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A Nightmare on Elm Street

No.

Of all the remakes, horror or otherwise, that have been coming out lately, A Nightmare on Elm Street is the most pointless.

Luckily for the creators of the new version, I don't remember much about the substance; the actual plot, screenplay and acting in the original so there is little I can say about how this movie compares. This film lacks any imagination, fun, and genuine scares from the original and so even if it was at all well made, it still wouldn't have been well received. Fortunately for me, it wasn't well made at all, so I don't have to make the difficult decision of whether or not to recommend it based on its own merits or slam it because of it's inability to live up to the "classic" nature of it's predecessor.

Freddy Kruger was always more than just a monster. He was a menace. He loved what he did and he did it well. He was clever in the way he went about killing his victims and wasn't afraid to show pleasure in it. Not the sort of Hannibal Lechter pleasure where it genuinely made him feel "good" deep down inside, but more like how The Joker gets excited by committing a crime... giddy. This new Freddy is on a mission and you can tell. He isn't capable of smiling, but I didn't feel like he wanted to anyway. Killing is serious business to him and it shouldn't have been if the actor wanted to portray this iconic role the way it was intended.

The cast of relatively unknowns needs to stay that way. You shouldn't, and I don't expect much in the way of acting chops when it comes to this or any teen slasher movie, but these are terrible actors. We live in a world where it costs tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to make a movie and the cost of the ticket is reflected in that. The studios should respect its customers enough to put some money into the actual talent and less into CGI.

That being said, A Nightmare on Elm Street was successful in using modern technology to create more effective dream imagery and there were several instances when we were in a dream and I didn't know it until Kruger jumped out at me. Other than that, the director handled this genre classic with the grace and gentility of someone with blades on his fingers... and unfortunately, the new nightmare is A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).

Oceans

No.

Oceans is super short and I found myself mesmerized by the imagery for the majority of the running time, but that doesn't mean it isn't boring as hell. Eventually you start thinking, "OK, this could be over now," which shouldn't happen in an 84 minute film.

The global warming message was there, but was lost in the cuteness of the polar animals. The pollution issue was only briefly addressed, and not at the end. After showing a sea lion swimming through murky, dirty water, inspecting an underwater shopping cart, the filmmakers decided to move on and show more animals living in clean water. You almost forget the point about pollution at the end of the movie.

Honestly, the movie is educational, but that's it. There's no entertainment value at all and so I just can't recommend Oceans.

Kick-Ass

Yes.

I think that, as a rule, I need to keep my expectations lower. When I saw Kick-Ass for the first time, I liked it, but I still felt that there was something missing. The characters aren't all that compelling and there didn't really seem to be all that much of a viable plot. Since that initial viewing, however, I've had to opportunity to rewatch several parts of the movie and I think I know what the problem is. This movie shouldn't have been called Kick-Ass...

... So here is my review of Hit Girl. Fucking awesome.

Let's be clear. This movie is a hard "R". It's bloody, violent, and vulgar, but those aren't even the reasons, in my opinion for the rating. There's drug-use and outdoor sex (by teens) and murder (by a pre-teen), not to mention the strong possibility of idiotic kids copying the ideas in the movie and trying to go out and fight crime. As an adult, I can tell you that, yes, those aspects of the movie made it what it was. If it were PG-13 it would absolutely NOT have been as good. The action scenes are intense and exciting and the dialogue is fun, however, Red Mist was horribly miscast and as always, I hate Nicholas Cage (although not as much in this movie as I usually do).

So is Kick-Ass kick-ass? Shit yeah.

Clash of the Titans

No.

I honestly can't remember one aspect of the movie that I could say is worth having to sit through the rest of the movie to see. It sure as shit wouldn't be the 3D, which was awful to say the least. They did such a rush job on the 3D conversion that the whole movie just looked warped... like a curved mirror. In one scene, Sam Worthington's eyes appeared to be set back so far in his head that he could have been a villain in a Dick Tracy movie. The only part of the 3D that was mildly entertaining, was when he was flying on Pegasus through the Kraken's tentacles. That lasted for less than a minute though, so I'm gonna stick with my original statement that not a single thing about the 3D made this movie watchable.

Some other things that did not make this movie watchable are Sam Worthington's portrayal of the Australian Perseus, Ralph Fiennes's "VoldeHades", or -any- of the dialogue (but more specifically, Pete Postlethwaite's overly melodramatic "One day, somebody's gonna have to make a stand..." line).

Clearly I'm not a big fan of this movie. If you must see it, DO NOT see it in 3D.