When men dress up as women in the movies, it is almost always in a comedy or farce; think “Some Like It Hot,” “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and “Tootsie.” However, when the situation is reversed and the film concerns women dressing up as men, the movie is habitually a drama bordering on tragedy: “Yentl,” [...]

It took two viewings for me to appreciate We Need to Talk About Kevin, the neo-surrealist drama helmed by Lynne Ramsay. Based on a book of the same name, the film, scribed by the director alongside Rory Kinnear, explores the theme of “nature versus nurture” through the eyes of Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton), a disenchanted [...]

As a heterosexual male, I am probably among the minority of those who have read Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books. I’m totally cool with that. I find the books funny enough without being degrading, intelligently written, and full of excellent, memorable characters. So I was more than a little leery when I heard that the [...]

There are several factoids I learned after watching The Wicker Tree, the 39 years in the making sequel to cult favorite “The Wicker Man.” For one, nuclear power plants make all men who drink or bathe in its cooling source sterile (although on the flip side it also grants them the gift of being able [...]

Our society has often been called “death-denying,” one in which grief is suppressed and the inevitability of death ignored. Author John Fowles said, “Death’s rather like a certain kind of lecturer. You don’t really hear what is being said until you’re in the first row.” The children at a primary school in Montreal are definitely [...]

Unable to sit idly by as the country degenerates into worthless, crass, reality show shit, one man decides to take a stand. Actually that’s one man and one teenage girl. Together in the dark comedy God Bless America, they zag and zig across this great land of ours killing off the selfish, self righteous and [...]

Recently, as per my friend’s request, I skimmed through a snuff film he’d found online. “You know, the fact that I don’t bat an eye at this, but have to hold back tears during ASPCA infomercials is sick in and of itself.” “Congratulations, you’ve been desensitized to human violence,” he shot back. It’s true, like [...]

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is back in his latest kid friendly flick, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. He takes on the role of buff stepfather to Sean, the teenaged kid involved in the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” adventure. (Brendan Fraser couldn’t be bothered to make the sequel apparently). This adventure takes the [...]

Joe Carnahan’s The Grey falls in line with an intimate, frequently grueling genre of films that serve as potent reminders of why humankind builds cities. Pitting eternally grizzled survivor Liam Neeson and a dwindling crew of compatriots against a vicious, unrelenting nature, the film gets off to a strong start before mooring itself in thinly [...]

Red Dog is a real charmer of an Aussie movie. Directed by Kriv Stenders, the film is based on the true story of a Kelpie who won the hearts of Western Australia during the ’70s. With its myriad of heart and soul, the movie is a heart-warming, endearing, humorous and affecting portrayal of a mining [...]

The first major Hollywood effort to document Margaret Thatcher’s life made a strategic error. Instead of focusing on the “Iron Lady” kicking butt in the 1980s in the extremely male dominated arena of global politics, The Iron Lady instead chose to focus on Margaret’s mid-stage dementia with haphazard flashbacks to the major themes throughout her [...]

Casting for Steven Soderbergh’s latest film, Haywire must’ve started with an all-star poker match. Inviting talents like Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, and Ewan McGregor for beer and gambling, the director, confident with his hand, decided to raise the ante. “How about we make this interesting? Relativity Media dumped me with a [...]

“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery The ability to see events from different perspectives is one of the most important elements of a successful relationship, whether it involves a married couple, a parent and child, or a group of nations. Warring [...]

It is rare for a movie franchise to make it to a fourth film and be good. The Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises had it easy, hell, Star Wars technically started on its fourth installment and Harry Potter had its beloved stories directly handed to them. The Die Hard series had to work for [...]

I suppose it could be said that is was only a matter of time before Todd Phillips was going to set his “crude,” alcohol-fueled partying mind on teenaged subjects. He is, after all, the man behind such movies as “Old School” and “The Hangover” (which, if you recall, depicted grown-ups acting like drunken adolescents). Project [...]

Jesus Christ. You’d think by now that damn T-virus and the Umbrella Corporation responsible for it would be out of commission. Neither are, and so Screen Gems has added a fifth installment to their video game cross-over cash cow — Resident Evil: Retribution. If you were wondering what happens this time around, stop. It’s basically [...]

Anthony Hemingway (with assistance from George Lucas) has done something few directors have been ever able to achieve — he has created a war film almost completely devoid of drama, passion or interest. And given the subject matter of this movie, that’s an amazing statistic. Based on “true events,” Red Tails is a chronicle — [...]

Contrary to most, this reviewer is an enormous Mel Gibson apologist, and it’s tragic that every nuance of his private life has been broadcast to the oversensitive public who subsequently judge the man on isolated incidents without knowing the proper context. With his personal demons under the scrutiny of the public eye, the star is [...]

The Guard can probably be described as “Lethal Weapon” meets Quentin Tarantino by way of “In Bruges.” However, it does not feel like a derivative motion picture or a slapdash mash-up. Instead, this is a hilarious, well-written and satisfyingly tongue-in-cheek dark comedy which possesses its own unique identity. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh [...]

Aside from scoring a big fish with nearly every take, I can’t imagine picking people’s pockets for a living to be very lucrative — the risk surely outweighs the benefits. But in Loosies, it’s precisely what Bobby (Peter Facinelli) does on a daily basis, although he tells his mother (with whom he still lives with) [...]

My neighbor is a borderline Christian extremist. When she’s not bashing homosexuality or quoting the Bible, she particularly enjoys listening to gospel music and watching Tyler Perry movies. Once, being the self-appointed film snob I am, I asked about her obsession with the Madea series. She applauded the franchise’s family-friendly and pro-God morals — completely [...]

Puppy love. It can make kids do stupid things. In Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, for which the first trailer was just released today, it causes Suzy and Sam to run away from their “normalish” lives to live on a small island together relying on Sam’s boy scout abilities to survive. This, predictably, doesn’t go well [...]

Most of us are extremely under-informed on the details of the Bosnian War thanks to the cursory western media coverage, and the mostly hands-off approach the United Nations took in responding to it. In the Land of Blood and Honey, Angelina Jolie’s writing/directorial debut, works to rectify that. And while it doesn’t shy away from [...]

I have a friend who once wrote a novel about an entire minor league stadium (players and fans alike) which is suddenly transported through a wormhole to third century Palestine. There, the modern-day folks meet Barabbas (who was freed in Jesus’s stead) roaming about the desert. The players and fans change Barabbas’ name to Barry [...]

I always enjoy reviewing the first film of the year because, as many of you know, January is largely reserved for contractual releases and studio throwaways. Alas, it’s 2012 and we’ve only 11 months before utter chaos, so I’m savoring the opportunity to rip apart William Brent Bell’s The Devil Inside. A faux-documentary, it examines [...]

Be careful if you prefer your movies wrapped up in a pleasant little bow with an obvious beginning, middle, end, and with all questions and conflicts answered and sorted out. Certified Copy raises hundreds of absorbing and metaphysical questions, none of which will be answered for you at the end. In fact, the audience is [...]

Ong Bak 3 picks up exactly where its immediate predecessor ended. But can anyone actually recall the events of 2008’s disappointing Ong Bak 2: The Beginning? It was a dour mess; a confused jumble of leaden action scenes, montages and flashbacks without a modicum of comprehensible storytelling. Ong Bak 3 continues the decline in quality [...]

British film director Steve McQueen’s 2008 debut film, Hunger, is notable for many reasons: It is a great film, a great debut film, uses an innovative narrative structure, uses interesting cinematography in concert with its soundtrack, makes the best use of ambient sound to have the best non-musical soundtrack I’ve heard in a long time [...]

Bill Cunningham can’t be bought. He is there to observe and to take pictures, not to consume the fancy meal or mingle with the celebrities; a line which most individuals in his position would most likely blur. Bill has a section of the Sunday New York Times Style section where he will point out a [...]

It’s doubtful that any Christmas stories are as omnipresent as Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Since cinema’s very inception, there have been tons of motion picture adaptations of this 1843 novella, as well as spoofs and updated variations (the Muppets, Mickey Mouse and even Mr. Magoo have all tackled this Yuletide morality tale). In addition, [...]

For Tony Jaa, 2003’s Ong-bak was essentially his debutante ball, as it introduced the nimble performer and his phenomenal fighting skills to worldwide movie-goers. Wirework and digital effects are the norm in this day and age, but Jaa is the real deal: He actually performs death-defying stunts and leaps, and actually lands brutal aerial blows [...]

Written and directed by independent filmmaker David Spaltro, Things I Don’t Understand is a thought-provoking drama of young people on the edge, seeking desperately to grab a foothold. Like other recent films, it asks the hard questions: Who am I, why am I here, what is the meaning of life, and what happens when we [...]