World War Z Movie Review

Is there a more apt metaphor right now for the way humanity is apparently destroying the planet and, in the process, itself than a worldwide zombie plague? The dead eyes, the mindless action based purely on need and instinct, and humanity eating itself alive without a care for the end result look a little like the way we plumb the planet for resources, always taking and never looking toward the future. World War Z is a bit more topical and on the nose than your average summer blockbuster – if you want to read it as something more than fodder for the masses, who flock to the tent pole action movies like the zombies glom to live flesh, but that’s maybe another reading altogether.

Thor Movie Review

The Marvel Comics movie Thor is more than just a commercial for The Avengers, it’s also a movie where characters behave in ways that are necessitated by the plot and some adherence to the comic lore. It’s a movie that spent so much time and energy creating two different planets (one inspired by Flash Gordon and the other by The Lord of the Rings) that they forget to apply some production design to a New Mexico town that abruptly ends at the end of Main St. That Kenneth Branagh stooped to direct this mess does not speak highly of Kenneth Branagh. Has he become the latest in a series of unique directorial talents to become a slave to a large paycheck? How does a man whose screen representations of Shakespeare are rivaled only by Olivier come to work with such hackneyed writing and wooden acting?