The only thing more cliché than a wholesome American family moving into a cheap mansion, only to realize that the awesome deal they scored was thanks to a supernatural presence or a dark secret, is a city slicking author, so anxious to leave the noisiness of the urban jungle to pen his book, that he [...]

Annabel (Mia Wasikowska) has cancer, but don’t worry, it’s just movie cancer. She has a brain tumor which has a precise ticking clock on how long it will allow her to live, so she can still run around, dance, skip, and eat cheeseburgers with milkshakes (to see what real movie cancer looks like, you’ll have [...]

Guy is a criminal. Guys cleans up his act, goes legit and starts a family. Guys gets pulled back in because someone in his family screwed up. Guy wages war on perps when things go sour. We’ve seen the premise many times before so there isn’t much to get excited about for Universal Pictures’ Contraband. [...]

As a somewhat successful writer, I’ve become a firm believer that all work should be from the heart. Unfortunately, as a film critic, I’m stuck watching and reviewing movies where it’s painfully obvious that the filmmakers had an ambitious idea in mind, but not the slightest idea about the subject matter. What results is a [...]

There are four main characters in Happy, Happy because it is about two couples; however, one of them really shines through and becomes such a pleasure to watch that it really does not matter what happens with the plot or any of the other players, she is just stunning. I am talking about Agnes Kittelsen [...]

The second trailer for Paranormal Activity 3 is here and perhaps I misspoke when I described the first trailer saying “. . . what made the series special had left already.” Maybe it has something to do with the connection to children, but the demon presented to us in this trailer is much more violent [...]

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Garry Marshall was trying to break the unofficial record he set in Valentine’s Day by jamming even more A and B-list actors into his new romantic comedy New Year’s Eve. The ultimate result is they are all a part of your basic multi-threaded movie that intertwines the [...]

Mysteries of Lisbon is not so much comprised of mysteries, but instead a series of conversations which always lead to some sort of revelation. These revelations are melodramatic punch lines with interlocking characters continuously finding out who their parents are, where they came from, the results of lost loves, and everything in between. If the [...]

Ah, those lovable, enchanted, small blue creatures known as the Smurfs — many of us Generation Xers grew up with Peyo’s creation on Saturday morning with a bowl of cereal. Our children have not, and seeing a vast untapped resource, Sony Pictures decided to do a remake of the classic cartoon. Now some critics have [...]

The circumstances which the two girls in Circumstance find themselves struggling against are those created by the oppressive Iranian theocracy. Every single thing which they want to do as teenagers is deemed illegal by the ruling mullahs and enforced by the corrupt morality police. To circumvent the rules, they use secret code words and signals [...]

Bellflower is the result of some filthy filmmaking. I do not mean that as they did a poor job, far from it. I mean the shots are so real and intense you can almost smell sweat and whiskey infused body order while sitting in an air conditioned theater. There is a road trip scene where [...]

Killer Elite is saddled with a vague and forgettable title but at least it sounds more lethal than “The Feather Men,” the book it is based upon written by Sir Ranulph Fiennes (face it, an evil cabal known as the Feather Men does not inspire too much fear). These ex-SAS (Special Air Service) members, and [...]

A guilty pleasure of mine is watching Jersey Shore. Another is watching Katherine Heigl. She puts her curves and flightiness (the reasons she is one of my pleasures) center stage again in Lionsgate’s new actiony rom-com One for the Money. Based on a long running mystery series written by Janet Evanovich, Heigl tackles the role [...]

Somewhat competent yet unremarkable, Assassination Games is another low-budget action-thriller of the well-worn hitman subgenre variety. The big draw of this otherwise undistinguished action fare is that it stars aging action icon Jean-Claude Van Damme and rising star Scott Adkins, both of whom are incredible fighters both on and off the screen. However, while Assassination [...]

Much like athletes, who run on daily workouts, strict diets, and practice, sports films operate on inspiration. And there’s something about the genre that makes grown men cry their eyes out. Perhaps it’s the machismo, making even the most collected male feel comfortable in shedding a tear or two (definitely more masculine to get emotional [...]

I did not enjoy Abduction, but not for the reasons you might suspect. While there are many to address, I want to assure you that none of my negative points will verbally lambast lead actor Taylor Lautner just because “he’s that guy from Twilight.” Nor will I make scalding references to his gratuitous lack of [...]

A full trailer for Columbia Pictures’ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo arrived today and it is promises this movie is going to kick ass. Based off the first book of the phenom that is “The Millennium Trilogy,” it starts the tale of a journalist’s investigation into the disappearance of a girl some 40-years ago. [...]

Man vs. Wild is one way to explain Open Road Films’ The Grey, although that’s a simple comparison. After a plane crashes in the pristine Alaskan wilderness, a group of survivors must battle the harsh elements and a pack of hungry grey wolves — some, to say the least, are luckier than others. I’d like [...]

Out of all the unlikely sequels to materialize over recent years, Johnny English Reborn would have to be the most unexpected. While 2003′s Johnny English enjoyed a healthy run at the box office, it endured a harsh reception from both critics and audiences, and sequel prospects were never really discussed. Arriving eight years after its [...]

I’m not entirely sure why this latest trailer for The Thing is red-band; it’s got some good shots of the shape shifting creature, shape shifting and killing a scientist or two, but there isn’t anything that should raise the ire of the MPAA. But anyways, if you recall the original The Thing, it started with [...]

Growing up in New York City, in the 1970s, painter Alice Neel (who died in 1984, at age 84) was often in the news, with a show or retrospective at this or that gallery or museum. Such was the extent of her fame and renown, locally, that it’s hard to imagine she was anything other [...]

Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs released theatrically in 1971. Based on the novel “The Siege of the Trencher’s Farm” by Gordon Williams, it came out the same year as A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection, and Dirty Harry, causing quite the uproar from conservative Americans, who were worried about the increase of violence in movie houses. [...]

The Driver (Ryan Gosling) has no need for a name. He embodies his job description — a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. Life outside of the 1973 Chevy Malibu, his vehicle of choice, is anonymous. That is, until Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall, walks into the Driver’s life. [...]

Directed by Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In), Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy successfully drops us right in the middle of 1970′s Cold War London where we join members of MI6 at a meeting in a bunker known as “The Circus.” Attendees are Control (John Hurt), George Smiley (Gary Oldman), Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Percy [...]

You’ve heard of a family moving out of the bustling city to the serenity of rural life before, but have you heard of one moving to an animal park? Probably not, but in We Bought a Zoo, a despondent Benjamin Mee, tired of spinning his tires in the proverbial mud and desperately looking to strengthen [...]

The second trailer for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 was dropped late last night, causing kids to stay up past their bedtime and make a mad dash to pc screens around the world (I was sleeping peacefully). This trailer delves deeper into Bella’s pregnancy — she can’t safely carry the rapidly growing [...]

A teaser trailer for upcoming thriller Red Lights was made available today by Nostromo Pictures. In it, director Rodrigo Cortés (Buried) sets the stage for us to question all we know and believe with a few pointed statements and a sinister shot that captures Robert De Niro’s famous scowl. It’s enough to at least pique [...]

Every hockey team has an enforcer or two — a couple of guys who don’t have the best stick handling or skating skills but can kick the ass of those who do. In Goon that’s Doug Glatt. As a member of the lowly Halifax Highlanders, his responsibility is to wreak havoc on opposing teams while [...]

Persistence is an admirable quality to possess. Our parents instilled the old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” to encourage us to not give up — anything is possible. Well, that’s not necessarily true; there’s a point when it becomes pathetic to keep trying — no matter how long and hard [...]

In a well timed release (it is currently showing at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and receiving high praise), comes the first trailer for the Indonesian action flick The Raid. This high octane shoot ‘em up and kick their ass fest follows a team of highly trained SWAT officers as they raid a heavily [...]

It’s all in a touch — love, rage, suffering and happiness are all defined by our proximity to one another. Even a soldier a thousand miles away staring at a screen that a drone projects back to him needs to press a key to make an insurgent disappear. Steven Soderbergh’s fitfully disturbing and fully realized [...]

The first trailer for The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) was crap. The second trailer, released today by IFC Films, gets down and dirty. It introduces us to Martin, the man with the brilliant plan to build upon Dr. Heiter’s sickening experiment. Can you think of a better way to pay homage to the demented [...]

If not for anything else, the upcoming movie The Big Year should be entertaining just because it has a fantastic cast supporting it. It’s about three guys, each with a separate crisis — mid-life, work-life and no-life — that compete with each other in everything they do. It culminates — imagine it — at an [...]

There’s nothing that makes a grown man cry like a good sports movie. It might be the love of the competition or a nostalgic recapturing of the dreams most young boys have of being a giant sports star with ultimate glory in sight. Boxing films, in particular, have been some of the most successfully tear-jerking [...]

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) pushed the boundaries of all that is good and decent in the world. Apparently that boundary wasn’t pushed far enough as now The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) is set to squirm into theaters in October. The trailer for it is obviously staged for viewer reactions, but I’m sure what [...]

Gonzalo Là³pez-Gallego’s mockumentary Apollo 18 has been delayed five consecutive times. But that doesn’t mean that the director used the time wisely. NASA, which often works with filmmakers who are using space as a backdrop for their films, denounced the movie due to their minimal involvement (never even seeing a rough cut) and Bert Ulrich, [...]

When asked how many animal species exist, scientists estimate that the answer’s anywhere between 10 and 100 million. Now, that’s a whole lot of creatures running about. So then why has Hollywood limited itself to only a handful? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see a thriller revolving around genetically-altered giraffes or a monstrous salmon for [...]

An international trailer for the psychological thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene has been made available by Fox Searchlight Pictures today. In it, a woman seeks to re-assimilate herself to the real world after escaping from an all-consuming cult. It’s not as easy as it may seem, especially when she can’t be sure what is real [...]