Movies

I recall an interview with William Faulkner in which he said that he didn’t read books but read in books, the distinction being that he seldom consumed a volume from start to finish but preferred to stick his toes in here and there, read favorite chapters over and over, proceeding from finish to start if necessary. 

When a movie receives rave reviews from critics who say they need to see it again to understand it fully, you should treat such a recommendation as though you were Will Robinson from the old 1960s TV show Lost in Space hearing his friendly robot companion as it flails its accordion-like arms and shout

A new zombie movie called World War Z starring Brad Pitt and budgeted at $150 million won’t be coming to your local multiplex anytime soon, even though it was originally supposed to premiere this Christmas. Nor will the sequel to the G. I. Joe movie I’m sure you didn’t see, which cost $125 million and was due for release in June. And there’s a martial arts film with Keanu Reeves called 47 Ronin, which no sane person over the age of 9 would choose to see, originally set for theaters this year—and not in theaters this year.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics, takes to Facebook today to review the Avengers, a movie about a bunch of superheroes banding together to save the world, “which focuses on a new, limitless clean energy source called ‘The Tesseract,’” according to Chu.

Do movies matter? 

First lady Michelle Obama, at a Joining Forces screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two earlier today, revealed that her husband, Barack Obama, is a fan of the megahit Harry Potter series.

"How many Harry Potter fans are here?" Michelle Obama asked the crowd. "How many people have read all the books and seen all the movies? Well, you’re right along with the president and my girls. They’ve seen the movie already. They lined right up."

X-Men: First Class

Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Kari Barbic reviews Kung Fu Panda 2 in the Washington Times:

Po and the Fabulous Five are back, and they are kung fu fighting in 3-D this time around in “Kung Fu Panda 2,” which stays true to the style and humor of the original as it continues the journey of the unexpected Dragon Warrior.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD's Kelly Jane Torrance reviews three new films this weekend for The Washington Examiner. First up is the French film The Princess of Montpensier:

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal ran a special section reporting on the paper’s recent conference entitled “Women in the Economy: An Executive Task Force.” One of the taskforce members was Geena Davis, the Academy Award winning actress and more recently founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. The Journal noted that Ms. Davis, “has become an advocate of gender equality in children’s entertainment” and a critic in general of gender portrayal in film and in preschool programming.

Kelly Jane Torrance reviews Joe Wright's new movie, Hanna:

Films are sometimes described as "vehicles" for the big names that headline them. "Arthur," the remake of the 1981 film that opened this weekend, was made simply to showcase the outsize personality of Russell Brand. It's not often a film looks like a vehicle for a young, relatively new talent -- let alone one with a name few Americans can even pronounce.