By Brian Lafferty

August 26, 2011 (San Diego) – The trouble with Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark isn’t so much that it’s not scary but that it’s boring. It ranks right up there with the original Amityville Horror (1979) as one of the dullest haunted house movies I’ve seen.

By Brian Lafferty

August 17, 2011 (San Diego) – As a kid I remember watching The Parent Trap (1961). That was the Disney movie that starred Hayley Mills as two separated-at-birth twins. It was the film that probably didn’t invent it, but it certainly perfected the split screen technique that enabled the same actor to appear as separate characters in the same scene.

By Brian Lafferty

August 11, 2011 (San Diego) – It can get really eerie when a movie parallels your life. The Tree does so for me, striking a powerful emotional cord.

By Brian Lafferty

August 5, 2011 (San Diego) – The original Planet of the Apes was a thoughtful, intelligent commentary on the human race. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an ambitious but mostly mindless prequel that is yet another entry in the “changing things that aren’t meant to be changed” genre.

By Brian Lafferty

July 15, 2011 (San Diego) – Sucker Punch is what happens when you give Zack Snyder carte blanche to do whatever he wants. 300 was my first exposure to Snyder. It wasn’t a masterpiece, or even a great movie, but if you were looking for a good sword and sandal epic with lots of slicing, dicing, and blood, then you couldn’t miss.

By Brian Lafferty

June 24, 2011 (San Diego) – 3 Backyards tackles one of my favorite movie subjects: A seemingly quaint, picturesque small town that masks a dark undercurrent. This foreboding, unsettling subtext is displayed in the opening title sequence, which is set against an ironic canvas of woods, houses, cats, and hummingbirds,

By Brian Lafferty

June 18, 2011 (San Diego) – After watching Korkoro I fondly recalled the stories of my Uncle John and “the Gypsies.” When my sisters were little, he would warn them about the Gypsies and how they wouldn’t hesitate to snatch them while they slept. If you left root beer outside, maybe my sisters would have a fighting chance.

If only Korkoro was as interesting as these stories.

By Brian Lafferty

June 5, 2011 (San Diego) – Most comic book movies that are the first in a franchise feel like a feature-length first act. I had this feeling with X-Men and Spider-Man. They’re good movies but they functioned more like set-ups for X2 and Spider-Man 2, which also delivered the goods better.

By Brian Lafferty

June 1, 2011, (San Diego) – For over a year and a half I’ve been reviewing theatrical releases. Last month I introduced the Netflix Streaming Pick of the Week, a column that spotlights worthy cinema available on Netflix Watch Instantly.

By Brian Lafferty

May 9, 2011 (San Diego) – In my review of Thor, I wrote that X-Men (2000) established the Marvel comic book movie formula commonplace in the last decade. It couldn’t have done it without this week’s Netflix Streaming Pick of the Week. That movie is Superman (1978), the prototype for the modern superhero movie.

By Brian Lafferty

May 6, 2011 (San Diego) – The Princess of Montpensier is a movie that demands your utmost attention. I barely wrote down any notes out of fear I’d miss something important. The entire film hinges on every line of dialogue and every character’s actions. This likely explains why the two hour and nineteen minute running time flies by rapidly.

By Brian Lafferty

April 29, 2011 (San Diego) – The great sportswriter Grantland Rice said, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” Queen to Play purports to be a film about a housewife in a mid-life crisis and stale marriage who finds happiness through chess. It then ends in a Big Game. The movie fails on both counts.

By Brian Lafferty

April 25, 2011 (San Diego) – Growing up I have witnessed firsthand a revolution in movie watching. My family went from having a VCR to a DVD player to a Blu-Ray Disc player in a span of twenty-five years. We went from renting movies from Blockbuster and Hollywood Video to Netflix.

By Brian Lafferty

April 8, 2011 (San Diego) – Up until the last ten to fifteen minutes I was ready to give In a Better World, 2011’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner, a mixed review. At the time I didn’t feel it was a bad movie but it wasn’t a good one, either.