Movie Reviews

We’re a hotheaded group of individuals. We crave a pull quote like anyone else, but it’s not about that. It’s only about you the reader. We love you. We want to take you home and cuddle with you. The following reviews are the opinions of the editors of CHUD.com and are by most accounts bang on.

REVIEW: DISTRICT B-13

The appeal of Batman vs Superman isn’t about the physical fight. All Frank Miller hokum aside, Superman would wipe the floor with Batman in nanoseconds if push came to shove. What’s interesting about these guys going head to head is how they represent such different sides of the same coin – the darker Batman operates … Continue reading

REVIEW: BRICK

Is this the line for the Rian Johnson bandwagon? If so, I want on. The young director’s first feature, Brick, is an often brilliant film made all the more amazing by the fact that it just should not, in any rational world, work at all. Johnson has married the plot structure, characters and dialogue of … Continue reading

REVIEW: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore stands before a group of true believers and delivers a fairly engaging Power Point presentation about global warming. The same dynamic will be played out in movie theaters, except that cinemagoers will also get Tales of Young Al Gore, stories from his life that end up having some bearing … Continue reading

REVIEW: X-MEN 3

NOTE: To truly discuss this movie, I need to venture into pretty major spoiler territory. For those who prefer to enter a movie unsullied, I’ll front load the review with stuff that’s safe to know – and pack all the big spoiler stuff at the end, safely contained behind a big warning. Bad news for … Continue reading

REVIEW: DA VINCI CODE, THE

In the opening scene of The Da Vinci Code, an old man is gutshot by Paul Bettany, who has been covered in pancake makeup. The film then cuts to a lecture delivered by Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of “religious symbology,” who is in France presenting what appears to be a version … Continue reading

REVIEW: DEAD MAN’S SHOES

Is there a full-blown Peckinpah revival coming on? Warner Bros just released a very nice four film set of his greatest Westerns, and Tommy Lee Jones recently directed a fairly explicit homage in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Now Dead Man’s Shoes arrives on US shores (fucking finally), and it’s hard not to see … Continue reading

REVIEW: POSEIDON

This review contains lots of spoilers.By the end of Poseidon the eponymous cruise ship lies on the bottom of the ocean, and so, I hope, does the reputation of director Wolfgang Petersen. The man made a fantastic movie (mini-series really) 21 years ago – Das Boot – and has been coasting on it ever since. … Continue reading

REVIEW: ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL

It’s almost fascinating to watch Art School Confidential slowly start coming apart before it finally crashes and burns. Almost fascinating – it’s actually very disappointing to know that the Dan Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, men behind Ghost World (and individually Dan Pussey and Bad Santa), have stumbled so badly with this one. What sinks Art … Continue reading

REVIEW: DOWN IN THE VALLEY

This review contains minor, unavoidable spoilers. Los Angeles is a weird place, and if you don’t know that firsthand, the movies are always willing to tell you. Hollywood loves turning out movies about itself and its immediate environs, and it’s rare when one of those are really of interest to anyone outside that community. The … Continue reading