re: The Cabin in the Woods. TulaneLSU's 2011-12 movie review thread

Tron: Legacy I did not see the original and have no intention of it. I quite liked this movie even though I don't usually like sci-fi. There's little connection I felt towards any of the characters, and blew most of their roles off as amalgamations of other characters, like from Star Wars to name one. Olivia Wilde is beautiful, the Beloved, and her closeup shots are mesmerizing. Some of the cosmic philosophies of the movie are interesting, as are the colors and action scenes. 6/10

True Grit I'm not a huge Western genre lover, but this movie is tightly wound and Bridges is at his best playing an old curmudgeon. Damon is annoying and I don't like the violence. Its use of biblical quotes is empty and an attempt to placate and stimulate shallow thinkers who think that a Bible quote thrown into a movie is somehow profound. 7/10

Warrior Last month, and not by my choosing, I had a meal at Stella! in the French Quarter. It was a meal of highs and lows. One course would soar. The next would flat-line. I couldn't help but to think of this meal as I watched Warrior. Warrior is a movie of flashes of brilliance, but meanders through confused, sentimental story telling.

The director's main fault is trying to make a movie about the brokenness of a family of emotionally constipated individuals into a movie about ring fighting. Ring fighting may have been the vehicle through which the family is remedied, but in a movie as short as Warrior, there wasn't room enough for the two masters to be served with due time. So while one could argue that both parts of the movie were necessary, I don't think any reasonable person would deny that the story suffered from the fight scenes, which are long, riveting, and well-made. The fight scenes will please a certain subset looking only for entertainment from movies, but those who want a broader experience will find those scenes cumbersome.

What I would have liked to have seen more of was Nick Nolte's and Tom Hardy's characters. There were great moments of chemistry between the two of them, the type that wins critical awards, but the director would shift too quickly from the depth of their shared anger, tergiversation, regret, and love. The metaphor used throughout the story is that of Ahab, the inveterate symbol of obsession and hate conquering a life. Warrior would have been laudable had it stuck to this theme, but what we are left with are two commendable, if short, scenes where Ahab is constructed and repudiated. Nolte especially is fantastic in these scenes. The rest of the two hours is not much more than sappy, cheesy Hollywood underdog fluff. Those whose emotions are easily twisted by those saccharine, homogenous pre-game inspirational stories that are so common in sports today will probably enjoy the movie, but serious movie-goers will walk away yearning for more realism and character. Less starch and more Japanese Mero Sea Bass, please. 5/10

Water for Elephants - Having seen the trailer for this movie, I assumed it would be a fantasy movie based in a circus world. Boy was I wrong. This movie tries to be in less than two hours a documentary on the Great Depression and circus life, a story justifying adultery and breaking the law, and a cheap imitation of The Notebook. Fail. Fail. Fail. The only good performance in the movie is the ring master. He's an interesting, if violent, figure. Reese Witherspoon? Who has she slept with to get role after role? She's a TERRIBLE actress and not even very attractive. I don't see how she has done a single movie since Pretty In Pink. Every movie I've seen in which she has starred has been horrible. This movie is no exception. 2/10