Movie Reviews, Digital HD Reviews, and Television Reviews

Reviews By Marco Chacon

Here at FlickDirect, our goal is to provide up-to-date reviews on theatrical, home entertainment, and television series. Check out the scoop on upcoming films or programming, and even our take on the classsics from our critics and Rotten Tomatoes Approved, Allison Rose.

The Golden Compass

(Marco Chacon) 12/4/2007 11:19 AM EDT
Canada is forward thinking: their politics are more progressive, their environmental discipline is more advanced, and their movie sneak previews are a week ahead.In the UK, the book was called Northern Lights by author Philip Pullman who was described as "the writer the atheists would would have prayed for, if atheists prayed." This is be... Read More

The Mist

(Marco Chacon) 11/24/2007 2:42 PM EDT
The best ever Stephen King movie is Shawshank Redemption. The absolute worst has got to be Lawnmower Man (which King sued to have his name removed from). The Mist, based on what is one of his finest novellas, is further towards the good side of the batch--much, much further towards the good side.Until the last 20 minutes: at which point it complete... Read More

No Country For Old Men

(Marco Chacon) 11/24/2007 1:12 PM EDT
The title comes from WB Yeats Sailing to Byzantium (a poem about growing old). It's a bit of the ultra violence based on a book by Cormac McCarthy and turned into a movie by the Cohen Brothers. It revolves around a convoluted plot where a bunch of clever, resourceful, and dangerous men vie for 2.4 million dollars in drug-money.Some are fairly "... Read More

Stardust

(Marco Chacon) 11/14/2007 12:25 PM EDT
Neil Gaiman has written some absolutely shattering graphic novels (Sandman), some pretty good books (American Gods), and some films that while innovative rarely achieve the same level of shock and awe (Mirror Mask). Part of this is because Gaiman's strength is in complex interwoven storylines where characterization is set in context with a much lar... Read More

Shooter

(Marco Chacon) 11/1/2007 2:16 PM EDT
The list of "sniper" movies runs the gamut from the obligatory 1993 Sniper where the euphonious character is a Zen Buddhist principled soldier to fare like Phone Booth where 'the Voice' is a bad-guy with a nine-thousand dollar gun. The idea of elite, expertly trained sharp-shooters who strike from a vast distance with pin-point accuracy i... Read More

We Own The Night

(Marco Chacon) 10/31/2007 3:04 PM EDT
There was precious little owning of the night, to be honest. In fact, a large part of the movie was not shot at night. If anything got owned for sure it was my $8.50.We Own The Night stars Joaquin Phoenix who appears on screen with Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall. Which might make you think it would be good. Hey, it made me think it would be good. ... Read More

The Kingdom

(Marco Chacon) 10/15/2007 4:11 PM EDT
The first 20 minutes of The Kingdom should be required viewing for anyone who wants an overview of modern Saudi history and why things are the way they are there. It's an animated history with dates flashing by like box-cars on a train while the voice-over explains (in rapid cut style) the move from a Wahabist tribal group to a Wahabist tribal grou... Read More

Transformers

(Marco Chacon) 7/9/2007 9:55 AM EDT
I missed the 1984 TV show by about 5 years: being in high school placed me outside the zone where I'd watch it. I was aware of it though: a Saturday-morning cartoon featuring overly literal names, the same formula bad guys again and again, and (I'll guess) a moral message embedded somewhere in each episode for the same reasons cereal commercials tr... Read More

1408

(Marco Chacon) 7/9/2007 9:50 AM EDT
I was introduced to 1408 in the audio-book collection Blood and Smoke, three stories by Stephen King that vaguely, barely, relate to death and smoking ... as in ... they have a cigarette in them somewhere. Interestingly, it began life as a writing exercise in King's non-fiction On Writing. He did a few pages to show how he'd revise them and then go... Read More

Ocean's Thirteen

(Marco Chacon) 7/9/2007 9:47 AM EDT
The Ocean's movies have always, fundamentally, about getting George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt together and having them look cool. In fact, all you need to know about this movie is at the end of the trailer: the three of them sit there, in shades and suits, saying nothing, looking cool.If that doesn't sell you on the movie all by itself, yo... Read More