Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows: Burton should be arrested for wasting so much beauty on such meandering dreck, which culminates in a kitchen-sink style ending. Additionally, the apparently reincarnated, young, female lead looked so much like Heather Graham that it was distracting.
I remember when I used to want to see anything made by Tim Burton immediately. I miss those days.
Original (Andrew Garfield) Amazing Spider-Man was as good as I’d remember it being. A relatively quiet first and second act; plenty of reasonable, human interaction between flawed characters; a reliance on storytelling rather than action. I’m still not fond of the final fight, but Chief Stacy’s and The Lizard’s last interactions with Peter are honestly touching.
I’m about halfway throught Dungeons and Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness. It’s pretty much a hack-n-slash dungeon module brought to direct-to-video filmmaking. The effects range from atrocious to surprisingly passable. The big draw so far is watching the lead, a male Fighter, clearly someone who wanted to play a Lawful Good Paladin, trying to fit in with the Lawful or Neutral Evil party which was already running this module. It’s good for giggles, and fun to see actual D&D trappings in a D&D movie, unlike those miserable ones with Jeremy Irons and one of the Wayans brothers.
