Ron's Popcorn Reviews.com
Movies reviewed based on the concept of filmmaking as an art.
LATEST REVIEWS
EARLY REVIEW
4/4 STARS
Posted November 19, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
How does one describe the best feeling a moviegoer can have? More importantly, how does one pinpoint their praise for the movie that evoked those feelings? Broken Embraces is a brilliant work of art and concocting adjectives and tying them together is the closest I can come to convey my love of it. Told in noir like fashion and set to a tale of lust and glamour in a Latin version of
3.5/4 STARS
Posted November 15, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
Have I ever been so wrong about a movie before? The power of Precious (stuck with the subtitle “Based on the novel Push by Sapphire”) puts me to shame. In my blog entry about this movie, I tore it apart before even seeing it. I was sure it would be some melodramatic and sappy story about a poor black girl living in
3.5/4 STARS
Posted November 13, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
Since the year 2012 is looming,
EARLY REVIEW
3.5/4 STARS
Posted November 11, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
Pirate Radio (entitled The Boat That Rocked in the
3/4 STARS
Posted November 11, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
The number of times Charles Dickens’ timeless holiday tale A Christmas Carol has been adapted is countless. There is a definite number of feature films and television specials, but the amount of theater productions most likely overwhelms the fifty movies that A Christmas Carol has been turned into. It should come as no surprise that a director like Robert Zemeckis finally took this movie and turned it into a 3D-computer animated showcase. This is 2009, after all. Now people are wondering the obvious: After more than a century of theater adaptations and decades of holiday specials on television, does A Christmas Carol still carry the magic of Charles Dickens’ tale? Well…yes and no. Read More>>>
4/4 STARS
Posted November 6, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko seems like a fairytale with a happy ending compared to his latest film, The Box. This masterful and tragic movie goes to far greater depths than one could imagine. It has the power to make you weep, frightened, and heavily shaken. Calling it amazing is such a petty description for a movie that, to its very core, is real. Yes. The Box is a supernatural thriller. But the powerful emotions involved make this movie so much more. Read More>>>
LATEST BLOG ENTRIES
Posted November 9, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
Several weeks ago when I reviewed the sleeper hit Paranormal Activity, the movie was huge. Now, in the beginning of November, it’s starting to become popular out of proportion. I saw the movie in the middle of October, when it had just been released wide and had done wonders at the box office. Now, the viral phenomenon is just becoming annoying. There is an article involving Paranormal Activity on MSN at least once a week. One of them involved people searching for an obituary for Micah Sloat, one of the protagonists of PA. I understand that every so often a movie comes along that instantly embeds itself in pop culture, only to eventually fade away and become annoying (Borat in 2006 for example), but the brilliant marketing campaign that made PA so unique is now becoming redundant. Read More>>>
Critics are now obsessed with "Precious." Yuck!
Posted November 5, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
So a little movie called Precious (stuck with a clunky subtitle) is coming out this weekend and has everybody raving. I personally think the movie looks like a total piece of shit. It seems exploitative, sappy, self-pitiful, and melodramatic. I don’t want to see a movie that exploits its characters. For Christ Sake! The main character is illiterate, horrendously overweight, pregnant with her second child from her own effin’ father, abused by her mother, and…oh I don’t know what’s the next worst thing. Lee Daniels had to make this the most tragic girl in the history of movies too get sympathy but it just seems like crap. She couldn’t just be pregnant? She had to be pregnant from her own dad? Read more at my blog
So far so good
Posted November 1, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
As you may have noticed, the small project I mentioned in last week's blog has come to fruition. First of all, I'm relieved to have completed the archives. I believe it will be easier with the archives to find all reviews instead of ones for specific years. Best of all, I am beginning to re watch some of my favorite films and write reviews on them. The page is Essays (pre-2008). So it's not the best title but I didn't want to entitle it Great Movies because all I'm doing is reviewing older films. Older doesn't mean great. So for now, the page where I review older films will be Essays (pre-2008).
Small project
Posted October 26, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
Let's cut to the chase: my site is too current. I review only new and current movies. I do this because creating another page would prove to be complicated but I've decided to try it. If you're a loyalist to this site, you might remember my brief experiment with the Essays page. I had two essays up, one for The Departed and one for Fargo. I was working on an essay for Raging Bull but then decided to shutdown the Essays project. This time I’m committing to a new page. It’s unfair for my readers to be deprived of any reviews if I don’t see anything for a week. With my new page, readers can indulge in reviews of some of my favorite movies from various decades. The problem is that I have no idea what to name it. Roger Ebert calls it “Great Movies” but some of the older films I will be reviewing aren’t necessarily great to me. I might just review them because they are classics. So what do I call the page? ”Oldies but Goodies?” But apart from the title, this gives me an opportunity to respect cinema more and acknowledge and re-watch some of my favorite films. Read more at my blog
LATEST DVD REVIEWS (PRE-2008)
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002)
4/4 STARS
Posted October 29, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
Quentin Tarantino’s movies have a lot of talking. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has a lot of walking. Walking and talking are considered to be the dullest elements of movies. Tarantino turned talking into an art form. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the second and best chapter of the highly praised trilogy, turns walking into an exhilarating and absorbing three hours. This entry is one of the greatest sequels ever made, improving on every flaw of The Fellowship of the Ring. Every criticism of mine of the first chapter does not apply to The Two Towers, a soaring masterpiece of innovative filmmaking and strong storytelling. Read More>>>
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001)
2.5/4 STARS
Posted October 29, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
No trilogy since the first three Star Wars films (episodes 4-6) has been as lauded as The Lord of the Rings. Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s benchmark collection of books, the first chapter of the story was brought to the screen in 2001 and made a household name out of Peter Jackson, as well as some of the stars. The Fellowship of the Ring marks the beginning of one of the most well-known and applauded trilogies in the history of cinema. However, that does not indicate that the film, which sets up the next and far superior two entries, is anything more than an overblown, and overlong, muddle. Read More>>>
FARGO (1996)
4/4 STARS
Posted April 9, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
“You did all that, just for a little bit of money?” Marge Gunderson asks. The tired and insane Grimsrud stares back and looks confused. He is realizing that he probably doesn’t even know himself. And when the innocent Marge asks that, not only do we mentally recap the brilliant
THE DEPARTED (2006)
4/4 STARS
Posted April 9, 2009
By Ron Rapoport
Martin Scorsese’s name is embedded in cinematic history. Almost any movie he makes becomes a classic, such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, and Casino, but I think his greatest achievement is The Departed. It is hard to say that because GoodFellas is almost equally as good, but The Departed is much deeper on a psychological level. It morally tests the audience and like Million Dollar Baby, it is not about good and evil, but about right and wrong. What is the difference between the demented mob boss and the foul mouthed and violent police sergeant? These are the types of question that The Departed lays out, and they all add up to one big question: What divides both sides of the law? Read More>>>
