Culture Vulture

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!MOVIE REVIEW: AVATAR
I’ve seen some interviews with movie producers recently, mostly Pixar, saying that all the key producers are moving to 3D. I’ve taken these words with a pillar of salt, as just new ways to capture the eyeballs of [...]

MOVIE REVIEW: STAR TREK
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life-forms and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.
If you’ve already read my History of Star Trek article, this is the future of the [...]

Movie Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
When I read comic books in my youth, I always loved the “origin of” issues, which told me about he beginnings of my favorite super heroes. I was a big reader and collector of X-Men comics, of course, and have enjoyed the previous three movies to greater and lesser degrees. This [...]

JAMES BOND – QUANTUM OF SOLACE
The latest James Bond movie opened this weekend in the US, beginning on Friday. It is already #1 in Europe, having opened there a week earlier, and a huge hit in the UK, where it opened two weeks ago. The first weekend in the UK was a record at a [...]

MOVIE REVIEW: MAMMA MIA!
Official disclaimer: I have seen the stage musical version of Mamma Mia! six times. My wife and I first saw it in London, and as we walked out at the end of the exciting encore, we both turned to each other and said “I could see that again.” Two days later we [...]

MOVIE REVIEW: BATMAN – THE DARK KNIGHT
The second installment of the new Batman franchise, begun with Batman Begins, picks up our story not long after where we left off. But I’m not going to talk about the plot of The Dark Knight, other than to say it starts with a bang involving a powerful scene [...]

MOVIE REVIEW: WALL-E
What a sweet movie, what a cute film. Who else but Pixar could make a movie that’s animation, science-fiction, comedy, spaceships, green — and romance…and make it all work?
And the tributes to other movies of this genre! In the same way that Pixar’s The Incredibles paid tribute to early James Bond movies with [...]

I have written a movie review of Iron Man at my other blog. Come by and visit the article here.
Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood culture vulture
www.billpetro.com

Mission: Impossible: III
I was privileged to see a private sneak preview the third installment of the Mission Impossible franchise, and what is arguably the first blockbuster popcorn movie of the summer of 2006.
Let me say from the onset that it starts with a bang and doesn’t let up. It’s non-stop action from beginning to end. [...]

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I had the opportunity to catch a private pre-screening of this movie. What a treat!
It opens in black and white with a dark and stormy night and the Warner Brothers logo. Then a snake slithers along the ground… and then the title. But soon afterwards it explodes [...]