Now this is something interesting from Fox Searchlight. It’s Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance) and it tells the tale of a has-been actor desperate for a comeback. From the trailer, it’s clear he hasn’t taken his fall from the spotlight very well, battling with his own internal demons as well as co-stars (and…
A studio-mandated sequel to a weak-at-best film only made to hold onto the rights to a cash cow property, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a movie so pre-packaged and risk-averse that the only surprise it holds comes from the fact it is, against all odds, even worse than this dubious pedigree would suggest. Scotch taped…
In previous looks for Marvel Studio’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Electro had been getting all the attention. But in the latest (and final) trailer, Green Goblin and Rhino are making a bigger impact. It’s quite the refreshing impact too as Spidey, in several extended scenes, is locked in frantic battles with them (I was also…
The Rhino. The Green Goblin. Electro. They’re all on display in Marvel Studio’s latest superhero movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. They all, for one reason or another, also want to see Spider-Man destroyed. Aside from them (even though they play a huge part in the movie), focus is paid to the blossoming relationship between Peter…
DreamWorks Animation, often the poor stepbrother to Pixar, has had a pretty good run over the past two years with “Kung Fu Panda 2,” “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” and “Rise of the Guardians.” That trend continues with The Croods, a wild, colorful tale about the end of the Neanderthals, continental drift, plate tectonics and…
Movie 43 is basically the first new comedy of 2013 (“A Haunted House” does not count). It’s not, however, a comedy in the normal sense. 12 directors — Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Peter Farrelly, Patrik Forsberg, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk, Brett Ratner, and Jonathan van Tulleken —…
Some years ago I learned 1930s and ’40s era gangsters learned to talk “gangster” from the motion pictures. James Cagney probably had more to do with coining gangster lingo and slang than John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and Al Capone combined. Gangster Squad gets the clothes right, does a decent job with 1949 era Los…
