Eternity (2025)

After death, a woman must choose between eternity with her first husband, who was cut down in the prime of his life, or her second husband, who she spent the last 65 years of her life with. It's a fascinating way to explore a love triangle, with cosmic implications. In terms of afterlife romantic comedies, it can't help but bring to mind Defending Your Life, and I mean that favorably.

3½ pretzels out of 5

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR [2016]

The MCU kicks off Phase 3 with The Russo Brothers' Captain America: Civil War, which is basically the third (and best) Avengers movie yet.
Heavily inspired by Mark Millar's mini-series, the final part of the Cappy America/Bucky Barnes trilogy sees The Avengers' comradery turn sour when the United Nations wants complete control of the team of superheroes.
Kudos to the Russos for managing to keep the film a wild romp of a superhero smackdown but never sacrificing thoughtful subtext or a healthy helping of interesting character arcs.  It's also impressive at how well they manage to juggle such a large ensemble and never once leaving us feel as if we didn't get enough of one character and not the other.  A perfect example of how you can have your costumed characters duke it out something fierce, without getting ridiculously dark, while still keeping it smart and exciting.

4 Bluth stair-cars out of 5

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON [2015]

Director Joss Whedon returns for his final stint in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the second full-fledged Avengers film, Age Of Ultron.
Basically it's Earth's Mightiest Heroes, still feeling the repercussions of what their solo films put them through, team up to save the world from an humanity destroying machine known as Ultron.  The concept is simple enough for first time viewers to still enjoy the film without any prior knowledge, yet, like the MCU films & TV series before it, it features just enough back-story to excite fans who know the pieces for the Infinity Gauntlet and Civil War are all falling into place.  It doesn't quite have the same impact of "hey that Whedon guy did a great job" as the first one did but it still manages to pretty damned good fun.  Whedon's at his strongest when he's featuring his ensemble team working (or fighting) together in both dialogue heavy scenes or full all-over-the-map action sequences.  It's front-to-back a modern Hollywood spectacle but it proves Transformers is not how you do popcorn films.

3 drunken excelsiors out of 5

GODZILLA [2014]

Inspired by the '50's kaiju films, Hollywood decides to give the Godzilla franchise another go, after the dismal shit-heap that was birthed by Roland Emmerich in 1998.
Director Gareth Edwards knows a thing or two about giant beasties based on the success of his first feature, Monsters.  Naturally he's one of the better choices to take the helm for such a film and he really doesn't disappoint with this loud, flashy romp of a good time.
It's a slow-burning start to establish mood and setting, which left some movie-goers impatient but I found that to be part of the excitement when the entire theater finally did rumble and shake from the title character's mighty roar.  It's pretty thin on characters and hardly subtle with it's "nuclear power bad" message but when things start blowing up nothing else matters.

3 cases of nasty breath out of 5

Silent House (2011)

I was excited going into this. It was a horror movie based on something I hadn't watched, shot in a single take. Sadly, it failed to live up to any of my expectations. The appeal of real time films is how they build up tension, but this film never really tried to do that. Its single take is just a gimmick, and not a very good one, since there are some obvious scene changes. I spotted the plot twist early on, and I doubt it would have been satisfying even if it was better executed.

What saves this movie is Elizabeth Olsen, who gives a stunning performance and does her best to elevate the shoddy script. She deserves to be doing better films than this one, but I was impressed enough by her to give this movie a better score than it probably deserves.

2 boxes of Polaroids out of 5.