Archive for February, 2012

Movie Trailer: Neighborhood Watch (2012) »

It’s tough to be cool rolling in a minivan, but the dads in Neighborhood Watch, for which the first teaser trailer was released today, almost manage to do it. I mean, c’mon, these guys have a tiger with fiery wings decal on the side of their ride! That logo identifies them as a part of [...]

Movie Trailer #2: The Avengers (2012) »

A second trailer for Marvel’s The Avengers has gone viral. More in the way of how and why the team is formed can be found within, with, surprisingly, special attention being paid to the growing pains associated with so many super-egos sharing the stage. But for those longing for some explosions, don’t fret, there are [...]

Movie Trailer #3: John Carter (2012) »

The final trailer for John Carter is here and it couldn’t come any sooner — I for one am tired of the media blitz behind this. That being said, it is impressive to look at. The story may be derivative at this point, but Disney spared no expense in the effects department. The CGI rendering [...]

Movie Review: Act of Valor (2012) »

Releasing a mindless war movie under the precedent that it’s “like no other in Hollywood’s history” was not the right way to convey reverence for our troops. While Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh’s Act of Valor shows respect for the men and women in uniform overseas, it ignores the complexities of their situation. Once intended [...]

Movie Review: Wanderlust (2012) »

As I write this, it’s raining in New York City. While this doesn’t necessarily correlate to the plot of Wanderlust, the new comedy helmed by David Wain, the director behind 2008′s “Role Models,” it had me thinking, “Was this the right weather to have watched such a sunny movie in?” Usually, I’m insecure about being [...]

Red Band Movie Trailer: Project X (2012) »

Warner Bros. has dropped a red-band trailer for Project X today and the warning accompanying it is most definitely warranted. It glorifies drug use, underage drinking, unprotected sex and mass destruction of property. Sounds like a happening party to me too. But while it’ll take the end of the world to stop me from seeing [...]

Movie Trailer: The Raid: Redemption (2011) »

I’m not entirely sure why the ‘Redemption’ was added to the title of The Raid to make The Raid: Redemption but it doesn’t shy me away from wanting to see it. Picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, this domestic trailer actually scales back some of the sick action seen in the international red-band trailer, Americanizing [...]

Movie Trailer #3: Brave (2012) »

It still looks like a winner for Disney/Pixar even if the latest trailer for their adventure Brave doesn’t offer up any more information about the movie. In this impressive clip Princess Merida, in Robin Hood fashion, outdoes those competing for her hand in marriage via an archery competition. It’s worth a check as great detail [...]

Movie Review: This Means War (2012) »

Well it is mid-February and already my hope is that This Means War is the worst movie I will sit through all year. It’s a waste of talent and utterly senseless . . . which would be fine if it happened to be funny as advertised. Instead, the screenwriters — Timothy Dowling and Simon Kinberg [...]

Movie Review: Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) »

As a film critic, I’ve realized that, despite being an industry built on self-expression, there are things we best not admit. Among them is saying that you’ve never seen (or worse, didn’t enjoy) a movie considered a classic. In this review, I’m airing out such a secret: I haven’t seen any installment of the Star [...]

Movie Review: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) »

In Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) often speeds down roadways like a bat out of hell. However, in this case, the idiom should be taken literally. Following a pact with Satan, this once renowned stunt motorcyclist becomes tormented by a demonic entity which, on a mission to punish and consume the [...]

Movie Review: The Vow (2012) »

Although I got a review out of it (making the experience a humanitarian effort), I take great pride in knowing I’m one of the few men comfortable enough with my masculinity to see a movie like The Vow. If its premise — the “true (at least by Hollywood’s standards) story” of love and the lengths [...]

Movie Review: The Other F Word (2011) »

Two things I never tire of: Punk rock music and being a father. Therefore, The Other F Word, which combines the two, is the perfect documentary for me. Basically, a bunch of old-timey West Coast punks (Rancid, Blink 182, US Bombs, NOFX, The Vandals and Pennywise, amongst others) talk about what it’s like balancing their [...]

Movie Trailer #2: Intruders (2011) »

A second trailer for Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s Intruders has been released by Millennium Entertainment and it’s more jarring than the first that was released in May of 2011. This one somehow links a young girl and a young boy from two separate families with a ghoulish figure. What it wants and why it has locked [...]

Movie Trailer: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) »

He wore a stovepipe hat, had an awesome beard, ended slavery and was ultimately assassinated. Can you think of a better way to make the 16th President of the United States any cooler? Well I suppose hunting vampires in between his ratifying the laws of the land would make him more awesome. This fantastical alternate [...]

Movie Review: Rampart (2011) »

Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) is uncharitable, misogynistic, nihilistic, a racist, a chain-smoker, a raging alcoholic, and a bad father, but Rampart, the movie he’s thrust into, is astonishingly dull. Helmed by Oren Moverman, it explores the state of the LAPD circa the late ’90s but, despite what its title suggests, the film isn’t about the [...]

Movie Review: Safe House (2012) »

Daniel Espinosa’s Safe House is a lesson in “Filmmaking with Parkinson’s.” The choppily edited actions sequences — onslaughts of bright colors and enough “shaky-camera” to make Jason Bourne nauseous — are hard to endure. Moreover, they’re built on clichés: Coincidental protests (allowing the protagonists some cover), accidental assassinations, and a handful of close calls. Because [...]

Movie Trailer: The Bourne Legacy (2012) »

With Matt Damon out of the production, there was really only two ways Universal Pictures could have kept the highly successful franchise going: Hire a new lead as Jason Bourne and do a prequel or hire a new lead as a wholly new character and fit them into the aftermath of the Bourne fiasco. They [...]

Movie Trailer #2: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) »

The second trailer for the highly anticipated reboot The Amazing Spider-Man has hit the airwaves today. Unlike the teaser trailer released in July of last year, this one offers a more defining glimpse into what the movie is about. In a nutshell, self-discovery. Peter Parker sets out to understand why his parents abandoned him while [...]

Movie Review: The Innkeepers (2011) »

Alice is an unflattering name for a woman. It’s not, however, nearly as bad as Claire is. For me, Claire conjures up an image of a sad, homely girl whiling away the hours, in a rocker, crocheting a sweater. It is, therefore, a fitting name then for the boy-haircut having, wearing the same dull clothes [...]

Movie Review: Pina (2011) »

“Dance the winds will touch your feet, just dance and dance feel the beat, dance the last atom cutting a knot, just dance and dance until you cannot” — Miroslava Odalovic I sometimes have dreams about being in a place with gorgeous colors and heightened emotions and a feeling of weightlessness. I was thinking about [...]

Movie Review: Chronicle (2012) »

In Chronicle, Josh Trank’s (who’s previously worked on TV’s “The Kill Point”) theatrical debut, we learn that, much like how it is with young love, when high school students are confronted with superpowers, things can quickly escalate from skipping stones and playing aeronautical football to committing crimes of passion and bouts of melodrama. Yet, despite [...]

Movie Review: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) »

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a follow on to the 2008 worldwide hit “Journey to the Center of the Earth” which starred Brendan Fraser. In this one, Fraser has been unceremoniously replaced by former WWE star Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson who plays shunned step-dad Hank Parsons to spoiled Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson). As Hank [...]

Movie Review: The Woman in Black (2012) »

The Woman in Black, directed by James Watkins (“Eden Lake,” “My Little Eye“) and written by Jane Goldman, is a cinematic adaption of Susan Hill’s popular novel of the same name. Daniel ‘Harry Potter’ Radcliffe plays a young widowed Victorian lawyer named Arthur Kipps, who is forced to leave his young son in London with [...]

Movie Review: Big Miracle (2012) »

Revisionist history being what it is, it’s still interesting to view a movie or documentary based on something one remembers. Such is the case with Universal’s newest offering, Big Miracle, starring John Krasinski and Drew Barrymore and directed by Ken Kwapis (“He’s Just Not That Into You,” “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants“). Based on the [...]

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