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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

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) [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Let’s get this out of the way first: Black Death is by no means an enjoyable movie due to its bleak and unflinching depiction of the 14th Century. Be that as it may, it is a riveting, dramatic horror picture that’s as brilliant as it is challenging. Coming from director Christopher Smith (Severance, Triangle), Black [...]

I never thought the life of a pickpocket was particularly endearing but after seeing the trailer for IFC Films’ Loosies, I’m not so sure. Master thief Bobby seems to be cruising along easy street — fine dining, buying to his hearts content and bedding pretty girls — that is until he finds out a one-night [...]

Character growth seems like a lost art in many films these days but I’m happy to say that self-discovery plays a prominent role in The Descendants, Alexander Payne’s first film since Sideways seven years ago. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, George Clooney is Matt King, a well-to-do real estate lawyer, who lives [...]

A “found footage” mockumentary, Lake Mungo is not a typical horror movie in the vein of The Blair Witch Project or The Exorcist. Instead of a schlocky series of cheap scares, freshman writer-director Joel Anderson has crafted a low-key supernatural drama which examines the emotional repercussions of a family dealing with grief. With that said [...]

Fans of David Cronenberg may be at first put off by the pristine stuffiness that envelops A Dangerous Method. While the historical basis for the film is depicted in John Kerr’s “A Most Dangerous Method,” the screenplay has been adapted by Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play “The Talking Cure,” and it shows. This [...]

There’s a lot of hoopla surrounding Martin Scorsese’s latest, Hugo, which is the director’s introduction to family films, and the only one to utilize 3D technology. Not run-of-the-mill praise, I’ve heard phrases like “timeless,” “a masterpiece,” and “one of the best movies about filmmaking ever made,” being thrown about. And because I have no life [...]

Based on an actual racial incident in Gothenburg, Sweden in which a group of black teenagers carried out a series of thefts of other children’s personal belongings for a period of two years, Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s Play is about using psychological game playing rather than name-calling, threats, or overt violence to bully your target. [...]

It is rare to see movie walk outs; people will usually stick out rough films until the end because they willingly paid to be there. It is rarer still to see walk outs in an art house theater because the patrons typically have more experienced expectations on contemplative and metaphorical features. The Turin Horse will [...]

It’s a curious situation when so many people get a kick at the same cinematic can and none of them can get it right. Is the material to blame? The filmmakers? The whole bloody idea? Let’s call it a three-way tie. Following in the footsteps of occasionally decent (but you wouldn’t know it from this [...]

Based on a true story, Snowtown lets viewers inside the Vlassakis family home as they unknowingly welcome in what turns out to be one of Australia’s most notorious serial killers, John Bunting (Daniel Henshall). The Vlassakis family consists of Elizabeth (Louise Harris) the mother and her four sons: Troy (Anthony Groves), Jamie (Lucas Pittaway), Alex [...]

Reflecting both the film’s target audience and the man at the helm (who we can all agree has seen better days), Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar opens with its titular protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio), loose-skinned, prune-hued, and silver-haired, doing what people his age do: Ranting and raving. In his particular case it is about communism, which he [...]

It seems just like yesterday, a trailer for an updated take on a fairy tale was released. Oh wait, it was and for the same fairy tale too (Snow White and the Huntsman)! This adaptation from the imaginative mind of Tarsem Singh has more comedy and a family fun flair to it, and to be [...]

American Gladiators has been resurrected. Well not really, but it is in a similar fashion that penance is paid to the rulers of Panem in Lionsgate’s upcoming film The Hunger Games. In the future, the 12 districts that comprise what was once North America, each submit one teenage girl and boy to take part in [...]

Based on the play “God of Carnage,” by French playwright Yasmina Reza, Roman Polanski’s latest outing, Carnage, follows 2010′s The Ghost Writer, a film unceremoniously swept under the rug. Not to suffer the same fate, the retitled, Brooklyn-transplanted (an impressive facsimile utilizing special effects and careful production design, mimicking the real thing adeptly despite having [...]

It is estimated that there are between 21.4 and 32.1 illegal immigrants or 10-15% of the total of all immigrants in the world. How to deal with illegal immigration has been a source of controversy in most Western countries and raises many complex political, economic and social issues. Le Havre, however, the latest film by [...]

Every fairy tale deserves an updated telling, I suppose (notably Alice in Wonderland and Red Riding Hood). The latest, Snow White and the Huntsman, previewed it’s trailer today. In this rework, the lovely Sleeping Beauty, isn’t quite the pushover we remember as a toddler. The evil queen, who sucks the beauty from all she sees [...]

A middle-aged truck driver’s long years of hauling lumber from Asuncion, Paraguay to Buenos Aires is etched on his grizzled face. Looking as if he hasn’t shaved in weeks, maybe months, his body language displays a passive solitude, as if he has become reconciled to a world of emptiness. Winner of the Camera d’Or for [...]

Daniel Cormack’s ten-minute short, Amelia and Michael, has little dialogue but draws us in with its compelling use of gestures, facial expressions, and subtle glances to establish an unsettling mood. Featuring outstanding performances from Natasha Powell and Anthony Head as an estranged couple named Amelia and Michael, the film is a compelling experience of two [...]

Dito Montiel, chose Channing Tatum as the star for his drama about corrupt police and childhood secrets, The Son of No One, correctly. He needed a guy that was wooden and could believably convey sullenness with no effort whatsoever. There is not, however, much else that is right about this feature, unless noting that in [...]

“Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses, who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.” – Rainer Maria Rilke As we know, high school can be a difficult and challenging place for even the most socially adaptive student. For those who are different in one way or another, it can [...]

No theme in drama touches the heart more than the separation of lovers. In classic dramas from Romeo and Juliet to Wuthering Heights, we empathize with the feelings of sadness and loss that estrangement brings and can relate them to our own experience. Some stories of separation, however, lack deeply-drawn characters and do not have [...]

Under normal circumstances, adolescence is a difficult field to navigate, but for an undersized, child-like boy with dysfunctional parents, it can be a minefield of isolation. Based on the novel, “The Book of Intimate Grammar” by David Grossman, Israeli director Nir Bergman’s powerful film Intimate Grammar is the heartbreaking story of a boy stuck in [...]

Hunter S. Thompson was an acclaimed author and journalist, though as memorable as his literature is, he also has a legacy for his lifelong love of alcohol, mescaline, LSD, and cocaine. And on February 20, 2005, when the drugs stopped supplying happiness, he shot himself to death. The suicide note read: “No More Games. No [...]

Ding! Ding! Ding! It’s time for a brief lesson on the Bard of Avon — William Shakespeare. Born to a working-class family in early 1560s, and, with a sixth-grade formal education, he began as a successful actor in London. Later, ‘Peare branched out to writing plays, specifically comedies and tragedies. His more famous works, considered [...]

You will enjoy particular films even more if you do not know very much beforehand; think The Sixth Sense or The Crying Game. Previews of movies nowadays give away everything including the set up, the conflict, the climax, and sometimes even the ending all before you go and see it. The preview for The Skin [...]

Set in a fictional brokerage firm in 2008 just before the housing bust, Margin Call appears to be very loosely based on Lehman Brothers (hence the boldly printed words “Inspired by a True Story” on its poster). Opening strongly, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) is ushered into a conference room to meet with people he has [...]

Admittedly, I haven’t the slightest idea of what it means to be a woman (especially in these oh-so-confusing times). But, with the media on blast about weight loss products and plastic surgery, and super models — all rail-thin and covered in makeup — constantly being shoved in our faces, I assume that it’s difficult for [...]

Everyone has their own, personal reason for choosing to walk the 500 mile Camino de Santiago. This is a trail which begins in France, winds its way through the French Pyrenees, across northern Spain’s Basque region, and ends in Galicia at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Legend says St. James is buried here. Every [...]

Butch Cassidy didn’t die! Both he and the Sundance Kid somehow made it out alive at the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and escaped certain death at the hands of the Bolivian Army. Flash forward 20 years and Butch, now known as James Blackthorn (Sam Shepard), is still in Bolivia and living [...]

The Mill and the Cross is a movie inside of a painting, specifically a 1564 painting titled “The Way to Calvary” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Pieter Bruegel (Rutger Hauer) is the main character in the film which takes turns following him as he decides how his painting will take shape and who will be [...]

Curtis (Michael Shannon) is having bad dreams. Bad dreams are a bit low key to accurately describe what he dreams at night; absolute night terrors works better. He dreams his faithful dog suddenly attacks him and takes a chunk out of his arm and later he dreams his best buddy stabs him with a pickax. [...]

Being the responsible parents that they are, when their boys get into a scrap in the schoolyard, the Cowan’s and Longstreet’s meet up to discuss the events. As the day progresses, however, it’s these “upstanding” parents that act more outrageous and childlike. Based off of the play “God of Carnage,” Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski, [...]

Compare experienced political operatives with their interns and you’ll see more than wrinkled faces and less hair up top separates them. The interns still have fresh ideals and expectations of the candidates they choose to support; the experienced staffers know better. There was a point on a campaign in their past where their own ideals [...]

Let’s face it, no one is exactly young in Paramount Pictures’ Young Adult — one of them just acts like a snobby prom queen. That one in particular is Mavis Gary, a woman who returns to her small hometown (where she isn’t exactly remembered fondly) to reclaim her high school sweetheart. He, unfortunately, is married [...]

Real Steel, directed by Shawn Levy, is about an estranged father and son who learn to bond with each other through the medium of boxing robots. It’s the year 2020 and robots have replaced humans as the gladiators in the boxing ring. Former boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is unsuccessfully trying to make ends meet [...]

Man will bet on anything. You’ve got your traditional betting that’s done at casinos like poker and blackjack and others done with a local bookie on football and boxing. Some folks even like to bet on back alley dog fights. But if 13, Géla Babluani’s remake of his own film 13 Tzameti, is to be [...]

The title of Lars von Trier’s latest film refers to a rogue planet, significantly dwarfing our Earth and heading for it on an inevitable collision course. von Trier sets the countdown to extinction among a wealthy family holed up in a storybook castle, inhabited largely by two sisters, one a force of depressive nature and [...]

I Melt with You. Sounds like some sort of romantic drama in which two people fall madly in love, doesn’t it? Not so in Magnolia Pictures upcoming feature — it follows a yearly weekend reunion of four life-long friends. And based on the trailer, these guys know how to get down, dirty and blow off [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The Debt is directed by John Madden and is a remake of Assaf Bernstein’s 2007 film of the same name. It begins with retired Mossad agents Rachel (Helen Mirren) and Stefan (Tom Wilkinson), in the year of 1997, receiving the bad news that their former colleague and friend, David (Ciaran Hinds), has committed suicide. We’re [...]

John Sayles’ newest film, Amigo, inspired in part by the director’s work on a novel, “A Moment in the Sun,” focuses on a vital American incursion overseas that has been all but paved over in our history books — the Philippine-American War, occurring at the cusp of a new century, barely fifty years after the [...]

Entire essays — books even — can be devoted to describing Zoe Saldana’s beauty. Everything from her eyes and sun kissed skin to her perfectly toned body makes her every man’s epitomic woman. And Oliver Megaton’s Colombiana was clearly devoted for an actress of her picturesque appearance. Penned by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Karmen, [...]

Johnny Depp must be a kindred spirit to Hunter S. Thompson (as well as Tim Burton), as he is starring in his third Thompson written and/or inspired movie. The Rum Diary, for which the first trailer was released, has him playing a slightly off center journalist who moves to Puerto Rico to start afresh. While [...]

“Embrace the Dysfunction,” is the tagline for the dirtier trailer for The Family Tree which was dropped today by Entertainment One. There’s not much added to this trailer that you couldn’t get from the first one — just a few more sexual innuendos and curse words. But for those who don’t know the premise: The [...]

Amidst the blood bath movies of Conan the Barbarian and Fright Night and the children’s film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, One Day starring Anne Hathaway released this weekend. All summer I have seen trailers for this dramatic film and thought the premise was interesting, despite it looking like just another chick [...]

Yes, Daniel Radcliffe can act in something other than a movie with Harry Potter in the title. You can see for yourself in the second teaser trailer for his latest, The Woman in Black. He portrays an English (of course!) lawyer who, upon arriving at a remote village, stumbles on a female ghost with vengeance [...]

The third trailer for Relativity’s Greek epic Immortals has been released. In it is a more fleshed out story outlining the reason for the battle between King Hyperion, his army of banished Titans and those who, backed by the all powerful Gods, resist him (led by the warrior Theseus). The trailer is very well put [...]

In 2009, the book “The Help” was released and spent more then 100 weeks on bestseller lists. It chronicled the fictional stories of Aibileen Clark, a poor African American lady who works for rich, white families in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s. The book was written by Kathryn Stockett, a Caucasian lady who was [...]

Similar to what Paul Greengrass accomplished with 2010′s Green Zone, 5 Days of War represents a merger of fact and fiction; weaving facets of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war into a predominantly fictional story about journalists caught in the crossfire. Finnish director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger) took the director’s chair here, and attempted to [...]

Before I begin, there is something I need to get off my chest. Rise of the Planet of the Apes? I can understand the producers’ desire to link this film with the rest of the series, but I’m sure audiences would’ve made the same connection if it was just called Rise of the Apes (or [...]

Julie and Julia is Nora Ephorn’s screenplay adaption of two books by two different ladies. In 2002, government employee Julie Powell came up with the idea to begin a food blog that chronicled her challenge of cooking her way through all 524 recipe’s in Julia Childs’ cookbook “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in 365 [...]

In the past few weeks, New York City and the United States experienced a grueling, sweltering heat wave that swept over the East Coast after parching the rest of the country. This writer spent most of it indoors, in close proximity to a rumbling air conditioner — when I did go out, it was to [...]

At fortysomething, Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) is living the American Dream. He has a nice house, a decent job, two loveable kids, and unlike most people, he’s married to his high school sweetheart, Emily (Julianne Moore). But that white picket fence is only as strong as those who built it, and in Weaver’s case, this [...]

Behind every presidential hopeful, there is a driven man (or woman) who, believing in the cause whole heartedly, is busting their ass in the trenches — doing everything and anything to win. More often than not, there is also a secret stashed away that, if reported on, would ruin the chances of winning the presidency. [...]

Written and directed by David Michôd (making his feature-length debut), Animal Kingdom persuasively demonstrates that plenty of life still remains in the contemporary Australian film industry. Fundamentally the Australian Goodfellas in the suburbs of Melbourne, it ostensibly looks as if Animal Kingdom was specifically produced to capitalize on the recent success of the acclaimed TV [...]

The appetite for driving fast in movies will never be satisfied. Drive Angry 3D and Transporter 3 are two recenter(?) movies with a theme that is conducive to lots of car chases and crashes. FilmDistrict, at Comic-Con, unveiled a trailer for their entrant into the genre: Drive. Basically, they replaced a man who delivers things [...]

The teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, the final installment of Christopher Nolan’s telling of the Batman story, is here. Finally. Even though this sneak peak doesn’t give away much, it still does just enough to get the adrenaline pumping. Watch below and crave for more. The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale, Joseph [...]

Finales of this magnitude usually come about once every few years for television shows, but very rarely for feature films. However, this is most certainly the case for the epic conclusion to the Harry Potter series, filled with equal parts fan-servicing closure and genuinely emotive scenes for those less devout followers like myself. Personally, Harry [...]

And you thought your family was a dysfunctional mess. Take a look at the Burnett family. They’re majorly screwed up and while everyone in the clan has their respective quirk, the trailer for The Family Tree makes it appear that the mother is the cause of the bulk of the familial issues. But after mom [...]

Independent films rarely take on science fiction. Reason is because sci-fi films usually require lots of money for sets and effects (movies with angsty conversations about your family, on the other hand, are relatively cheap and easy to make). When the genre is tackled, however, I have often enjoyed the results mostly because they tend [...]

The Ledge was screened in New York during a stand-off between supporters and opponents of gay marriage; some journalists even believed that the city, which was one vote away from legalizing marriage equality, was on the heels on “anarchism.” Luckily, it never came that far. Coincidentally, the film, Matthew Chapman’s directorial debut (he also pens [...]

The “mad scientist” in The Skin I Live In is a well-to-do plastic surgeon. His all consuming passion is the creation of an impervious, synthetic skin, which, if he had 12 years ago, would have saved his wife who was horrifically burned in a car crash. With his goal within grasp, the good doctor requires [...]

Most scripts are divided into three acts: The setup, which introduces characters, plot-points, and locales; the confrontation, where both the antagonist and protagonist’s strengths and weaknesses are further examined — complicating the problem at hand — and finally; the resolution, which concludes the aforementioned conflicts. Larry Crowne, a love-story between an ex-Navy serviceman and his [...]

Actor-come-filmmaker David Schwimmer’s sophomore theatrical effort as a director, 2010′s Trust deals with sensitive, challenging subject matter that most directors would refuse to touch with a 20-foot pole. Armed with a timely significance and a relevant message pertaining to the dangers of the World Wide Web, this is a powerful and provocative independent drama with [...]

Topher Grace took time off from his role as Eric Forman in the hugely successful That ’70s Show back in 2004 (you know, that Dennis Quaid movie he totally phoned in on) and left the show in 2007 for a supporting role in Spider-Man 3. Following those two debacles was a role in a small-time, [...]

It’s ancient times and, once again, the survival of humanity hangs in the balance. No, the Gods aren’t leveling the people because of their blasphemies this time, it’s a power-mad king named Hyperion causing the destruction. In his quest for the Bow of Epirus — a weapon that will even make the Gods of Olympus [...]

One has to balance the several fine performances with the most depressing screenplay of the year if one is to gain any kind of satisfaction from Running With Scissors, the debut directorial effort from Ryan Murphy (TV series Nip/Tuck) about a dysfunctional — with a capital “D” — family. In fact, it’s like American Beauty [...]

You know a movie, where the main plot line is skipping school, is bad when the main character tells the audience there are “rules” to such activities. And unless that character is Ferris Bueller, the viewers — for the most part — should just ignore those guidelines. I’ll even go a step further. The Art [...]

Shot on every cent of a five million dollar budget and the directorial debut of Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie, no less), Moon was without doubt the most underrated and underviewed film of 2009. With an underrated film comes an underrated actor in Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon, Iron Man 2) who pairs up with [...]

In a word: Intriguing. In a few more, Wasted On The Young is an ardent revenge film that shows substance and style in some areas, but appears to have bitten off more than it can chew in others. This little-known Australian film continues to follow the trend in the local film industry. That is, for [...]

Dancing, they say, can change the world. Kevin Bacon used it to change the little town of Bomont in 1984′s Footloose. Kenny Wormald gets to do it in the remake, although I’m not quite sure why. MTV’s telling of Footloose, of which the trailer was released today, updates the dance moves and the kids’ ever [...]

Even the great scientific minds of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung can misstep. Especially when a beautiful and complicated woman is involved. In David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, ethical and moral lines are crossed, when both men fall under said woman’s spell. The trailer, which released today by HanWay Films, promises the movie will spice [...]

It’s surprising that The Roommate wasn’t entitled Single White Female: The College Years, since this flick is pretty much just a Single White Female redux for which the filmmakers trimmed a few years off the cast and, just to be safe, also trimmed down characterizations, logic, etc. Simply put, The Roommate is unbearable and uncreative, [...]

Forced to build a contending major league baseball team on a budget, Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s, turns to statistical analysis to draft his players. Traditionalists of the game, however, see this as gaming the system — effectively ripping the fun and purity from the game they hold dear. Based on [...]

What you expect from a film really paints what you will feel about the film afterward. Whether you are partial to or despise the director or one of the actors, if you’ve heard good or bad reviews from friends, or if you’ve been sucked in or led astray by marketing will already start you with [...]

Filmmakers Carlo Ledesma, Enzo Tedeschi & Julian Harvey clearly took heed of the philosophies and techniques of renowned scare-meister Alfred Hitchcock for 2011′s The Tunnel, namely his mantra that less is more: It is not always what you see that scares you, but what you imagine. A low-budget horror pic filmed in 14 days and [...]

American film director Terrence Malick’s fifth feature film release, in four decades in the business, The Tree Of Life, is a film that, in parts, has some of the greatest techniques and moments ever recorded in film history. It also has some fatal narrative flaws that prevent it from outright greatness as an overall work [...]

Many a man believes Megan Fox is an angel. Not necessarily one that resides in heaven with a halo over its head, mind you, but more in the you’re in my sexual fantasies kind of way. In Passion Play, Mitch Glazer’s directorial debut, Mrs. Fox combines both elements — she pouts and purses her lips [...]

The beginning of the end has begun. The first trailer for the highly anticipated The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 has arrived to the squeals of prepubescent girls around the globe. In it, aside from lots of madly-in-love kissing and goo-goo eyes, the teaser of Edward and Bella’s pending nuptials and Bella’s pregnancy [...]

What good is Valentine’s Day without a nice big helping of sappy romance? Generally the answer is “none,” but today Screen Gems released the first trailer for The Vow, effectively telling the world that they’re doing their part to ensure there is tear-inducing romance ready for next year. Enlisting the aid of Hollywood’s favorite girl-next-door [...]

The Uncanny X-Men are back in their best adventure since X2! In X-Men: First Class, we see, in fantastic fashion, what transpired to form them together (and tear them apart), and are fed interesting treats (especially to any hardcore buffs) like how Magneto got his helmet, who the superhero Darwin was, and even how the [...]

Yes, the first movie adaptation of the “The Millennium Trilogy” just wrapped up a year ago and a retelling is already slated for release later this year. Based off the official trailer of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (a bootlegged version arrived last week), however, this looks like a bad-ass reboot. The David Fincher [...]

“Vintage Woody Allen” would be the most appropriate label for 2009′s Whatever Works, because that’s never been truer. Woody initially wrote this film back in 1977 as a vehicle for Zero Mostel, but the screenplay was set aside when Mostel inconsiderably died before the film could be made. However when Woody’s one-movie-a-year output was placed [...]

The darkly funny and heartwarming trailer for 50/50 has been made available by Summit Entertainment today. Based off of screenwriter Will Reiser’s real-life experience with cancer, the film centers around a young man named Adam and how he, and his friends and family cope with an abbreviated Five Stages Of Grief — shock, denial, resistance [...]

20th century author and poet, Raymond Carver, is oftentimes recognized for his impact on short story writing. In the 1980s, when the medium first began to falter, short stories had become a tough sell for publications because of their briefness, however, that did not stop the author, who had admitted to being “inclined to brevity [...]

To begin this review, let’s get one thing straight: despite the misleading name, Titanic II is not an official sequel to James Cameron’s big-budget retelling of the Titanic disaster. Nevertheless, a film entitled Titanic II is sure to seem like a bad joke, even after watching the official trailer or spying the DVD cover at [...]

Gimmick films always start at a disadvantage, and as such it’s not surprising that most films which are completely one shot (no editing) or try to be completely real-time (or, at the least, cheat to appear so) often fail. The most notable film to attempt this, Hitchock’s Rope, actually wasn’t one shot (due to a [...]

There is a reason most Americans stay well clear of the deep South: They don’t like outsiders. In the trailer for Straw Dogs, L.A. screenwriter David Sumner and his wife Amy find out the hard way that good ‘ole boys ain’t always so good. It is a damn good way, however, to discover what you’re [...]

Emily Giffin’s Something Borrowed is quintessential “chick lit,” a highly marketable genre of fiction that prides itself in depicting modern womanhood in a (mostly) humorous manner. And because it was an international bestseller with a built in demographic, a film adaptation was inevitable (although I thought it would have arrived sooner). Something Borrowed, director Luke [...]

Since I have never read a Thor comic book (don’t intend to either), nor do I have much insight into the Norse mythology from which he spawned, I really had no idea as to what kind of story to expect from the heavily hyped Thor (the trailers weren’t much help). But thanks in part to [...]

A cold-blooded assassin never looked so damn good. And that’s because she’s Zoe Saldana — a hitwoman by trade and murderess of those responsible for her parents death at night. The new 2:20 trailer for Colombiana shows a lot of promise (which should be no surprise as Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, the brainiacs [...]

Why can’t men resist a beautiful woman? As seen in trailer for the upcoming thriller The Ledge Liv Tyler (the aforementioned woman) is at the crux of a love triangle between her God-fearing husband, Patrick Wilson, and her agnostic boss, Charlie Hunnam. It gets to an ugly head which ultimately results with Hunnam on the [...]

Once a year, on the day of their university graduation, Emma and Dexter get together to celebrate the day they met. Based on the acclaimed novel by David Nicholls, One Day is a tale, spanning some 20 years, of enduring love and friendship through the best and worst of times for two people on separate [...]

What is probably the final trailer for X-Men: First Class, has been made available by 20th Century Fox via Yahoo! today ahead of the film’s highly anticipated June release. This latest extended teaser drops more visuals as to the looks, powers and relationships of the mutant teams and further establishes the philosophical differences between their [...]

The concept of an Australian comedy featuring the once-in-a-lifetime pairing-up of Paul “Crocodile Dundee” Hogan and Shane “Kenny” Jacobson would appear foolproof. And while this movie doesn’t live up to all of its potential, Charlie & Boots (the sophomore effort of director Dean Murphy, who previously collaborated with Paul Hogan for 2004′s Strange Bedfellows) is [...]

Tyler Perry directs and produces films that guarantee money in the bank. His distributor certainly thinks so — Lionsgate studio, heard uttering the incantation, “Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry,” recently renewed their contract with him. With his films bringing in an estimated $520 million, he may well be the studio’s favorite cash cow. However, his success [...]

Making a sequel to a film is never normally a good thing — they excite all the fans of the previous film and then ultimately disappoint them with a production that is not better (and in some cases, far worse) than the original. This same argument can generally be applied to reboots (or to purists, [...]

The London-born actor, David Niven (who is best known for his role as Phileas Fogg in Michael Anderson’s critically-acclaimed Around the World in 80 Days) was once quoted as saying, “Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going, don’t take anything too seriously, and it’ll all work out in the end.” Indeed, the circus, [...]

Born as Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia to a middle-class family, philosopher and writer, Ayn Rand, would soon see her father, a successful pharmacist, lose his business following the Bolshevik Revolution. With her family punished for past successes, Rand moved to the United States, where she’d fall in love with capitalism and ultimately, [...]

Submarine is a story for grown-ups to remind us of the angst of being a teenager. It’s set in 1980′s Wales and is relayed to us in first-person narrative by 15 year old Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts). His two main concerns are, as he tells us, losing his virginity to his standoffish girlfriend Jordana (Yasmin [...]

Released on the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s slaying, Robert Redford’s (Lions for Lambs, The Horse Whisperer) The Conspirator commences with a wide shot depicting a ravaged battleground: Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) lying in a ditch alongside his comrade Nicholas Baker (Justin Long), and several hundred bloodied troopers. The shot closes in on both Union soldiers [...]

Romance sells at the box office. Stephanie Meyer (the Twilight saga) knows this, Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook) knows it, and all of Hollywood knows it. 2010′s Dear John is exactly the type of romantic tearjerker to be expected from an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, and it’s awful. Look, I admit that this film [...]

Love is intoxicating, especially when, as the trailer of Passion Play depicts, the object of desire is an angel. Nat, a washed-up, tired jazz musician wants to save her (and himself along the way). Happy Shannon, a ruthless gangster and Sam, the owner of the carnival where “The Bird Woman” is the star attraction, wish [...]

An updated trailer has been released for The Debt by Focus Features today. Spanning two time periods, the John Madden-directed drama revolves around three Mossad secret agents and what they did in 1966 (targeting a Nazi war criminal) and how those actions affected them today. If the trailer is any indication, The Debt looks to [...]

Almost exactly one year ago Kick-Ass, directed by upcoming X-Men: First Class filmmaker Matthew Vaughn, opened to little business and reasonable critical success. Adapted from the popular Mark Millar graphic novel, the film follows a young New York teen as he tries to become a superhero in the real world. Now enter James Gunn’s Super [...]

The “big dreams, small town, no chance” premise is a recognizable refrain in literature and motion pictures. Directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, 2010′s Cemetery Junction is yet another feature to examine this particular quandary. If Gervais and Merchant sound familiar, it’s because they are the dynamic duo responsible for the original British version [...]

Suffice it to say, expectations play a sizeable role in any viewer’s enjoyment of a film. In the case of 2009′s Ninja, it would be impossible to watch the flick with high expectations — the cover of the DVD/Blu-ray is admittedly nifty enough to gain some attention, but it is nonetheless a low-budget direct-to-DVD ninja [...]

Temptation and fidelity: Two forces battling against each other continuously throughout the early years of a young couple’s marriage. For the first year or two, fidelity rules the roost but as the wedding anniversaries mount, temptation begins to chip away at this solid foundation. When opportunity is added to the equation, one’s character is tested [...]

Over recent years, the film noir genre has largely served as a reference point for filmmakers, who dress up their movies with snappy dialogue and/or complex, violent stories but neglect the genre’s bleakness. In this modern era, the Coen Brothers are often credited as the life support system for classic noir, but the Coens appear [...]

In 2010, Clint Eastwood reached the ripe old age of 80, yet the prolific filmmaker still unabatedly continues to make motion pictures on a regular basis; accumulating a cinematic oeuvre that is as diverse as it is excellent. Written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), 2010′s Hereafter is a supernatural drama which re-teams Eastwood with [...]

If you’ve seen Antichrist or Dogville, you know Lars von Trier is an artistic director who does not shy away from deep, dark, bleak, and generally very unsettling subject matter. The trailer for his latest, Melancholia, doesn’t say either way, but you can get a sense of what may come: Due to a freak planetary [...]

Apparently in some circles (you know, the ones inhabited by “academics and brilliant minds”) there is a raging debate whether the 37 plays and 154 sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare were really written by William Shakespeare. Sounds dry, I know, but I suppose if anyone can make, what on the surface seems uninteresting interesting, Roland [...]

Hitch meets The 40 Year Old Virgin with a mix of family values? Judging from the trailer of Crazy, Stupid, Love. that may be an apt description. In it, bland and fortyish Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) finds himself recently divorced from his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) (she cheated on him) and sticking out like a [...]

If you’re familiar with low-budget horror flicks and/or video-game-to-movie adaptations, chances are you’ve heard of Uwe Boll. Even if you’re not familiar with Boll’s cinematic output, you’ve more than likely heard opinions on the guy’s work, and, in all likelihood, those opinions have not exactly been complimentary. If Boll’s work and name is a mystery [...]

In motion pictures, it’s a widespread belief that children are the embodiment of pure evil. Perhaps not all kids are the spawn of Satan, but horror filmmakers realize that evil disguised behind the eyes of a seemingly innocent child is an effective way of amplifying the scare factor. Into this genre now steps 2009′s Orphan. [...]

Most of those who came into contact with the 2008 Swedish masterpiece Let the Right One In were immediately captivated and hypnotized by its brilliance, especially in the wake of the insipid Twilight phenomenon. It committed an unforgivable sin, though: It was foreign and subtitle-laden, meaning the movie never existed in Hollywood’s eyes. Thus, now [...]

One must admit, it takes serious guts to entitle a film The Losers, since lame jokes are just begging to be cracked. Already, the critics who panned this appalling motion picture have utilized the obvious, “The losers are in fact the audience” in addition to the also obvious, “What were you expecting? It’s called The [...]

At first glance, Tomorrow, When the War Began — the filmic adaptation of the hugely popular teen fiction novel by John Marsden — appears to be a cheap Australian amalgam of Red Dawn and The Breakfast Club. Despite these superficial observations, this directorial debut for Stuart Beattie is a thrilling character-driven action-adventure film, and a [...]

If you attended the Toronto International Film Festival or the London Film Festival last year you would have caught a viewing of the comedy-drama Everything Must Go. For those of us who didn’t attend either, this fresh trailer provides a glimpse into Nick Halsey’s really crappy situation. In a single day he’s lost his job, [...]

Back in 1981, Peter Weir’s acclaimed motion picture Gallipoli asserted Australia’s cultural independence from Britain by portraying Aussie soldiers as heroic, anti-authoritarian and noble. Additionally, the film displayed to the world just how big a part the Aussies played in WWI and how tremendous their sacrifice was, while also damning the way the Australians were [...]

Shot and produced by photographer Tim Hetherington and journalist Sebastian Junger, Restrepo is one of the most powerful filmic examinations of modern warfare. While embedded in Afghanistan for 15 months throughout 2007 and 2008 (on and off) for a Vanity Fair assignment, Hetherington and Junger shot approximately 150 hours of video footage which was ultimately [...]

When was the last time you remember seeing a genuinely good shark movie? Steven Spielberg’s Jaws from 1975 is likely the most popular choice, and it’s perhaps the only good shark film in existence. In subsequent years, a few subpar Jaws sequels entered cinemas along with films like Deep Blue Sea, and then a few [...]

The stereotypical Hollywood comedy formula receives a bad rap on a frequent basis, but this is only because the formula is too often implemented poorly. However, there are exceptions. If a film sticks to the status quo and does it right — hitting the expected story beats with wit and grace — the result can [...]

General Pang Qing Yun (Jet Li) is the sole survivor of his entire battalion; the Ching army he commanded was decimated by the Taiping rebels in Hechuan. Seeking refuge, Pang retreats to a small town and ends up spending the night with a woman named Lian (Jinglei Xu). The next morning, he awakens alone, but [...]

Not that it matters a whole lot, but I’m going to point out the fact that I recently watched Syriana again — it’s a powerful politically-charged thriller, George Clooney drives the film with an amazing performance and the hyperlinks of the intellectual plot demand viewing with full attention. I believe for those same reasons a [...]

Anna (Christina Ricci) and Paul (Justin Long) have been together for quite some time and although Anna seems to be pulling away, Paul is still madly in love with her. When his job offers him a promotion that would require him to move, Paul intends to ask Anna to come with him and be his [...]

Riding through the sun-drenched Los Angeles, the charismatic defense attorney, Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey), immediately presents himself as someone you’d like to know in times of trouble . . . as long as you’ve got the dough to pay upfront. He’s a courtroom monster who has no problem talking his way out of defending a [...]

In a futuristic world, an organization called The Union has created highly developed and highly priced mechanical organs. These organs can be purchased by anyone for any reason — if, however, they’re unable to pay the incredibly steep full price (usually somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars), they’ve got two choices: Make monthly [...]

At times, it’s difficult to summarize your thoughts about a specific film. It isn’t because the film is necessarily so good or so bad that it’s beyond words, but because you’re unsure how to feel about said film until the credits finally roll. Biutiful is such a film. The film revolves around Uxbal, portrayed by [...]

Sometimes movie critics will re-evaluate a film years later to determine if there was something better or worse that they missed during the first viewing. That happened to me for the horror film, The Shining (during round two, I clued in on more of the nuances and thus liked the film much more than I [...]

Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry resembles much of what is great about the current cinema coming out of South Korea — for my money, some of the best in the world. With recent films like Oldboy, The Host, Mother and The Good, the Bad, the Weird, South Koreans have proven time after time that genre filmmaking can [...]

Over the past few years we’ve seen a lot of re-imaging of classic British novels looking to perk up the stodgy old genre with sex and gore. From the work of Seth Grahame-Smith and Ben H. Winters (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters) to the upcoming Catherine Hardwicke Twilight-inspired Red [...]

“In a crazy city, if one is to survive, he’s got to be more crazy.” So starts this story set in Hong Kong where the price of an apartment overlooking the sea is somewhere around $5 Million. This movie is supposedly based on a true story, and it is in some timely aspects, as the [...]

I am developing a huge love of Korean cinema. Of course, when I say Korea, I mean South Korea (I doubt anything of value is coming out of North Korea). With me, it all started with the devastating film, Oldboy, which at the time, I counted as a one off and never really looked further [...]

Having already killed the trucker who saved the girl from his murderous ways, the psychopath tire turned its attentions to the girl herself. After watching her in the shower, the tire checks into a motel room, watches keep-fit programs on TV, and takes a shower, only to be discovered by a maid, who he promptly [...]

It’s never too late for a sequel. Word on the web was that when the production of West Is West was in works, it was delayed, deemed ‘fairly unnecessary’ because of the eleven year gap, and may just as well be a sequel flop like many other original hits have suffered from. It isn’t the [...]

Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) and his wife, Elizabeth (January Jones), are on a plane to Berlin, where he is to hold a presentation at a bio-technology summit funded by Prince Shada (Mido Hamada), a tree-hugging ruler that has attracted the interest of extremists in his country. Upon landing in a very snowy Germany, the [...]

Ah, New York, the place where thinking people cannot perform any basic function unless they talk about it first. I wonder: Did Woody Allen create this genre, or did he just reflect everyday happenings of his beloved Big Apple? Whatever, his legacy lives on here in this ensemble comedy that tells of the lives and [...]

Writer/director Rowan Joffe’s new 2010 version of Brighton Rock has a lot of to live up to as people remember it’s 1947 predecessor fondly. In his remake, Joffe has decided to update the stories original 1930′s setting to the 1960′s world of battles between Mods and Rockers. Both versions are based on Graham Greene’s novel [...]

In 120 A.D. the Roman army’s Ninth Legion marched into Northern Britain (which was apparently left uninhabited) never to be seen again. In response, Emperor Hadrian built an expansive wall to cut off the north from the rest of his empire. Fast forward 20 years and in the Roman-occupied South, Marcus Aquila (Channing Tatum), the [...]

The unknown is scary for a lot of people (myself included), as I find even the smallest of prospects (i.e., the women’s restroom) to be vast and dangerous. However, some brave souls dream of exploring the unexplored. In fact, some make it their life’s work; one example being deep-sea divers, who find pleasure in discerning [...]

Although I hadn’t seen the original 1970s Charles Bronson flick, it wasn’t difficult to figure out rather quickly what the plot trajectory for The Mechanic was. This isn’t necessarily a death knell for an action movie — what is is the lack of any heart thumping action. And that people, is exactly the case here; [...]

Based on her autobiography, Desert Flower tells the story of fashion model Waris Dirie from her Somalian roots to the cover of Vogue magazine, highlighting the despicable practice of female circumcision that still continues today. This is not an ordinary topic for a biopic; its sinister theme should make the movie unmissable but under inexperienced [...]

“Take care of all my children, don’t let ‘em wander and roam. Take care of all of my children for I don’t know when I’m coming back home” – Tom Waits A film most decidedly split in two, Father of My Children brings us a life story of a family. Its initial focus is on [...]

Thea Barfoed, acclaimed stage actress, is an alcoholic, and a nasty one at that. She’s lost her husband to another woman, and has been denied access to her two children for some time. She can hardly complain; she passed out dead-drunk while they were in her care. Now she’s determined to sober up and get [...]

The jury is still out for me because I can’t quite make up my mind, but it may be that The Human Centipede (First Sequence) will go down in my book as the most disturbing movie I’ve ever seen. Director Tom Six boldly goes with his bio-horror feature — deemed “100% Medically Accurate” — where [...]

Set in a Sartrean representation of present-day Italy, The Rite is a satirical look at exorcism and the individuals who perform them. With similarities to Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit and his belief that “Hell is other people,” Mikael Hà¥fström’s (1408, Derailed) latest chronicles two clergymen — Michael Kovak (Colin O’ Donoghue) and his seasoned counterpart, [...]

It’s been said, that if you want to get nominated for an Academy Award, all you have to tackle is the part of a crazy person or, better yet, a retarded one (yeah, come to think of it, retarded is always a better choice to make). Halle Berry already has herself a well-deserved Oscar (Monster’s [...]

You’d think that January would be a month brimming with cinematic gems — a new year means new opportunities, in turn, allowing fresh talents to be inducted into the grand scheme of Hollywood. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case, and for any dignified film connoisseur, January is just the beginning of a cold and barren [...]

Billing a cast of has been heavyweights whose performance range from wooden to nearly wooden, The Company Men, is a movie that tries really, really hard to be serious in its approach to providing a look at the current state of affairs of the American worker. Unfortunately, the story arc for each of the protagonists [...]

Hey Winona, it’s good to see you! It was pleasing to see you had a bit role in the acclaimed The Black Swan (even though you managed to escape without any en pointe scenes). It’s not, however, so pleasurable to see you in The Dilemma. Actually, it’s not much fun to see anyone in Ron [...]

The first scene of Dominic Sena’s new film, Season of the Witch (penned by Bragi F. Schut), a follow-up to his idiotic Whiteout, chronicles the hanging of three accused witches at the hands of a group of religious zealots in Viccah, a fictional town, in 1235 A.D. This scene is meant to make the Catholic [...]

Love is blind and fucking stupid. It can make a person do extreme things — endanger their well-being or make extraordinarily bad decisions — to find it and keep it. I Love You Phillip Morris, a film purported to be based on real life events, chronicles the adult life of Steven Russell, a con man [...]

Forever — the concept that something can last “without ever ending” seems implausible — nay — it is impossible. Yet at the same time, achieving something — especially love — that can last eternally and never wither or fail, is an insatiable lust that, unfortunately, no human being can ever conjure up. This makes Hollywood’s [...]

One of the requirements to holding any kind of public office is a sharp tongue. That being said, a king with a speech impediment is simply coated with irony; it sounds like a great political satire. However, director Tom Hopper (The Damned United), alongside screenwriter David Seidler (Malice in Wonderland (the 1985 T.V. movie, not [...]

Henry Hathaway’s 1969 film True Grit is the definitive spaghetti western: A rowdy tale of three mismatched Western flavors that travel together in hopes of capturing Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), a man wanted for two counts of murder — one for a loving father, Frank Ross, who Chaney kills following a debacle at the poker-table [...]

Spike Jonze’s visual retelling of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are chronicles the story of Max (Max Records), a young boy who feels abandoned by his mother (Catherine Keener) and his sister (Pepita Emmerichs). He runs away to a world of his own, which is inhabited by large creatures, which sport large sharp chompers, [...]

The loss of a child. There is probably no worse pain for a parent to have to endure, especially if the child is taken at a young age. A flood of intense emotions — confusion, anger, hate, fear and guilt — can tear apart the strongest individual and the stablest of marriages. It is wreaking [...]

Christian Bale has returned to acting! Thank God Almighty! After languishing in barely there roles — growling in the rebooted Batman films and picking a paycheck for Terminator Salvation — Mr. Bale reminded me why he used to be a name that made me want to see whatever movie he was in, regardless of what [...]

An illustrious Angelina Jolie is just one-half of Florian Henekel von Donnersmarck’s (you can’t make a name like this up) The Tourist. Usually considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, Jolie’s character, Elise Clifton-Ward, also exemplifies the same unrestrained beauty: The eyes that capture the attention of any males, and lips that [...]

Never in my right mind would I have thought to watch a film about ballet dancers. Admittedly, I’m not sophisticated enough to partake in any sort of classical theater (though I did listen to a bit of “The Nutcracker” once — my nose titled upward with class). But after seeing Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, my [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

” . . . 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, [...]

I once had the misfortunate of watching a Lifetime television special and because of this I was forced to use a tampon for the rest of the week. Going one step further, Tony Goldwyn’s Conviction, which has been advertised as the perfect Oscar-bait, kicked me square in the balls and sent me straight to menopause. [...]

In the early hours of July 17th, 1942, more than 13,000 Jews were taken from their homes in occupied Paris and detained at the Velodrome d’Hiver. They were held there for a few days before being shipped off to a holding site, and finally to the concentration camps, of which only 25 survived. The military [...]

I get the fact a will can specify the legal guardians of a child in the event of a catastrophic occurrence — after all that’s one of the main purposes of the legal document. Can it, however, specifically spell out that when the catastrophic event takes place, said guardian (or guardians) must move into the [...]

The best thing about the social-networking site Facebook is that you can practically say anything you want as long as you add “lol” at the end. Failing to add this very important acronym results in comments such as these, which were literally copied from my own Facebook account (however, I corrected them for grammatical issues/spelling): [...]

When the concept of being buried alive crashes its way into my thoughts like a semi truck, a shiver runs up and back down my spine. It immediately reminds of Jessica Lunsford, the poor nine-year old girl whose abuser handed her her stuffed dolphin, sealed her in multiple plastic bags and buried her alive. It [...]

Oh man, I’d hate to have been on the trading floor during the recent financial collapse because if there’s anything scarier than a frustrated trader, it’s a frustrated trader who just lost a shitload of money. I can see it now — hundreds of irritated investors, pitch-forks in hand, burning down anything that they don’t [...]

Werner Herzog is so unique as a director of films that he is as close to being uncategorizable as any filmmaker in the medium’s history. His 2009 film, Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call: New Orleans, is no exception. The film is a sort of satiric riff on the 1992 B film, Bad Lieutenant, made by [...]

There’s one scene in Tim Burton’s Big Fish in which Ewan McGregor and Steve Buscemi’s characters rob a bank only to find out that the vault has been wiped clean and that the bank is on the brink of bankruptcy. Now, while that film was mediocre at best, that one scene, which is satirical of [...]

This is a story of three women, and the differing reactions they have to motherhood. First we have a fifty-year old who gave birth at fourteen and gave the child up for adoption. The child grew up to be a successful, albeit detached, lawyer and one who has no intention of being a mother herself. [...]

Have you seen the 2005 Michael Bay film, The Island? That bloated and overbearing film was constantly in the back of my head as I was watching Never Let Me Go. The premise similarities are striking, as is the fact that the film, The Island, and the book, Never Let Me Go, came out around [...]

George Clooney is maybe the most interesting movie star working today. Unlike many of the top-Hollywood talent, Clooney has a complete hand in all of his projects and seems to stay away from the obvious A-list blockbusters. His newest film, The American (directed by Control filmmaker Anton Corbijn) has certainly been marketed as a ‘George [...]

So I assume that you’ve all seen Mesrine: Killer Instinct and are now anxious to see the conclusion to the series. Luckily, you are not to be disappointed as Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 delivers the same captivating storytelling, magnetic performances, and ace dialog that its predecessor sported. It does, however, lose a bit of focus [...]

Meet Jacques Mesrine: The most notorious French gangster/bank robber in history, who somehow seemed to escape the fame anywhere other than his native homeland. Being a charismatic bloke, he is best described as France’s own John Dillinger, yet, Mesrine, who practiced kidnapping on the side as well, was responsible for the deaths of approximately forty [...]

Good heavens, and here was I thinking that The Infidel was on dangerous ground. Believe me, it’s got nothing on Four Lions, the new movie from controversial British writer Christopher Morris. This is a comedy concerning four British citizens — three of Pakistani descent, one white — whose ultimate goal is to become suicide bombers. [...]

If we didn’t know it before, we know it now. The opening credits appear, and the first line reads ‘David Lynch Presents a Film by Werner Herzog’. Thinking caps on, folks, ‘cos we’re about to get mighty cerebral. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done tells the story of depressive Brad McCullum, and why [...]

“Man is steel. The tank is only iron.” On July 12, 2006, conflict began between Israel and Lebanon. It began when Hezbollah soldiers fired rockets into Israel and blew up two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border. Three soldiers died. Two other soldiers were taken by Hezbollah into Lebanon. Israel responded and [...]

I wouldn’t make a good father and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m rude, have no respect for anyone, and I’m just a bad influence in general. But if I were to “spread my seed,” there would be a couple of positive impacts on the human race, namely my streaming blonde hair which just [...]

Noah Baumbach’s newest film, Greenberg, is a lot like his older work — character pieces centered around upper-middle class intellectual white people and their problems. As unappealing as that may sound, I’ve been a fan of Baumbach and his great direction of characters that a normal audience probably cannot relate to or wouldn’t associate with. [...]

What’s the first movie you think of when the Roman Empire comes to mind? Was it Gladiator? With its compelling storyline, brutal battles and scantily clad women, it’s hard for it not to be. Well, there is no resemblance to that in Neil Marshall’s foray into this subject and time period. Centurion is a basic [...]

Burt and Verona are thirty-somethings, good friends as well as lovers, and will be parents for the first time three months hence. Verona’s parents are both dead, and Burt’s have announced that they’re leaving the country to live abroad for two years. With no real reason to stay near them in their cold house, Burt [...]

A story about infidelity, prostitution, racketeering, and murder set in the swinging, “free love” decade of the 70′s is one that can make for a deliciously trashy melodrama. But that didn’t happen in Taylor Hackford’s, Love Ranch, a bio-pic about the violence that erupts from the marital breakdown of Joe and Sally Conforte, the married [...]

Youth in Revolt is a film I regrettably missed while it was in theaters, but for a film that I had some interest in, it came and went quickly. Despite this, I have heard many positive things from people who I trust, so I am definitely glad it has hit DVD and Blu-Ray. Overall, the [...]

When you’ve worked the farm all your life, morning noon and night, it becomes a part of you. When the house on the farm was where you lived with your now-deceased wife for decades, you become a part of it. Abner Cheetham may be eighty, have a bum hip, a weak heart, and need the [...]

It’s always great to see an exciting director’s first film. To say, “Wow! Once that guy polishes up some of his story telling skills, he’s going to make some impressive works.” Harry Brown is Daniel Barber’s first feature length film and it knocks the wind out of you. From the opening scenes, shot on what [...]

The film sub-genre of Mumblecore has been around since 2002. They are characterized by improvised scripts spoken by un-proven actors on shoestring budgets. The plots are simplistic, people talking about what people talk about as they would normally talk. Nothing particularly spectacular happens and it’s okay. Slowly, the directors of these films have been getting [...]

“You are the One.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you are. You must believe in your powers.” Bad thing happens. “Oh, okay, I’m the One.” Yes, I’m paraphrasing and no, I’m not regurgitating the dialogue from The Matrix. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the new Jerry Bruckheimer produced Disney film is. The guy trying to do the convincing [...]

I don’t think I had ever been so excited to see a movie as I have been for Inception. For starters, it was directed by Christopher Nolan who has made three of the best movies I’ve ever seen: The Prestige, The Dark Knight and, my all time favorite, Memento. He is a master of his [...]

The life of a musician, no matter how good it may seem in a music video (Lord knows how long and I hard I prayed to be a member of Mötley Crà¼e), it is no picnic — there is a shitload of behind the scenes work to do and more pitfalls than Pitfall Harry could [...]

Three sisters: Joy, a flighty hippy chick; Trish, a suburban mother; and Helen, a successful screenwriter. The issue at stake: The ability to forgive and forget. For Joy, the choice is simple. She works with ex-cons, helping them to return to society. She’s even married to an ex-con, a gang member who is trying hard [...]

When the 2009 Academy Awards happened, there were a lot of shockers. Hurt Locker beating out Avatar, Precious winning best adapted screenplay over Up in the Air. But the biggest shocker for me was the fact that The White Ribbon didn’t win Best Foreign Language Film. I thought the movie was flawless — a masterpiece. [...]

There’s just something about Westerns that screams out, “Mesh me with other genres.” Perhaps it’s because most traditional westerns are one-note bores that fail to gain any recognition (don’t get your panties in a bunch — I said “most”) and the application of futuristic weaponry and demonic spirits seems like a surefire way to breathe [...]

Nominated for an Oscar, winner of a BAFTA, A Prophet tells the story of young Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rehim), jailed for six years, and the amount of growing up he has to do in that time. With an Arabic name, but French allegiance, Malik is alone once inside. He cannot read or write and [...]

Winter’s Bone is an unflinchingly gritty Neo-noir thriller. From the trailer it looked absolutely stunning and was high on my list of movies to see this year. Now, after seeing it I can tell you that, while it is a fine film, I wasn’t completely bowled over. Winter’s Bone is about 17 year-old Ree (Jennifer [...]

Woody Allen’s 2008 film Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a film with a moral: People do not change. No, let me rephrase that: People cannot change. Films of great depth have been made with premises as simple as that. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is not a film of great depth. Great style? Yes. But not depth. Not [...]

It is 1910, the last year of Count Lev Nikolayevitch (Leo) Tolstoy’s life. He is 82 years old and his writing days are behind him. His work was so popular that he gained followers — nowadays they’d be called fanboys — who were known as Tolstoyans. One of the main tenets of the Tolstoyans was [...]

“You are a man with some serious cojones,” one prisoner tells Mitch before hanging him. If I ever have the chance to meet German director Uwe Boll, I’d tell him the same thing, for it’s films like Stoic that require a lot of courage and an abundance of faith in ones trade. Stoic, which marked [...]

I think I’d make a decent superhero. I’ve got the good looks, the charm, the brains, and most importantly, the courage, that is needed to save my fellow man from whatever perils they are facing. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve got none of those (except the good looks and perhaps an inkling of intelligence) [...]

I’m one of the few people who consider Uwe Boll an important film-maker. It may be sad but it’s true. But let me explain my reasoning. Though Mr. Boll, who finances his own cinematic exploits, has not directed a single note-worthy film (except for being notoriously bad), he shows dedication and balls. It takes a [...]

The Runaways were a peculiar phenomenon. They were less of a band than a product, and the product they sold was teen rebellion. The five-girl band was fronted by sixteen year old Cherie Currie, Joan Jett was on tousled mop and rhythm guitar, Lita Ford played lead, Sandy West was the drummer, and they had [...]

1984, and Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ is sweeping the world, including in a small ramshackle village in New Zealand. There, living with his grandmother, a younger brother and several cousins, we meet Boy. He’s about nine or ten years old, I’d guess. His younger brother, Rocky, is six and thinks he has super-powers. Boy has no [...]

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Robin Hood the latest telling of the fabled defender of the poor. On one hand, it is a nice change of pace to see the legendary archer bloodied and dirtied — no finely penciled mustaches or tailored suits (ala Errol Flynn). On the other hand, is a [...]

The Road centers on an unnamed father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) struggling to survive in a hellish, post-apocalyptic world. Their intense journey will leave you feeling drained but ultimately satisfied. Okay, that last part made it sound like I was reviewing a porno. Emotionally drained is a better description for how the movie [...]

One thing that a lot of people don’t know about me is that I enjoy the occasional “chick flick.” Yes, I said it (fully knowing the consequences that this may have on my manhood), at times I do like to indulge myself in one of the countless sugar-coated and seemingly implausible romantic-comedies that flood movie [...]

An eight-year old Australian girl and a mid-forties obese Jewish American man with Asperger’s Syndrome. Seems an unlikely pairing, doesn’t it? And yet Mary and Max, a stop-motion animated movie from Australia, matches the two together with no small measure of wit, and presents us with one of the most original films I’ve seen in [...]

Style over substance. That is the plaint of many a critic when they come across a film or book or any work of art they simply do not like, but which has undeniable merit, at least technically, if not in a few other measures, as well. But, the fact is that my opening words have [...]

Prospect: One small town in one of the southern states, population 1832, where everybody knows everybody else and the ubiquitous ‘Welcome To…’ sign on the town’s border feels more like the doors of a prison cell. Rhett Ryan knows these ties all too well but, as a wannabe country singer, he thinks he sees a [...]

Given the recent headlines concerning the extramarital escapades of Tiger Woods and Jesse James, the premise of Atom Egoyan’s erotically-charged film Chloe reminds us of something that should come as no surprise to anybody — a cell phone is not a cheating spouse’s best friend. When the specter of possible infidelity looms over a couple [...]

The videotape rolls: “My name is Yusuf Mohammad, my former name is Steven Arthur Younger, and I have planted three nuclear bombs across the country. They will detonate unless my demands are met.” He then points the camera at exhibit A, looking suspiciously like a nuclear bombs with oh, I should say, about 4.5 pounds [...]

Creating a satire of the London art gallery scene would seem to be a rather pointless venture but director Duncan Ward, armed with his DVD collection of Robert Altman movies and aided by a lengthy cast list, brings us the lives and loves of assorted artsy types in his debut picture, Boogie Woogie. The plot, [...]

Boots Mason is a tough guy all right, make no mistake about it. There’s always room in the over-crowded London mob scene for a guy like him, and so it is that we find him doing a spot of debt-collecting at the start of this derivative gangster movie, The Heavy. He’s not long out of [...]

His name is Rizwan Khan and he is not a terrorist. However, he’s a Muslim in a post 9/11 America, and not everyone believes him. He must tell the President in the hope that this simple message will filter down through society. The situation is not helped by the fact that Rizwan suffers from Asperger’s [...]

It’s an interesting concept: Soldiers returning home after the Iraqi war serving what’s left of their enlistment period as messengers for the Army, instructed to tell unsuspecting husbands, wives or other next of kin that their loved ones won’t be returning. I’m pretty sure it’s not official policy, but that’s what happens to Staff Sergeant [...]

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I gave up any hope of enjoying this film. Possibly it was the moment I saw Liam Neeson dressed in tin-foil armor. Or maybe it was the image of Sam Worthington riding a giant CGI scorpion through the desert. Regardless, by the halfway mark I was already considering using [...]

Synecdoche, New York is a two hour long, 2008 film from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and was his first attempt at directing films. It is a wildly overpraised and almost as wildly derided film. The truth is that it is a formulaic and dull film whose predictability, especially after the first 45 minutes, is almost total. [...]

Every time something tragic involving a youth occurs — whether it be unhandled rage or mental breakdowns — it seems that the “prestigious” physicians and psychiatrists employed for the good ‘ol government have an answer. They usually disregard the obvious answer — prior mental or emotional issues — and blame the aggressor’s hobbies for his [...]

Vacations are supposed to be a time for fun and relaxation. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for four close couples who travel to the Bahamas for their second marital retreat in Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? — the follow-up to his hit 2007 film of the same name. Just as in the [...]

Most published critics are idiots. Yet again this verity was reinforced to me whilst popping in and watching one of the latest films by Woody Allen to hit DVD. Cassandra’s Dream was almost wholly ignored in this country, lasting only a couple of weeks in the theaters. Yet, it is one of the two best [...]

Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the current Big Three film giants of Europe, in that he is a throwback to the days of visionary directors like Stanley Kubrick, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Andrei Tarkovskiy. Along with Greece’s Theo Angelopoulos and Hungary’s Bela Tarr, Ceylan has grown into a rarefied [...]

The opening shot of a Boston ferry emerging from an impenetrable veil of fog as it makes it way toward a hostile, gothic-looking island proves to be an apt visual metaphor for what transpires in Shutter Island. From the moment the ferry appears and we hear the first strains of music, the audience is cued [...]

Pitch to Hollywood studio stooge: “You see, I’ve got this idea to do a film about a real life event, except the film will only feature about ten minutes of the real life event, as a sort of ‘in’ to get the suckers to come and drop ten bucks. Meanwhile, what we’ll do is make [...]

For those of you who, with bated breath, have been waiting years for Mel Gibson’s triumphant return to the movies, your wait has come to an end. He’s back, post 2006′s drunken anti-semantic rants, in the new crime thriller Edge of Darkness. For those of you who wished he would have just stayed in his [...]

Providing the text-book example for any agitated parent in need of an aid for their rehearsed “don’t talk to strangers” speech, the complex and life changing results for 16 year-old Jenny (acted by Carey Mulligan), after jumping into an older man’s car on her way home on a rainy day, will surely be of use. [...]

Herein the primary definition of tragedy: A dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction. In many colloquial settings, the word is overused to describe [...]

It is not often that an action film almost passes me by, but Blood and Bone very nearly slipped through my net! This is a bad-ass action film with fight scenes so good I had to rewind and watch again! Although it does lack in certain areas, no martial arts fan should let this one [...]

Maybe you’re like me, wondering why 9 out of 10 post apocalyptic visions of the world are barren wastelands with bands of miscreants marauding little bands of honest folk with little to no hope. Then again, maybe you’re not. No matter, The Book of Eli, follows along a similar route to that of Mad Max [...]

Did You Hear About the Morgans?, the latest romantic comedy from director Marc Lawrence purports to be one of those cutesy, funny things happen when two people are put into foreign or uncomfortable positions kind of films. It succeeds in putting its stars Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker in stupid situations. It fails miserably, [...]

Contrary to what many critics are saying, Sandra Bullock does not give the performance of her lifetime in the heartstring puller of a movie The Blind Side. She carries herself just fine as a dramatic leading lady, but aside from perfecting her Southern accent, her role doesn’t exactly break her out of her comfort zone [...]

Clint Eastwood’s latest cinematic opus Invictus meshes the strength and unifying power of sports with the uncertainty of political change. Based on the book “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation” by John Carlin, Eastwood tries to neatly wrap the tumultuous rise of Nelson Mandela to South African power with [...]

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think Armored ever had a chance of being a stellar action movie. Ah hell — I don’t think it had a chance of being much of anything. To come to that conclusion all I needed to see were these simple facts: It starred the likes of Laurence Fishburne and [...]

Don’t be fooled by the trailers for Up in the Air. It may seem like a formulaic romantic comedy. It’s not. Not by a long shot. Jason Reitman, following up his Juno breakthrough, has put together a finely developed and many times amusing story about choices — both personal and professional — and their consequences [...]

If you’re wondering (and you know you are) what a movie strictly built around the use of special effects looks like, look no further than 2012. It’s got a backstory that was clearly etched on a wet napkin during a drinking binge at the local Applebee’s after director Roland Emmerich discussed the idea of making [...]

At the start, the title character of Lee Daniel’s Precious: Based on a Novel by Sapphireintroduces herself to the audience: “My name is Clareece Precious Jones. I want to be on the cover of a magazine. I wish I had a light-skinned boyfriend with good hair. But first I want to be in one of [...]

Blood. Sex. Demons. Director / writer Christopher Di Nunzio mixes these ingredients together and cooks up a curious blend of gangster film and supernatural horror in his first feature-length film, Livestock. If you are a horror fan with a healthy appetite for blood and gore, you just might enjoy Di Nunzio’s effort. It’s chicks’ night [...]

This is the 30th revision of my review for Antichrist and if I thought any more about it, I’d probably revise it twenty more times. Lars von Trier has easily put forth the most deeply symbolic and deeply scarring “Hitchcockian-like” horror film in decades. He has literally slapped the face of convention and quite possibly [...]

Thomas Alfredson’s 2008 vampire film Let the Right One In isn’t so much a horror film as it is a coming of age drama which happens to have a vampire as one of the two leads. Strikingly beautiful, nicely written and perfectly executed, it probably won’t be well received by all horror fans, but as [...]

Like many films before, I had seen the trailer to District 9. However, nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to witness when I stepped into Screen 5 to watch the entire film. Trust me, when I say that no amount of description can give justice to the story but I shall [...]

If you’re a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s hip and generally longwinded diatribes, strap your helmet on — Inglorious Basterds is your call to arms (you’ll just have to learn how to enjoy hearing it in French, German and other European flavors). If you’re not a fan of his character’s pontifications — so what — there [...]

Marcus Nispel’s 2007 action adventure, Pathfinder is the story of a tribe of Native American Indians who are under threat from Viking marauders hell-bent on ‘cleansing’ the land of Indians before they settle. The opening montage shows the brutal slaying of a tribe of Indians who literally throw themselves at the mercy of their annihilators, [...]

Meeting your soul-mate and future husband at the age of six is an enough of an unusual scenario on its own. But to topple that — the guy in question is going on forty when you first see each other and wearing nothing but a blanket in a hedge. As an innocent member of the [...]

We should be thankful for Judd Apatow. That sentence may seem strange to some people who find his films to be nothing different from the other raunchy comedies released every month. The thing is, they are quite different. Both The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up were very perceptive little comedies and surprised audiences [...]

Michael Mann’s recent box office success Public Enemies looked so full of promise. This true story of bank robberies and jail breaks, starring Johnny Depp as the notorious John Dillinger, and Christian Bale as his cocksure antagonist, FBI agent Melvin Purvis, should have it all. At two and a half hours, this should be an [...]

Kathryn Bigelow knows how to make an action movie. She knows how to get the blood pumping, and how to generate nail-biting suspense. Her latest effort is laced with more testosterone than any recent action film. You may recall, she was responsible for the gloriously over-the-top cops and surfers thriller Point Break. Whatever anyone says, [...]

A new spin on the disease of the week Lifetime movie has been scripted by Jeremy Leven and Nick Cassavetes (based on the best-selling novel by Jodi Picoult) in My Sister’s Keeper. Instead of just tossing about how a family copes with a sick or dying loved one, this adds in a twist of also [...]

What do you get when you mix science fiction’s amazing anti-matter with the Catholic Church? No, it isn’t Scientology (although that is a good guess). You get Angels & Demons, the long awaited follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. This time around the pews, instead of hunting down Opus Dei and poking holes through the [...]

Fap fap fap fap. Whirrrrrrr. Fap fap fap fap. Whirrrrrr. I’m not going to explicitly tell you what those sounds represent. What I will tell you is they go in conjunction with what men, ages 18 to 50, will do when they catch a glimpse of a naked Jessica Biel in the straight to DVD [...]

When Russell Crowe appears in a movie looking like a holdover from the early 70′s — long hair, gruffy beard and a pot belly — good things are usually afoot (his last few roles: Body of Lies and American Gangster have shown us that). Hollywood has obviously taken notice too, as he combines all three [...]

With a name like Fighting, a movie had better come fully equipped with the goods. That means more bare-handed, mixed martial arts than should be allowed by law. That means more broken bones, cuts, abrasions and black eyes than I care to see. Instead, Dito Montiel directed an implausible, predictable movie that comes up short [...]

Recycling, regretfully, seems to be the name of the game in Hollywood these days. On the horror front, we’ve been treated to remakes of The Last House on the Left, My Bloody Valentine, and Friday the 13th. In the musical realm, Fame will soon be released. And in the drama/thriller department, we now have a [...]

Who knew mall security personnel were so much of an in thing in 2009? First Kevin James brought us Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Now Seth Rogen dons the blue uniform and tin badge for Observe and Report. Whereas James’ portrayal of a wannabe cop was very innocent and PG in nature, Rogen’s characterization is perverse [...]

Let’s all admit it, taking shots at Nicolas Cage’s latest acting gigs has been about as much fun as catching fish in a barrel — it’s fun for a moment, but it’s too damn easy and one quickly gets bored with it. But hey, he deserved it — Bangkok Dangerous and Ghost Rider, to name [...]

Mirroring Angelina Jolie’s harrowing performance in Changeling and raising similar moral questions as in the Oscar winning movie The Reader, Doubt is another emotional adaptation (this from the play of the same name by John Patrick Shanley), which strikes at the insecurities of humanity and challenges the notion of how far one can and should [...]

Watching a Tyler Perry movie is like wandering around in a fog of cinematic confusion. Invariably the question arises, “Just what kind of movie am I watching?” A melodrama? A comedy? A morality tale? A message movie? A Sunday morning sermon? All five in one? Radical shifts in genre, tone and mood incline me to [...]

Am I crazy or is Elizabeth Banks the new hot commodity in Hollywood? From where I sit, it seems as if she’s starring in nearly every movie made! Usually, however, she can be seen in some form of a comedy. Not in the The Uninvited. She sets aside the granny panties she made famous in [...]

With the rousing power Sex in the City is said to have brought to women (I wouldn’t know, I never saw the

Based on Bernhard Schlink’s 1995 Holocaust novel of the same name, The Reader balances brilliantly the dark, menacing undertones of war (and the ugly things one must do to survive) with the innocent purity of first love. This combination of opposites works incredibly well to produce a controversial film that challenges the very beliefs which [...]

I’m not entirely sure why there is a run on “based on a true story” World War II movies as of late, but the newest of the bunch is Defiance. This one doesn’t delve into an assassination plot to kill Hitler (see Valkyrie for that), nor does it tell the tale of an all black [...]

The Wrestler is a movie that hits close to home. No, I have never been a professional wrestler and neither has anyone in my family. I did however have a friend who was heavily involved in the promotional business of the WWF many years ago. Trust me when I say that 95% of retired wrestlers [...]

There was a time, in the not so distant past, when anything Tom Cruise starred in was a bonafide hit. His recent bizarre social etiquette seems to have changed that as 2007′s Lions for Lambs attests to. Deciding to follow that up with the obscure German war thriller Valkyrie surely isn’t the way to go [...]

To think a harrowing story about feral Indian brothers and their trials to reach manhood would be sneaking up to possibly steal a best picture Oscar. Such is the case with Slumdog Millionaire — a craftily told story (based on the novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup) that, through some major grit and grime, [...]

The “Twinkie Defense” (i.e., junk food made me do it) has to rank right up on top of the absurdity chart alongside the “Chewbacca Argument”. The difference between the two: the Chewbacca defense was an extraordinary concept put forth from the minds of the genius creators of South Park. The Twinkie defense, well that was [...]

I realize I’m aging myself here, but I was a teenager in the late 1970′s and as such I wasn’t paying too close attention to what was happening on the political scene at the time. I was much too caught up with the illicit thrill of cutting classes, shopping, and disco dancing. So when David [...]

When I think of a grumpy old man, I think of none other than Walter Mathau. But after watching Clint Eastwood’s latest movie Gran Torino, I realize the scale that had Mathau on the top requires some adjustment. Eastwood takes the stodgy, miserable, old prick to new heights. At year 78, he’s brought his Dirty [...]

Weighing in at a very long two hours, Seven Pounds has certainly set itself up to be this year’s heart wrenching opus of personal forgiveness and redemption. It also sets the stage for Will Smith to once again prove that he’s, gulp, one of the more accomplished actors of my generation. He is Ben Thomas, [...]

Having mildly enjoyed The Punisher restart four years ago (try and forget the original Dolph Lundgren debacle), I was interested to see how Hollywood was going to grow the character of Frank Castle further in Punisher: War Zone. Inexplicably, the franchise has regressed into a form that defies conventional words. Okay, maybe there is a [...]

Those annoyingly emboldened tree-huggers of America must be having one hell of a circle jerk over the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. How lucky for them that another big budget Hollywood production has taken on their cause (The Happening being another that comes to mind)! But let me get this straight, an [...]

What do you do for a popular, once bankable action hero whose star has plummeted and whose current films bypass theatrical release and go straight to video? Why, you resurrect him of course. And thankfully that’s just what director Mabrouk El Mechri has done in his new film, JCVD. Fans of “The “Muscles from Brussels” [...]

If a “Ten Commandments” existed for horror films, then the first commandment would no doubt be, “Thou Shalt Be Scary”. It becomes clear from what transpires in the 15 minutes-or-so opening sequence that The Haunting of Molly Hartley breaks that commandment. From that point on, it’s downhill all the way. This movie is the latest [...]

Kevin Smith and I are one and the same. Well, in reality he’s a tad fatter and shorter, and not nearly as handsome as I am, but we do share the same thought processes. Because of that, I’ve been a fan of his quick-witted, vulgar-laden writing for years so I couldn’t wait to see what [...]

The prospect of suddenly going blind is enough to fill most people with dread. And going blind is exactly what happens to the people of an unnamed city, perhaps even the entire world, in Blindness, the new film by Fernando Meirelles based on Jose Saramago’s excellent novel of the same name. Blindness is a powerful [...]

To say I was stunned, shocked and dumbfounded after my viewing of Max Payne would be a bit harsh. I was, however, certainly disappointed in what I saw. No, not because another popular video game had become a casualty of a poor Hollywood interpretation, but because, for all intents and purposes, it didn’t remotely look [...]

“Welcome to Guantanamo”, Al-Saleem says to Roger Ferris before he crushes his fingers with a hammer. It is an excruciatingly tense scene that would have gone a lot farther without the obvious shot at the current political landscape. But aside from that, I’ll give Ridley Scott credit; he deftly avoided making the same agenda driven [...]

A subtle, burning menace is hidden so beautifully in this new movie adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel, Brideshead Revisited, that you almost don’t see it. Beneath the lavish chandeliers, the Oxford degrees and the vast amount of wine glasses, lies an inevitable disaster that surrounds the main character, Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), as he [...]

There are few guarantees in life — you’re going to die someday, you’ve got to pay your taxes, no good can come from smoking methamphetamine, and Spike Lee will make a movie that, at its core, has deep, driving racial overtones. Yep, that’s right boys and girls, it is a sure-fire guarantee that Spike Lee [...]

Lakeview Terrace is the latest film that preys upon every homeowner’s worst fear — their neighbor is an off balance jackass with a chip on his or her shoulder. Taking that premise slightly further, the film’s nut-job also happens to be an angry black guy who also happens to be a decorated police officer. The [...]

It’s not everyday that two of the more respected and admired actors in Hollywood share equal billing in a film. To be honest, I can’t even recall the last time it occurred. So when I caught wind that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were starring together in the new crime thriller Righteous Kill, I [...]

What happens when the ego of a stuck-up little princess from Malibu gets a little too big for her Dolce & Gabbana tote? Why, her daddy sends her clear across the world to a British boarding school, of course! And that’s exactly what does happen to poor old Poppy when she finally pushes her dear [...]

Do you believe that every period drama is just another long and dull Jane Austen re-making with an updated cast as a twist? Most people do. You’d be a fool to think that way after watching Kiera Knightley’s new movie, The Duchess though. It captures beautifully the untold story of Britain’s most elegant and mistreated [...]

Miss Potter instantly came across to me as being a dull recollection of the life of just another dead author. But this movie is far from that. It turned out to be a moving and beautifully told story of the beloved children’s writer and illustrator, Beatrix Potter, a woman who created the timeless story of [...]

Ever fancied working in the fashion industry? Well if you have, The Devil Wears Prada will definitely put you right off! Based on the hilarious best-selling novel of the same name, this movie is just what you need if you are in need of a laugh (or a cry) and it holds much more depth [...]

Most movies surrounded by as much hype as The Dark Knight usually don’t live up to it. This is one rare and shining example of something that I would call close to cinematic perfection. This summer’s blockbuster is a direct sequel to 2005′s Batman Begins, picking up right where it left off, with a new [...]

A demon, code named Hellboy (Ron Perlman), but called Red by his friends, is saved by paranormal investigators when he is very small and raised to be a defender against the forces of darkness. However, as he has grown into a large, bright red mammoth with an attitude, he wants nothing more than to be [...]

Hancock is Los Angeles’ resident alcohol-fueled, low-flying sometimes hero. With all the exciting aspects of an action movie, sparkling comedy and a heartfelt plot, this is the most honest super hero movie I’ve ever seen. When not drunk, John Hancock (Will Smith) flies around Los Angeles, protecting innocent people from criminals and disaster. The rest [...]

This travesty of character and plot development obliterates any chance I would or could call Sex and the City a film instead of a TV movie with really good distribution. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) spends the entire TV movie trying to get married to Big (Chris Noth). Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) spends the entire TV movie [...]

Ingenuity is the mother of invention (or something like that). Since movies being harsh on the war in Iraq and on the current administration of the United States have been bombing (no pun intended) stupendously at the box office, writers Mark Leyner, Jeremy Pikser and John Cusack came up with a nifty idea – satirize [...]

Like the wise one says, “Necessity is the mother of invention” and Tony Stark’s mother birthed the crude chrysalis of Iron Man in a cave in Afghanistan. While demonstrating the Jericho Missile, spoiled, womanizing, arrogant weapons manufacturer and brilliant engineer Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is kidnapped by the Ten Rings terrorist group led by [...]

Whoever said Keanu Reeves was a one trick pony (think Matrix trilogy) or very possibly one of the very worst actors of our time, please stand up. After I watched the wannabe cop-thriller Street Kings (I was hoping for a Training Day type of flick), I want to shake your hands. Clearly, Mr. Reeves is [...]

Super smooth George Clooney has taken a break from playing his super smooth role in the successful Oceans series long enough to tackle (no pun intended) Leatherheads, a romantic comedy with a professional football backdrop set in the 1930′s. Aside from being an avid football fan (go Panthers), I was looking forward to seeing Clooney [...]

Alright … well there isn’t much to say about 21 because it really just made me so angry to the point that I screamed out “FUCK this movie” about a half hour in. Now you may be asking me why I would get so angry at such an obviously mediocre film. Simple, it was just [...]

High-heeled shoes and cigarettes are the stars of the diamond heist snoozer Flawless. Cigarette’s performance is smokin’ but it couldn’t save the movie from its ridiculously illogical and uneven script or from the likes of the other performances. Flawless? — there couldn’t be a worse name for this movie. London Diamond Company owns the diamond [...]

Wow. That one word is all that is truly needed to complete a movie review of In Bruges, the movie from novice writer and director Martin McDonagh (his short film Six Shooter discounted). The reason for the high praise is simple, he’s taken his cues from Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) and Guy [...]

No doubt writers Harald Kloser and Roland Emmerich (who also directed) had grand plans for 10,000 B.C.. Spectacular visuals supporting a tall tale set in the ancient world point to a movie with epic aspirations along the lines of Apocalypto and Gladiator. Unfortunately, they didn’t do their “homework”, as the movie is littered with inconsistencies [...]

Eight strangers, eight points of view and each one holds a piece of the puzzle. I saw the trailer for Vantage Point, and thought it had some neatly packed scenes that deserved my attention (even though I’m not a fan of gimmick movies). So I walked into the theater to surrender myself to the joys [...]

Is it me or does it seem like there is a glut of fantasy novels starring children being adapted for the big screen lately? It’s almost as if they’ve become the new hot thing in Tinsletown giving the comic book hero a run for their money (nothing can actually replace them from the top spot). [...]

With a deep breath and high hopes I set out to watch the latest urban “find yourself” movie with a dance/rap backdrop — Step Up 2 the Streets. Why? I’m an optimist and a dreamer, and I firmly believe some day a movie like this will actually be worth the price of an admission ticket. [...]

Charlie Bartlett is one of those movies that leaves me perplexed. I had no preconceived notions about it, other than it looked like it might be funny, and after seeing it I still don’t have a clear opinion about it, other than it should have either been funnier or more dramatic. It’s kinda just there, [...]

On the surface Jumper looks like a movie I’ve been longing for – an action movie that has a character that actually embraces his or her extraordinary talent and uses it in a realistic manner (i.e., not like a superhero). Of course after seeing the movie, it doesn’t quite live up to my expectations. The [...]

To preface this, if you even remotely like character studies such as that done in Taxi Driver or any of Paul Thomas Anderson’s previous work like Boogie Nights or Magnolia, don’t even question if you should see There Will Be Blood or not, just do it. To say the least, it has earned it’s Oscar [...]

Due to my extremely short attention span, I’m guessing the Hollywood raid into the Japanese horror genre started with The Ring. Next on the borrow list was The Grudge. The success of these movies inspired several uninspiring sequels and in 2008, two – yes, two – brand-spanking new copies hit the theaters: One Missed Call [...]

I’m late with the movie review, I know. I’ve resisted seeing Juno because I had trouble visualizing a female Napoleon Dynamite-like character. Could the bizarre, backwards character immortalized by Jon Heder be improved upon? Should it even have been attempted? The answers to those questions are: It certainly can be improved upon (most everything can [...]

I’m going to cut right to the point — any movie that starts with Marisa Tomei taking it doggy-style is more than okay in my book. I have no clue what switch director Sidney Lumet flicked to get her to sacrifice in such a way for her craft (probably the same one Marc Forster flicked [...]

Every so often a movie comes along that you can identify with on some personal level. For me watching an unassuming Congressman from the 2nd Congressional District of Texas, who likes to party hearty with booze and other assorted drugs, and hook-up with strippers and other assorted women was like looking in a mirror. Charlie [...]

Rob Reiner has surfaced again, directing arguably two of the most accomplished actors of our time: Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. The vehicle: The Bucket List, a comedy drama that tries to add a new twist to the Odd Couple scenario. Instead of just throwing together two incompatible people, as so many movies have already [...]

The Hollywood remake. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re a steady part of our cinema diet. I Am Legend proves once again that Hollywood believes the easiest path to success is to either: make a sequel or take a movie from years past and dress it up with an updated storyline and fresh graphics. Sometimes [...]

I’m not sure what all the hoopla was surrounding The Golden Compass. I believe it has something to do with the atheistic stance the author of the book from which the movie was adapted from had. Sure there are a few themes that indicate religion is a bad institution, but I don’t recall seeing anything [...]

There aren’t many movies that I’ve seen that have made me want to turn away or jump through the screen to change the outcome. I knew after reading the synopsis of Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door, this was going to be one of those films – after all, nothing spells heartbreak and brutality like [...]

It’s that Oscar time of year again when compelling movies get released late so they can remain in the heads of the Academy voters easier. The latest up to bat is No Country For Old Men. It’s the highly anticipated film by none other than Joel and Ethan Coen (better known as the Coen brothers). [...]

I promised myself I would never watch another movie with Dane Cook in it again. I begged, pleaded and insisted that Hollywood not allow him to star in another movie after I reviewed his last monstrosity Good Luck Chuck. But just like my wife and kids, they don’t listen to me. He’s back in Dan [...]

I went into seeing Lions for Lambs ready for a hearty dose of left-wing propaganda. Statements like “George W. Bush is a terrible president”, “we must find an exit strategy in Iraq since the war is going so poorly” and “the entire Republican party is a bunch of crooks and miscreants” were swirling through my [...]

The Darjeeling Limited is the latest irreverent family/self discovery movie by Wes Anderson. You may remember he’s the creative force behind other offbeat movies likeThe Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Sticking with his modis operandi, Anderson picks another unusual place to host his vision – a passenger train traveling across India. [...]

I think it is a safe statement to say that most people, like myself, appreciate a movie that depicts a person or persons rising to the top of the food chain by perseverance, hard work and some smarts, even if their profession is less than honorable. Ridley Scott (best known for Black Hawk Down and [...]

No year could be considered complete without the obligatory cop-family/friend drama, cast with seasoned actors. We Own the Night, takes the spot this year and is Sony Pictures late push for an Oscar bid. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as Bobby Green, the manager of a Russian mob owned hot spot, El Caribe. He also happens [...]

Michael Clayton is the directorial debut of Tony Gilroy (better known for his Bourne series screenplays). It stars George Clooney as Mister Clayton himself; a fixer of things in need of a solution (think Winston Wolfe in Pulp Fiction, only not as polished). He finds himself in the middle of two situations — one personal [...]

There are three reasons as to why I decided to watch Feel the Noise and review it. One, I’m a glutton for punishment. Two, I figured no one else would review this film and a movie like this is just screaming to be critiqued. Three, I love the comments that always follow — you know [...]

I’ve gotten so used to watching great mob movies depicting ruthless Italians (Goodfellas and The Godfather), that I’ve forgotten other cultures have their own organized crime syndicates too. The Chinese and Japanese have some mean people doing some very bad things. So do the Columbians. But the cake has to go to the Russians. These [...]

I tend to get my guard up whenever I go into the theater to see a movie like The Kingdom. I always expect an overdose of political activism or some other jaded point of view that the writer and/or director wants to stuff down my throat. This, I believe, is the second such movie that [...]

Lying, it’s the way of the world. You’ve got to be good at it if you’re going to succeed in today’s society (sorry God). Children lie to their parents if they think it will get them out of trouble. How many times has little Johnny pointed the finger at his younger brother for breaking something? [...]

When it comes to Jodie Foster, I’m not one to run to catch the opening show, and Terrence Howard isn’t exactly a Will Smith, but The Brave One turned out just fine. This is an interesting spin on the old street vigilante concept. By the very nature of the material, this qualifies as pulp-fiction melodrama, [...]

Westerns rule. They’re one of the best and easiest types of movies to make. They’ve got the best villains available. They’ve got heroes everyone can relate to and cheer for. Usually, they’ve got beautiful, strong willed women whose support and love aid the family unit in its time of need. And of course, Westerns have [...]

We’ve all said it before, more so after we’ve established a family of our own. God forbid, if something were to happen to someone we love, we’d kill the bastards responsible. We’d hunt them down like a prey animal and first do unimaginable things to them for the pain they’ve caused us. Then when their [...]

Period pieces. These are the hardest movies to review. Depending on the time frame they’re portraying, they need to remain true to the past — there isn’t a lot of room for error or creative liberties. And depending on the type of movie (biography, historical event) they tend to get long winded and boring. Becoming [...]

A few weeks ago on another movie review blog (DC Girl @ The Movies to be exact), I guessed Stardust would be lucky to break into the top ten for weekend gross on it’s opening weekend. I came to that conclusion based on the fact the trailer seemed cheesy and childish — even if it [...]

The Bourne Ultimatum is the third installment of the Bourne saga. This movie picks up right after Jason Bourne apologizes to the Neski daughter, without pause after the events of the second film, which may leave newcomers to the series a little perplexed. If you have seen the first two films, which I recommend before [...]

Just a week or so ago, I reviewed the movie I Could Never be Your Woman. At the end of the review I mentioned I didn’t think any good romantic comedies were on the horizon. Well, guess what. I was wrong. One has indeed popped up and slapped me in the face. I’m not exactly [...]

Let’s call it now. There are only two reasons anyone has heard anything about I Know Who Killed Me. One, it stars Lindsay Lohan, who everyone knows is a figure of tabloid fodder due to her indulgence in the finer drugs available. Two, it stars Lindsay Lohan and she plays an exotic dancer. I saw [...]

Hairspray is an updated compilation of the John Waters classically campy film and the award winning Broadway musical (both of the same name). And while I very much liked the original (at least what I can recall of it), I had my reservations about the remake. That’s because remakes usually suck. Thankfully, from the moment [...]

I like actors that have a knack for portraying characters with some whacked out attribute. Therefore, I like Steve Buscemi. This guy has been in 100+ movies, many of which, the parts he played had some serious issues (defects may be a better word). A few of my favorites are Mr. Pink from Reservoir Dogs [...]

C’mon guys, you know it’s happened to you. You cried over the break-up with your first girlfriend. I’m guessing it happened to me as well, I just don’t remember it. My wife says I’m devoid of feelings — an emotional black hole, if you will — so there is a very good possibility that I [...]

It’s been a long time, 16 years to be precise, since the high water mark was set so high by The Silence of the Lambs for serial killer thrillers. And in those 16 years, there has yet to be a movie that even comes close to surpassing it. So it is fair to say I [...]

Chick flicks. They’re not my strong point. The old coming of age, sappy shit never played well with me. My therapist tells me it’s because I’m just not in touch with my feminine side. I tell him it’s because I’m a red-blooded American male and that he can go fuck himself. But on a lark, [...]

I decided to take a chance. Rarely do I sit and watch movies or television shows about poker. The last time I did was in 1998 for the movie Rounders and that was only because I think Edward Norton is a great actor. I avoid movies about poker because they are boring. Unless you’re heavily [...]

It was bound to happen. Halle Berry and Bruce Willis were at some point in time going to cross paths in a movie again. The last time it happened was in the lackluster The Last Boy Scout way back in 1991 when both were rising stars. Now in their prime (some may even say the [...]

Chris Rock — just what the doctor ordered. Great crossover appeal (I’m a white guy and he doesn’t appear threatening) and funny as fuck. This guy has to be one of the funniest guys in America and he seemly vanished into thin air. Until now that is. In his second directing gig, he drops I [...]

Time for a kick-ass action movie — the first of 2007. This time around we’ve got Jason Bourne, going after some bad-ass government officials who have wronged him . . . oops, I’m sorry I’ve got the movie confused. I’m supposed to be reviewing Shooter and I’ve started to review The Bourne Identity! I’ve got [...]

This can’t be good, can it? Sandra Bullock is back in a movie that requires her to do something other than look pretty. Why, oh why does Hollywood make movies like this? Surely, they know that Mrs. Jesse James, isn’t a bankable commodity anymore. This is a woman who starred in The Lake House last [...]

Oh boy. A black man holding a chain that is wrapped tightly around a petite, white girl. That’s all I knew about Black Snake Moan going into the theater. Nothing about a plot, nothing about content — just a picture of Samuel L. Jackson with an enslaved Christina Ricci. Exploitation at it’s finest! This has [...]

Where do I begin? After all the initial movie reviews and hype surrounding the opening of 300 what else is there to say? Let me begin, by saying the movie definitely lives up to the fervor surrounding it. You want action? You got it. You want crazy, vivid battle scenes? You got it. You want [...]

I remember almost like it was yesterday when the news flashed that a traitor to the United States, Robert Hanssen, was caught selling classified secrets to the USSR/Russia. I recall thinking, “why did it take so long to catch this scumbag” and “why would someone sell their country out?”. And what do you know, six [...]

Preconceived notions are like mother nature – a bitch. Especially to someone who likens themselves to an unbiased critic. So with a heavy heart, I admit, I went into the theater to see Bridge to Terabithia thinking it was going to be a weak runner-up to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and [...]

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen my favorite guy with a rubber face, Jim Carrey. He’s been keeping a low profile all the while tapping the ass of that hottie Jenny McCarthy. Lucky fucker. So as I was saying before I began salivating over McCarthy’s pristine ass like Pavlov’s dog, it is a good thing [...]

As a lonely child, I gravitated towards Dungeons & Dragons and have always been intrigued with fantasy worlds and the creatures that inhabit them. So finally, after seeing and hearing all the hoopla surrounding Pan’s Labyrinth or should I say El Laberinto del Fauno (real Spanish title), I finally got up the nerve to get [...]

It’s time for a feel-good, self-discovery movie. This time, however, our Hollywood friends have decided that the female lead usually given to Sandra Bullock, Renée Zellweger or Meg Ryan will go to Jennifer Garner. I guess they figured they needed a fresh face to attach to this comedy/romance; just like adding an air freshener to [...]

We’ve all seen the trailers for Smokin’ Aces for the past week or so, depicted a wild movie in which the world’s best contract killers are all gunning for $1,000,000 for killing a mob informant Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel (Jeremy Piven). Who wouldn’t we intrigued by a movie that seems to promise a mile-a-minute rollercoaster ride [...]

I’m going to begin this review by saying I’m no fan of remakes. To often they reek of shit and mean people are out of fresh ideas. However, due to a boring Saturday night, I decided against my better judgement and sat to watch The Hitcher. I hate myself for it. Let me first, get [...]

Ahhh . . . a true life crime drama starring Justin Timberlake! It’s gotta be good, right? Surpisingly, the answer is yes! Alpha Dog is the true story of some wannabe, suburban gangsters who party their asses off, don’t have a care in the world and get themselves caught up in a kidnapping gone wrong [...]

Espionage flicks are the best. You get a big ‘ole dose of drama, a speck of thrilling action, a touch of violence and usually a dose or two of sex. But the best part of well thought out spy movie is that it forces us, the viewer, to try and figure out the story before [...]

Let’s first begin by saying I’m a white guy. Some have said pastey white. I’ve always tried to overcome my caucasian roots by opening myself up to other cultures and thought processes. It is this reason – and this reason only – that I’ve decided to watch Stomp the Yard. After all, can there be [...]

I can hear it now, the all encompassing theme to Rocky – Gonna Fly Now. Whenever, I hear that music I get goose-pimples all over my ass. And after five installments of the Rocky franchise, that’s about all that gets me excited about the movies anymore. Needless to say, most of the sequels have been [...]

Come Christmas time, or should I say Holiday time (for all the politically correct douchebags out there), Hollywood without question drops the old rags-to-riches, feel good movies into our laps. So it is no surprise that The Pursuit of Happyness shows up just in time for the gift exchange. Even though most folks who know [...]

It’s been several years since anyone has mentioned Martin Scorsese in the same breath as Oscar. Yeah he was up for it with The Aviator (2004) and Gangs of New York (2003) but those snore fests were only nominated because everything else in the theaters sucked ostrich dick. This man gave us movies like Taxi [...]

It’s been a while since there has been a worthwhile feel-good movie released into the theaters. Last ones that come to mind are Rudy (1993), Lucas (1986) and who can forget, Rocky (1976). Seabiscuit doesn’t count. Interstingly enough the plot of Invincible follows amazingly close to Rocky. A Philadelphia son, down on his luck (no [...]

Here we go again. Hollywood has once again decided to take a cheesy, campy 80′s TV show and upgrade it to the big screen. This time it isn’t The Dukes of Hazzard, The Beverly Hillbillies or Bewitched; it’s Miami Vice. And instead of Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as Crockett and Tubbs, the detectives [...]

It’s been awhile since we’ve reviewed a movie starring Adam Sandler. Been even longer since we’ve actually looked forward to a movie starring Adam Sandler. But believe it or not, I was actually interested in watching Click. Perhaps I was hoping for comedy genius to strike again for him (see Waterboy or Happy Gilmore) – [...]

Just what the doctor ordered. A good ‘ole street-banging action flick by none other than John Singleton(whatever happened to him after Boyz n the Hood?). Four Brothers chronicles the actions of 4 adopted boys who seek to exact revenge on the people who killed their adoptive mother. . .a slight twist to the urban action-drama [...]

Wow. Another comic book…err, I mean graphic novel to movie adaptation. Which one am I talking about now? Sin City of course. An obscure graphic novel by the man who single-handedly made Batman cool again – Frank Miller. Although, most of the latest comics to movies have sucked ass (see Electra, Daredevil, etal), I was [...]

Let’s begin by saying I like Bruce Willis. Always have. Any man that bagged Demi Moore, is alright in my book. So I looked forward to checking out his latest movie Hostage. How can Hollywood screw up a movie that seems so similar to one of the greats: Die Hard? Movie starts off great. Motherfucker [...]