrix, when the Oracle apologizes. "I'm sorry," she says, "I really am. You have a good soul and I hate giving good people bad news." Well, I'm no oracle and I have no cookies to share. Still, after seeing this film, I...

88 Minutes: Death By Cellphone

Tue, 1 Jul 2008 12:47:36 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - Few films in recent memory have made me set myself on fire like 88 Minutes, a psychological thriller about a forensic psychologist stalked by a mystery caller who keeps calling every five minutes to remind our hero that, "tic toc," he's got 88 minutes to...

Wanted: Guns, CGI and Attitude

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:10:54 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - There are many types of action flicks, not just in plot but in tone. If some push the envelope, in terms of gritty realism, some are practically cartoonish. Those who like a lot of cream and sugar - along the lines of The Transporter and Hit Man - will...

Get Smart: Got Smart?

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:56:25 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - The big-screen remake of TV's Get Smart is one of the few times Hollywood didn't muck it up. It's hard to capture what was right about a TV show from another time. It's even harder to do it when that show revolved around the personality of its star...

Norman Rockwell Meets Afghanistan

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:59:32 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - I don't have the energy to write the kind of review that belongs in the New York Times. The Kite Runner is a story about two boys growing up in pre-Soviet Afghanistan. Described by some as "an account of the horrors of war," I found it to be nothing of...

Grado Statement GS1000 Headphones: When Price Is No Object

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:49:45 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - The world of headphones is pretty much a wasteland of plastic junk, assembled in third-world factories and designed to hang from hooks at the big chains. Even with brand names and futuristic plastic shells, junk still sounds like junk. But then...

The Love Guru: Comic Impotence

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:43:44 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - The worst joke is not the one that fails. It's the one that keeps trying to get a laugh long after all hope has died. Spencer Tracy had a saying, "Don't let them catch you acting." The same can be said of comedy. The only fate worse than having to...

Steaming Crap

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:07:17 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - Strange Wilderness is supposed to be a comedy about pot-smoking slackers in charge of one of those animal shows. Unfortunately, it looks more like the product of pot-smoking slackers in charge of a movie about pot-smoking slackers and their TV...

An Atheist Manifesto Worth Reading

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:45:45 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - This is an awesome book. In a season when atheist manifestos are suddenly of interest, Christopher Hitchens has written a book that nukes the competition, not so much because he invents such great and novel arguments for atheism but because he writes...

Three Brothers On a Train

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 03:46:40 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - Writer-director Wes Anderson trades in tragicomedy. The characters who inhabit his tales are usually family members in oblivion, odd characters fated for estrangement by their individual oddities, but who struggle heroically to forge, or save, the kinds...

The Happening: Vague Titles Do Not Lie

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:09:00 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - SPOILER WARNING: One reader felt my original review had spoiled a key plot point, though that reader had not seen the movie and I disagree with that assessment. I have, however, rewritten this review to put the whole issue to bed. I offer this warning,...

You Don't Mess With the Zohan: A Jewish Rambo Who Sounds Like Fabio

Sun, 8 Jun 2008 15:30:45 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - One of these days, there's going to be a college course called The Films of Adam Sandler. It's not that Sandler is any genius, or that his "works" rank up there with those of Chaplin. But in his own modest way, Adam Sandler is building a body of work...

Redbelt: Life as the Ultimate Bloodsport

Sat, 24 May 2008 23:23:58 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - David Mamet's latest film, Redbelt, is not what you'd expect - which is exactly what you ought to expect from this playwright-turned-screenwriter
-turned
director. Mamet's best stories are like card tricks, or sidestreet hustles in progress. Mamet's...

Made of Honor: Julia Roberts Is A Dude!!!!!

Sun, 11 May 2008 00:25:07 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - Made of Honor is a romantic comedy that's short on laughs but long on romance. It's a guy's version of My Best Friend's Wedding - except it's not aimed at guys. Tom (Patrick Dempsey) is a New York City playboy. As the inventor of a successful...

The Best Comedy Album of 2007

Sat, 10 May 2008 21:01:06 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - This 2007 album from New Zealand's folk-pop duo, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement - who bill themselves as Flight of the Conchords - won a 2008 Grammy for Best Comedy Album. Produced by Mickey Petralia, its six tracks - half of them in-studio and half...

Iron Man: Candy-Apple Red But Teflon Through and Through

Thu, 8 May 2008 23:06:50 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author bilavideo - It doesn't get much better than this. Special-effects extravaganzas are usually stupid affairs. All that money ends up in CGI, with nothing left over for story. But not here. Whether you give the credit to the screenwriters - Mark Fergus & Hawk...