Snow White and the Huntsman: I liked this more than I thought I would, although it was a bit ponderous at times. Charlize Theron seems to be specializing in extremely icy characters right now. She pulled off the evil queen bit without overacting the way Julia Roberts did in "Mirror Mirror," the first of the Snow White movies. To be fair, though, the two films are very, very different. My grade: B-minus.
Prometheus: Charlize Theron icy performance number two. But this thing...oh, dear. A mess of a plot about a space exploration to find and make contact with the apparent creators of humanity on Earth, ridiculous characterization, and what strikes me as a deliberate shoehorning of enough details to allow people to think of this as the prequel to "Alien" just to make money. My grade: D-plus.
Rock of Ages: I can see how this became a Broadway hit, a love story combined with 80s hair-band rock. But this movie is absolutely terrible. I never was a big fan of that music, and although some of the original songs admittedly are great, as performed here by the likes of Tom Cruise (as seriously messed-up rock god Stacee Jaxx) even the good songs lose a lot. Let's put aside how the ostensible stars, and subjects of the love story, Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta, might as well be invisible for all their impact. I ask you this: how can Hough's character, a wannabe singer first seen on a bus from Oklahoma to Hollywood, be named Sherrie Christian, leading to her (and her fellow bus passengers) singing Night Ranger's "Sister Christian," and NOT have her boyfriend sing Steve Perry's "Oh Sherrie" to her? I waited for it in vain the whole damn film. I nearly walked out a couple of times. In retrospect, after seeing the duet of "Can't Fight This Feeling" towards the end by Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand (I'm saying nothing more), I wish I had. My grade: F.
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