Nerd in the 'Noke

The Avengers (2012), PG-13, 142 minutes - Wow.  I'm completely nerding out right now.  I've had high hopes for The Avengers for a while now.  Ever since the idea of cramming a bunch of super heroes into a single movie was teased with the post credits scene of Iron Man.  Hopes were raised even more when Marvel announced that Joss Whedon would direct.  That's right, Joss Whedon.  He who has an amazing resume when it comes to highly entertaining tv and film revolving around character driven stories with a large, diverse cast.  The Avengers really couldn't have been put in better hands.  But even though I had raised my hopes so high, the comic book nerd in me wondered if The Avengers would really work on the big screen.  Could you fit that many characters in a movie that wasn't five hours long?  And if you could get a script down that solved those potential problems, could you piece together a cast that could set aside egos and bring it a...

Welcome to day 4 of my countdown to The Avengers! Today I am re-sharing my review of last summer's Thor.  I think I'd probably rank Thor number two if I had to list these five Marvel films in order of my favorite (maybe even a close number 3).  Either way, I enjoyed it a lot and it is very entertaining.  I'll share my personal rankings tomorrow when I post the last installment of the countdown! Thor (2011), PG-13, 115 minutes - May is upon us and with it the release of the first wave of big summer blockbuster releases, and with that renewed enthusiasm for someone such as myself to share my opinions with the masses (otherwise known as the five people who regularly check in). This marks a nice 'return to form' so to speak as I've been tied up watching more NBA and NHL playoff games than movies over the past few weeks. Thor has been one of the films that I've been most anticipating for quite a while now and I am pleased to report that it did not disap...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), R, 158 minutes - About a year and a half ago, just after I had seen the Swedish adaptation of this best selling first installment to late author Stieg Larsson's  Millennium trilogy I read the news that an American adaptation was going to be made.  My first reaction was 'why bother?'.  The novel was excellent, was equaled by the Swedish film starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, and at the time was only a year old (my original review can be found  here ).  I generally adhere to the belief that film remakes aren't necessary.  Every once in a while they can be worth it if they are far enough removed from the original (i.e. the Cohen brothers'  True Grit last year).  The key to remember in this case though is that David Fincher did not set out to remake the Swedish film but to provide an English language adaptation that would be more widely distributed here in the States.  The fact that Finc...