Susanne Bier wants us all to know that bullying is bad and she’s willing to go to great lengths to make sure her message is heard. The Danish filmmaker’s dreary drama In a Better World paints a portrait of bullying that begins and ends in black-and-white territory, while managing to occasionally flirt with the gray [...]

Director Cameron Crowe has finally emerged from his cocoon — seven years after the abysmal Elizabethtown. Yes, he has had a couple of projects in that time, notably the Pearl Jam documentary, but he has avoided anything related to his dramatic film roots of which produced Say Anything, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. With We [...]

In Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, you will not find sexual addictions, murderous cults, criminal sociopaths, not even a single vampire. You will, however, find a compelling story of one boy’s incredible bonding with a high-spirited half-thoroughbred who becomes trapped in the nightmare of the First World War. Based on the 1982 children’s novel by Michael [...]

Even though there are now two films in Guy Ritchie’s vision of the Sherlock Holmes universe (the first aptly titled Sherlock Holmes), I am still getting accustomed to the athletic, street fighting Holmes as opposed to the merely cerebral genius who used to chase suspects by horse and buggy rather than bash their brains out [...]

A decade later and 9/11 has become the new “it” thing in Hollywood. Now, much like with homosexuality, movies — particularly late-winter melodramas — dealing with the terrorist attacks have become foolproof investments. As such there was no stopping Stephen Daldry’s latest film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s eponymous [...]

In the hands of an ordinary director, the hype surrounding Prometheus would amount to nothing more than a blip on the radar screen. In the hands of Ridley Scott, the man responsible for one of the best sci-fi horror flicks made (Alien), there is a tsunami of interest. In his latest, he explores the origin [...]

Georges Prosper Remi, better known by his pen name Hergé, was the revolutionary behind the Adventures of Tintin comic series, which he wrote and illustrated. Known for the meticulous research that went into each chapter, its vivid humanism, political satire and the “ligne claire” art style he used (and pioneered), which utilizes strong lines, cast [...]

If Bella Swan of Twilight infamy is the archetype for every subordinate female lead, Lisbeth Salander, the punk fashionista at the crux of Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium” novel series, is her antithesis; her independence and inability to conform — physically and intellectually — makes her the forerunner of the New Age feminist movement. Pierced, inked, and [...]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the precursor to one of the best movie trilogies ever made (referring to The Lord of the Rings) has, after many restarts and hype, finally debuted its trailer. Many of the cast — Gandalf, Legolas, Elrond, Bilbo, Frodo — are back, this time to face off with the evil dragon [...]

Magic Trip is a real-time documentary, cobbled together from 40-year-old film, about a cross-country trek just prior to the big hippie invasions of the mid-to-late 1960s. It’s a time capsule, and it’s a highly informative one for those of us who weren’t there. It’s a jumping-off point to explain the lovefests, the Be-Ins, the protests, [...]

This is certainly a step in the right direction. I’m speaking about the trailer to Wrath of the Titans, the follow-up to the much maligned Clash of the Titans remake. It looks as though Warner Bros. Pictures may have listened to the gripes of movie goers and come out with something with more action and [...]

Well, the wishes of hundreds of thousands of fanboys has been answered. The first official trailer for Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Dark Knight Rises has finally hit the web after its premiering over the weekend with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Being touted as the conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s visionary trilogy, the film pits [...]

Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender) has an addiction. He does not struggle against it, seek therapy to cure it, or deny its existence; he learns to cope with it and attempts to shape his life around it to create routine and give it space. Brandon is addicted to sex but appears to be a bit more [...]

The Church of Scientology must’ve numbed Tom Cruise to fear (or common sense) — it’s the only explanation for the stunts he does in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol — because the actor dangles 100 stories in the air outside Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper. And although it’s awfully hard to believe he [...]

One of the funniest clips I’ve ever seen and the one that cemented my love of Paul Rudd was from a skit on “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” (check it out: Celery Man). Apparently, someone liked their brand of humor too, thought these guys deserved a movie and so Tim & Eric’s Billion [...]

If Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret, his first film since You Can Count on Me, establishes anything it is that unless we can acknowledge responsibility and forgive ourselves for any real or perceived wrongdoing, we are caught in an endless cycle of denial and recrimination, potentially causing great damage to ourselves and others by internalizing our guilt. [...]

“The world’s darkest hero rides again.” I’m not sure if the Ghost Rider is the darkest hero per se, but he’s definitely got a dark streak running through him. In the second trailer for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, he shows some of it off. Why? Well much to his chagrin, while “vacationing” in Europe, [...]

Like many movie snobs and deadbeat critics, I too studied film. As a consequence, I’ve met a number of hacks — among them was a young man who tried to emulate classic cinema. Everything from the scores he used, to his cinematography and narratives were brined in dust and had an air of pretentiousness. Usually, [...]

As if there was any doubt that a sequel to The Expendables, the not as good as it shoulda been action flick starring every action hero actor on Earth, would be made (although many secretly wished it wouldn’t). Details are scarce for Lionsgate’s The Expendables 2 — all we know is Church calls on the [...]

Leave it to the mind of the man who brought Brüno and Borat to the big screen to dream up and make fun of what isn’t necessarily a funny scenario. Sacha Baron Cohen is a dictator in Paramount Pictures’ The Dictator. Hailing from the fictional Middle Eastern country of Wadiya and having untold wealth at [...]

Because I was a big fan of Cobra Command in my youth, I smiled at the trailer for G.I. Joe: Retaliation when a large portion of the G.I. Joe team are shot to hell up. The smile faded shortly thereafter. Best as I can tell, this sequel (of the less than stellar G.I. Joe: The [...]

High school: You either loved it or you hated it. If you were a star athlete, gorgeous cheerleader, or the kid who had an open house and unmatched access to alcohol, I’m sure you’ve nothing but fond memories. Personally, as a dork, I don’t miss it in the slightest, yet, embarrassingly enough, I still wonder [...]

How does one inject new life into a successful franchise that has laid dormant for nine years? In the case of Men in Black 3, the answer is to introduce time travel! In this installment, agent J goes back in time to work with a younger agent K to uncover deeply guarded secrets pertinent to [...]

It’s quite disconcerting when people in the theater laugh at something they’re supposed to laugh at — even if it isn’t funny. That’s the way I felt during the entire two-hour running time of Garry Marshall’s New Year’s Eve, his “superior” sequel to 2010′s Valentine’s Day (though that isn’t saying very much). I don’t know, [...]

Set in Elandsdoorn, a rural township in the province of Mpumalanga, South Africa, director Oliver Schmitz has painted an indelible portrait of a twelve-year-old girl’s resilience in the face of poverty, ignorance, and disease. The film, Life, Above All, was South Africa’s entry in the Oscar’s Best Foreign Film Category and appropriately received a ten-minute [...]

Nothing — and I mean nothing — can prepare you for children. So the advice you may receive from the five couples looking to conceive or adopt in Lionsgate’s What to Expect When You’re Expecting (or the best-selling books it is based off of) ain’t gonna help you one bit. What you will probably get, [...]

It’s been a good year for Peter Mullan. His superb Neds, released earlier this year, was a tough, semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in Glasgow and pulled no punches. Mullan’s character here, Joseph, is built from similar stock. Transplanted to Leeds, Joseph is alone. His wife has died, and he’s just kicked his dog to [...]

Haven’t Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe or Gloria the Hippo made it back to their New York enclosures yet? I guess so long as DreamWorks Animation can come up with ways to keep them lost in the great big world they won’t. In Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, the displaced zoo [...]

It looks a whole lot funnier than I thought it would. Yes, there are plenty of films that that statement could pertain to (more so in the other direction, however), but in this particular instance I’m referring to the trailer for 20th Century Fox’s The Three Stooges. To be honest though, it doesn’t look like [...]

Love is about holding on to someone, but it is also about knowing when to let go. This theme defines Jean-Marc Vallée’s Café de flore, his second film since the 2005 hit C.R.A.Z.Y., and one of the most poignant films in recent memory. Not only does Café de flore repeat Vallée’s earlier success, but goes [...]

The primary creative force behind Lady Magdalene’s, J. Neil Schulman, may be somewhat of a successful novelist, but he cannot in good conscience add filmmaking to his list of credentials. While Schulman wants you to believe that Lady Magdalene’s is a smart action-comedy satirizing today’s post-9/11 climate, the resulting picture is actually an agonizing catastrophe; [...]

A very eerier trailer for The Wicker Tree has surfaced today. Basically a reimaging of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, the film follows two missionaries as they travel to Scotland to spread the word of Jesus Christ to the locals. Little do they realize the pagan townsfolk have been humoring them and really have other [...]

Few places spell horror like a secluded cabin in the woods does; so many things can — and will — go wrong. In The Cabin in the Woods, what goes wrong for five vacationing friends is a cross between being man-made and supernatural. The trap and guarantee of no escape comes from human hands. That [...]

Relaxing at night, after a hard day at work and a few hours online, tending to emails, website modifications, correspondence, and creative things, amongst the best things to do, if too tired to read a book, is to watch a film. But, not a fictive film, but a documentary where, even if the film is [...]

When viewing the primal landscape of the beautiful country of Rwanda, it is hard to imagine that only a short time ago the land was awash with the blood of 800,000 people. No film more fully captures the residual pain resulting from the 1994 genocide than Munyurangabo, an intimate and deeply moving first feature from [...]

Loosely based on director Mike Mills’ own experience as the son of a gay father who came out in his seventies, Beginners is the story of sexual and emotional repression, thwarted relationships, and fresh starts. Hal (Christopher Plummer), at age 75, tells his 38-year-old son Oliver (Ewan McGregor), that he is gay and has been [...]

Making a genuinely good, original Christmas movie is a difficult task in this day and age. Added to this, after Fred Claus, The Polar Express, The Santa Clause and other such motion pictures, it seems impossible to put another fresh spin on Santa Claus and his North Pole universe. Enter the British animation studio Aardman, [...]

The vast majority of film characters who are addicted to pills and alcohol should not be the main characters in movie scripts. These characters are frequently one dimensional and are only required to slur words, stumble over steps, and make a nuisance of themselves. There are exceptions (Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas) as there [...]

There is a point to Julia Leigh’s debut film Sleeping Beauty. There has to be. It can’t be just an arthousey endeavor or a vehicle for Emily Browning to completely expose herself in. Or can it? Whatever it is, Leigh takes the viewer on a cold and calculating, slow ride into the worlds of a [...]

The teaser trailer for John Carter was light on pretty much everything but this full theatrical trailer for the movie released by Disney yesterday has got much more meat on its bones. Too bad, it looks so much like Avatar though. Finding himself on an alien planet, human John Carter is hailed as a savior [...]