Superbad, Stardust, Once, and Shoot 'Em Up
Four short reviews...
Superbad - Comedy of the summer, comedy of the year, and possibly the comedy of the generation? No complaints at all with this one.
Stardust - Better than I expected, but still not that great. Also, stop casting De Niro just because he'll whore himself out to anything. He works for some roles, but not this one. He has the accent range of Connery (i.e. none), and when everyone else in the movie is British sounding he sticks out like a sore thumb. Also the "tough guy" who is really soft inside is way too overdone at this point.
Once - Finally got around to seeing this one and I'm glad I did. Everyone who told me I'd love it was right. I wasn't expecting such a musical touch to the film, but it worked great. The music and performances drew me in and then the bitter-sweet love story just got me hooked.
Shoot 'Em Up - I love Clive Owen and movies that don't feel the need to hide a story behind action, so I was very excited about this film. And then I was let down. The claims of a constant shoot-out are greatly exaggerated. If it had been that then I would have been thrilled, and I could have possibly overlooked all the terrible terrible puns (are there really any other kind though?). In the end it reeked of a high budget style film that is trying to be a B-list cult classic. And that on top of the moral that they were driving down our throat.
RATINGS: See it now, see it again, and see it once again on DVD; Skip it unless you have nothing better to do; Throw the DVD onto the top of your Netflix list, and go out and snag the soundtrack too; Go rent Crank if you want to get your over-the-top action fix.