You may recall that I made a promise to myself at the beginning of this year. I said that I would review every movie that I watched over the course of 2007, and while most have warranted a post of their own — like American Gangster and 30 Days of Night — I have accumulated a few too many and am in the process of playing catch-up.

Over the course of my two trans-Pacific flights, I took advantage of the on-board entertainment system to watch a few movies. The resolution on the tiny screens wasn’t great and the sound quality coming out of the airline-provided headphones wasn’t the best, but it certainly beat staring at the back of some guy’s seat. In any case, here are the four movies that I watched over the course of the two ten-hour flights, reviewed in machine gun fashion.


Live Free or Die Hard is the fourth installment in the legendary Die Hard series. Unlike the other Die Hard movies that largely involved explosions, guns, and high-speed car chases, Live Free or Die Hard seems to be trying to gain the appeal of all the geeks around the world. In this digital age, everything is controlled by computers and so the bad guy in this film is some guy who’s hacking into some of the biggest computers, like the ones that control our traffic lights and the ones that manage our banking information. Bruce Willis is definitely getting a little too old for roles like this and while I thought it was a little quirky to cast Justin Long (from the “I’m a Mac” ads) in a huge supporting role, the film as a whole is a bit of a let-down. Live Free or Die Hard is reasonably entertaining, but it doesn’t deserve to be a part of the Die Hard franchise.
3.5 stars out of 5


A Mighty Heart stars Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, wife to a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been kidnapped by terrorists in Pakistan. For the first half hour or so, the action of the film is a little hard to follow because we are given very little background information about the main characters and this information is only slowly revealed as the film progresses. If you go in with a general sense of what the movie is about — “ordinary heroes” as some have put it — you’ll understand the intricacies a little better. I like how they didn’t Hollywood it up, giving Jolie an opportunity to put on one of her best performances to date. It’s a powerful film and a gripping tale. It’s not as overwhelming fantastic as some may lead you to believe, but it’s definitely a solid movie.
4 stars out of 5


Shoot ‘Em Up is outrageous, unrealistic, and totally incredible… in the literal sense of the word. It’s not credible whatsoever and you shouldn’t approach this film with any sense of what reality should be. Clive Owen jumps around and shoots under circumstances that just aren’t physically possible. Paul Giamatti may send hundreds of hired goons to kill Clive Owen’s character (“Smith”), only to have all of these professional killers shot down by a single man as you slides down a rope in the middle of a spiral staircase. Oh, and Smith has a thing for carrots. While I normally enjoy action films, I found myself laughing at Shoot ‘Em Up more than anything. It’s just silly and an insult to my intelligence.
2 stars out of 5

I’ve got one more movie to review, but I figured this post was getting long enough as is. I know that with my short attention span, I couldn’t sit through four movie reviews all at once.