Movies I done seen in July

Seen some good movies recently.

How come I barely heard anything about Solomon Kane?

This is an awesome, kick-ass, old school sword and sorcery movie. Mark Anthony from the equally awesome Rome series plays the titular Robert E. Howard puritan swordsman. And he's terrific. The movie is Kane's origin story - how he goes from evildoer to God's warrior. The sword fights are bloody and brutal. The supporting characters are vivid and sympathetic. And the bad guys are wicked cool looking. The ending's a bit predictable, but that's just the way these kinds of movies are. It's not quite as bone-grindingly awesome as Arnold's Conan the Barbarian, but it's pretty close.

Finally saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

I quite liked this one. Christopher Plummer is great. It does suffer a bit from the missing Heath Ledger bits. You can see how they tried to work around it, but it's really just distracting. What a shame. Otherwise, it's pretty much your classic Gilliam oddity that I really dig. But the CGI often seems to mesh awkwardly with the more practical stuff. I prefer the old-timey effects from Gilliam. His worlds looked so cool and dirty and real in Munchausen and Brazil and Time Bandits, but it loses it's realness a bit with the CGI in this one. Interesting to see Andrew Garfield at work here, as he's since been hired as the new Spider-man. After watching him do his thing, I'd say he's actually close to perfect for Peter Parker. So that's something to look forward to.

What else? Grown-Ups with Adam Sandler and friends was pretty funny. No classic, but diverting enough. The Ghost Writer started out strong but ends up a bit ridiculous. Entertaining if you don't think too much about it. Youth in Revolt was OK. Michael Cera does his thing. I like that thing, but it's charm is probably going to wear off pretty soon. The Bounty Hunter was garbage. Gerard Butler needs to not do any more romantic comedies. And Jennifer Aniston needs to concentrate on small supporting roles in quirky independent films. Those are the only kind of movies she's ever remotely interesting in.

So there you have it. Or revore!