The 1997 Canadian sci fi film Cube, by Vincenzo Natali, was one of the great examples of good writing, good acting, and a limited budget making for an excellent, and thought provoking little film. Unfortunately, its financial success led to two mediocre sequels, neither of which had the verve of the original, and neither of [...]

Based on a popular Brothers Grimm fairy-tale and helmed by Nathan Greco and Byron Howard (screenplay by Dan Fogelman), Tangled is the simple yet elegant tale of a young princess named Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore), who is born of a mysterious and all-healing flower, whose abilities have transferred over to her golden hair. But, [...]

Usually when a guy, who goes on a rant in the ticket line, enters to see the same movie as you, it’s hard not to frown. Though in the case of George Tillman Jr.’s Faster, which was penned by Tony and Joe Gayton, I couldn’t help but smile profusely. That’s because his “profound” commentary during [...]

When I think of the word burlesque, the only thing that really comes to mind is a strip club. I imagine the term was coined so that married men could get away with seeing strippers, on account that the proper term in one of these clubs would be burlesque dancers. See? It sounds so much [...]

Based on the obscure French film, Pour elle, of which I have never heard of, Paul Haggis’ The Next Three Days (which he both directed and wrote the screenplay for), stars the bankable Russell Crowe alongside the equally popular Elizabeth Banks as John and Lara Brennan, a married couple whose relationship takes a drastic turn [...]

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years since the release of Chris Columbus’ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and it’s even harder to believe how much of a cultural phenomenon this big-screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s series of novels has become. In fact, Daniel Radcliffe, who has played Harry Potter over the [...]

What would you do to stay alive? Kill another human being? How about torture and mutilate them horribly? In a much gorified fashion, the Saw series tasked individuals in a “game” with answering these and more damning questions. Breaking away from the simplistic horror angle, Danny Boyle instead ties this question to a harrowing real [...]

A film about a runaway train would appear to be pretty one dimensional — on the surface there are only so many ways you can dress it up. You’d be pleasantly surprised to find that Unstoppable, Tony Scott’s latest, about such a train, offers more than just an angry locomotive hurtling down a track. It [...]

As a frequent movie-watcher, you are trained to endure a certain level of bad — I mean, it’s just the nature of cinema; most movies aren’t Oscar nominees, hell, most movies don’t even come close to winning any sort of awards. Nonetheless, we watch them. As for the reason, it really doesn’t really matter as [...]

There is really but one image conjured up when one thinks about Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Predators. Men preying upon the underaged for sex. But this archaic social medium (when compared to the latest social networks) hosts other questionable types too. Some are hackers. Others pirate movies and software. And some can be described as [...]

I guess when you are top of the world, as Robert Downey Jr. currently is (Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes), it is easy to buy into the hype that you can make no wrong choices and that everything you touch turns to cinematic gold. It’s the only reason I can come up with (other than perhaps [...]

” . . . who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls, incomparable blind; streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, [...]