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

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

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 [...]

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

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

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

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

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 [...]

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

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

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

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 [...]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 [...]

I often feel like I don’t have enough time in the day to get everything done (I could always use a few more hours for movie watching!), but such complaining pales in comparison to the plight of the citizens of Andrew Niccol’s sci-fi parable In Time. For them, time is their lifeblood and not having [...]

I must say, when Denzel Washington plays a badass motherfucker, no one can compare. In his latest, Safe House, he takes on the role of Tobin Frost, a wanted, rogue CIA agent — one responsible for the deaths of many agents and informants. When he suddenly turns up in Cape Town with a secret, all [...]

Just as slasher films were done to death in the ’80s and ’90s, the “found footage” subgenre (made popular by 1999’s The Blair Witch Project) is now being exploited to the point of becoming tired. After films like Cloverfield, [Rec], Quarantine, The Last Exorcism, Diary of the Dead and countless other films, it’s becoming increasingly [...]

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 [...]

Late last night Magnet Releasing (Magnolia Pictures) put out the trailer for their haunted hotel flick, The Innkeepers. It takes place in The Yankee Pedlar Hotel and poking its other-wordly inhabitants are two employees charged with boxing everything up and closing its doors forever. I’m not the biggest fan of Sara Paxton but the two [...]

The second trailer for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol arrived yesterday and I must say I’m now pumped to see the movie. After his covert team is disavowed by the government for an attack on the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt and his team — Benji Dunn, Jane Carter and Brandt — must work blind to clear [...]

4.3.2.1.. The title of this multi-threaded thriller gives the impression that a timer is counting down the seconds — maybe it is bomb methodically ticking down to Armageddon, maybe it is a rocket set to take flight to the moon. Or maybe, as in this case, it spells out the specifics of the film. There [...]

The second theatrical trailer for the supernatural induced Armageddon film 11-11-11 is now online. In it, an American widower begins to unveil clues to a coming invasion of demons to our Earthly realm. Finding himself alone and in a foreign land, he works feverishly to get believed and put together a plan to stop the [...]

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 [...]

Based on the nonfiction book “To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia” by Rick Porrello, Kill the Irishman is a compelling walk through Cleveland’s criminal underbelly during the 1970s and an informative look at a man who brought down the hammer on the mafia’s golden age. To seasoned consumers of gangster movies, [...]

Rare for a mysterious thriller set in the high stakes business realm, Love Crime is dominated by women with the men relegated to paltry supporting roles. Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) is on the fast track to the elite tier of her international business firm as chief of their Paris office. She is confident, sexy, knows [...]

Creepy describes the situation Edgar Allan Poe finds himself in. In the dark thriller The Raven, it seems a serial killer has taken to Poe’s writing and is using it as a template to spectacularly kill people (think “The Pit and the Pendulum”). Poe, enlisted by Baltimore detectives, puts his macabre mind to work to [...]

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 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 [...]

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

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

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

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

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. [...]

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

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

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

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

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 [...]

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

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

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

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 [...]

In this economy, a bargain-priced mansion sounds like a dream. However, every film aficionado knows that when the place is called Blackwood Manor, has a history of mysterious disappearances, and hasn’t been bought in decades, it’s most likely a conduit for evil. But there’s always an oblivious family ready to set up shop and in [...]

A second international trailer for the Cold War thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy from Studio Canal and Working Title has been made available. It’s the Cold War and the Soviet’s have a high ranking mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service serving them up the most sensitive of information. With nothing seeming as it is [...]

Admit, you secretly watch Ghost Rider every time it comes on basic cable (it is a guilty pleasure like eating Bonbons or listening to Celine Dion). Well, guess what? Johnny Blaze is back and so is Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance! This time around, he’s battling the devil for the life of [...]

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 [...]

I didn’t think it was possible, but apparently one can squeeze blood from a turnip. The vegetable in this case is the Final Destination series. The blood, well, that is Final Destination 5, the fifth movie in this one-note franchise sure to once again raise the heartbeat of moviegoers keen on watching the young and [...]

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 [...]

Here is an interesting concept — what if people don’t age until they hit year 25 and then lose or gain time off of their lives depending on the goods they consume and the jobs they work? That’s how the world is in 20th Century Fox’s new science fiction thriller In Time. Yet, just like [...]

Anyone who has read my review for 2010′s misfire, Jonah Hex, knows that I love genre-mashing. I adore it especially if it’s something being meshed with a Western. Now imagine my glee when I heard Cowboys & Aliens being announced. Then came out that Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, and Paul Dano [...]

No Jay or Silent Bob here. Red State breaks away from Kevin Smith’s comfort zone, representing his first foray into the horror genre. The hook? Extreme Christian fundamentalism in the heartland of America. Three teens find themselves captive of a Waco-like cult intent on changing the world they live in any way necessary. It’s not [...]

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 [...]

Two days ago it was the teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. Today Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios released the anticipated teaser trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man. It’s hard to imagine the highly successful franchise getting a reboot already, but it is and this version, on the surface, looks to have a darker theme [...]

They say war is hell, and this age-old cliché has been exemplified in pretty much every war picture to date. 2008′s Outpost is a film which literalizes this adage, incorporating the horrors of war into a traditional horror picture. Every now and again, a small-time, low-budget horror film comes out of nowhere to catch genre [...]

Besides a nuclear disaster, one of the biggest fears any government can have is the outbreak of a fast spreading, lethal virus. And it is this premise that the upcoming thriller Contagion delivers on. How does the populace react as more and more people fall victim? How will the government handle the growing fear (both [...]

Fans of watching young kids die in bizarre fashion unite — the latest trailer for Final Destination 5 is here. While it too highlights several of the unorthodox methods by which one can die (LASIK, acupuncture), it differentiates itself from the previous trailer by showcasing more of the bridge collapse (which surprising is very well [...]

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 [...]

It wasn’t so long ago that Korean/Japanese horror was the fertile hunting grounds for studios looking to make a quick buck. The Ring, The Grudge, The Eye, Mirrors and countless others are all products of the Hollywood makeover spa. Today those hunting grounds have seemingly moved to Scandinavia. Let the Right One In was recently [...]

A teaser trailer for the Cold War thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy has landed. Based on the best selling novel by John Le Carre, the movie spins a tale of espionage cat and mouse — George Smiley, a retired MI-6 agent, is brought back to uncover a Soviet mole entrenched in the upper echelons of [...]

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 [...]

Late last night Paramount Pictures dropped the first trailer for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. In a strange twist, the J.J. Abrams written and produced actioner see Ethan Hunt and his covert team on the run — getting pinned for the bombing of the Kremlin and being labelled terrorists by their own government. They’re mission, [...]

Numerology is the study of the mystical relationship between numbers and existence. Some numbers are seen as good, others not so much. Samuel believes the number 11 has significance in his life in Darren Lynn Bousman’s (Saw III, Saw IV) new horror film 11-11-11, for which the first theatrical trailer has been made available. Invoking [...]

Ride ‘em cowboy! The latest trailer for Cowboys & Aliens has arrived. Based off of a successful graphic novel, the movie tells the tale of Absolution, an old West town, and their fight against invading aliens. Easier said than done (aliens have spaceships and lasers, Westerners have horses and Colt 45s), that is until a [...]

With all of our advances in engineering and science, why haven’t we been back to the moon? The upcoming movie Apollo 18 offers up a reason. Aliens. From the first theatrical trailer for the film we see there was a secret mission after Apollo 17, which ended . . . mysteriously. Pieced together from archival [...]

Action fans rejoice; the trailer for Killer Elite, the first high octane actioner of 2011 is here. Supposedly based on a true story, the movie follows the carnage wreaked by a retired British Elite Operative as he races to save his mentor from the clutches of three assassins. Okay, De Niro’s days as a testosterone [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

A friend of mine once argued about the redundancy behind DC Comics; its name, he claimed, originally stood for Detective Comics, thus by adding an extra ‘comics’ at the end, one is left with the awkwardly titled Detective Comics Comics. Though, despite the discrepancy behind the publisher’s name, it has remained a powerhouse in the [...]

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 [...]

Is 2011 becoming the year of the shark? Possibly, as the US has Shark Night 3D coming out this year, Australia has Bait (also 3D coincidentally) and now comes Dark Tide. This film, however, promises to be more of a dramatic thriller as opposed to the mindless body chomping guaranteed by the other films (although [...]

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 [...]

The mental institution is a great location for nearly all movie types, but none more so than the horror or thriller genre. Isolation, deeply disturbed patients and or a sadistic doctor are several cornerstones that can be explored. And using some of these staples, John Carpenter, emerging from a ten year hiatus from movie making, [...]

Set in Lillian, Ohio, J.J. Abrams’ (Star Trek, Mission: Impossible III) latest, Super 8 chronicles Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), a young boy who struggles to connect with his depressed workaholic of a father, Jack (Kyle Chandler), the town’s Deputy Sherriff. He spends his time playing with monster makeup on the set of his friend, Charles’ [...]

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 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 [...]

The second and longer trailer for the horror movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark has been made available by Miramax. A remake of a movie of the same name (and one that gave me nightmares as a child) centers around a family that has moved into a big creepy 19th-century mansion (red flag #1). [...]

You can’t claim that you didn’t see this coming after the surprising success that was Piranha 3D. I’m talking about Shark Night 3D. The first trailer has surfaced and it smells of fantastic grade-B, party-gone-wrong cheese (it’s what made the 80s so memorable). Seven college kids set upon a house on a small lake island [...]

Some may say the better days of horror pioneer John Carpenter (Halloween) are behind him. From the domestic trailer for The Ward it’s hard to say whether he’s returned to form or not (early festival reviews are a mixed bag) but it is good to at least see him in the director’s chair again, back [...]

Church versus church. Pastor versus pastor. A member of the congregation holds the truth that could topple their empires. Based on the book of the same name (written by the stylized mind of Larry Beinhart), Salvation Boulevard exposes, while poking fun at, the goings-ons of evangelical megachurches. But, as the trailer for the movie released [...]

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 [...]

Looks like some teenagers have snubbed death once again, and he (assuming the reaper is actually male) wants to collect what is rightfully his. Don’t expect too much from the first trailer for Final Destination 5 — it doesn’t offer up much else other than to let you know some guys in a room have [...]

If there is one thing compelling about the trailer of Retreat it’s that Jamie Bell looks like he makes a great psycho. Otherwise, the movie appears to be like any other run-of-the mill “take a helpless stranger in only to be terrorized by said helpless stranger” flick. Hopefully there is something more to the movie [...]

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 [...]

Something is amiss at the Farrow household. What it is, the creepy teaser trailer for Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s Intruders doesn’t definitively show us. What it does shed light on is the daughter is in tune with it somehow and it ain’t friendly. With any luck this movie will add some good frights to the Halloween [...]

Legend has it that there’s a telepathic connection between twins, so when in Julia’s Eyes the titular Julia experiences a choking sensation, she knows something’s wrong with her sister Sara. She’s right — Sara is dead, hanged from a rope in her basement. The signs all point to suicide, at least as far as the [...]

While the title of From Paris with Love may imply that it’s a romantic comedy featuring the Eiffel Tower, the title is in fact a James Bond homage, and the production is a hardcore, no-holds-barred action flick which arrives courtesy of Luc Besson’s production factory. For those unaware, Besson is the French filmmaker who produces [...]

The first three Scream films are pretty vital to the horror genre. The original movie shot this extra dose of adrenaline into slasher flicks, bringing a new found interest when most were beginning to think it was a tired genre. Truth be told, it probably is (most conceptions about the horror genre being terrible are [...]

The second trailer for John Favreau’s highly anticipated adaptation of the graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Cowboys & Aliens, has arrived. While it is filled to the brim with alien crafts, abductions and gun fights (Colt 6-shooters versus lasers), it still keeps how the the aliens appear masked and leaves the mysterious backstories for [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

2009′s The Loved Ones is a delirious Australian mash-up of various movies, including Carrie, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Prom Night. Several critics have also dubbed the film as “Pretty in Pink meets Wolf Creek“, and that’s another fairly accurate analogy of this frightening yet resonant exercise in genre dramatics — it represents an [...]

Why, oh why, do people move into those big Victorian-style homes; you know, the ones with too many rooms and too few lights to illuminate them? It can’t be for the coziness and charm! You’d think by now people would know that 90% of those houses, according to the Horror Convention Law, are conduits for [...]

The Horseman is an Australian addition to the long line of “vigilante dad” films that stretch back to Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, in which a father — normally either a widower or a divorcee — is made a tad nutty by grief, and begins ruthlessly slaughtering those responsible for a crime against a loved [...]

Not everyone may share the same opinion, but this reviewer immensely enjoyed Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race. It’s cinematic junk food, sure, but the big dumb fun aspect and the expert action sequences made it easy to dismiss the cold critical heart in this reviewer’s chest and forget that critics are supposed to hate exploitation [...]

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 [...]

Zack Snyder just hasn’t made the same impact on me that he apparently has on the rest of the movie going population. I enjoy his work, but it always seems like there’s something to be desired when his films finally fade to black. With Sucker Punch, Snyder isn’t really looking to change the formula his [...]

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 [...]

I once had the genius idea (or so I thought) of penning a story involving a pill that could fix all of your flaws. Bald? No problem, one pop and you’d be growing a lion’s mane. Fat? Simple, give it a couple of minutes and that beer belly would disappear completely. Poorly *ahem* “equipped”? No, [...]

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 [...]

Contrary to what Americans like to believe, the United States wasn’t built on peace and love — the fountain on which it stands will always be violence. As colonists, we deceived and slaughtered the Native people. Later, we held slaves for profit. Now, once again, we’re fighting a war based on greed. Looking back, it [...]

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 [...]

That fateful night in Haddonfield, Laurie Strode shot and killed Michael Myers or so she thought. As the ambulance pulled away with what was thought to be the corpse of the world’s most notorious serial killer, Michael Myers made sure everyone knew he was still alive the best way he could: By slaughtering everyone who [...]

We live in a society where there are laws that we must abide by; every citizen must live in accordance with the rights, privileges, and duties given. But there are times, I’m sure, when everyone wants to break the rules for their own good — one might have the need to perform a heist/extortion to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Stephanie Meyer is the Antichrist. Because of her damned formula of “girl meets boy, boy turns out to be a freak (albeit a very attractive freak), boy and girl fall in love and decide to have demented demon babies (yes, I went as far as to spoil the end of the Twilight series — sue [...]

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; [...]

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, [...]

Director Sang-soo Im has said that his recent, The Housemaid, a remake of the eponymous Ki-young Kim production — considered one of the greatest Korean films ever made — is meant to be an indirect representation of the gap between rich and poor in Korea. Following Eun-yi (Do-yeon Jeon), an impoverished young woman who begins [...]

The Green Hornet is a character unbeknownst to most people. Starting as an obscure radio series by George W. Trendle, “The Green Hornet” became a fan-favorite for those enjoying “pulp-heroes” at the time. So it comes as no surprise that some poor sap (most likely an intern) working in Hollywood was forced to dig up [...]

Watching Sylvester Stallone’s new movie The Expendables is like attending a high school reunion — it’s lovely to see everyone again but they’ve all filled out a bit and become a bit old and past it. Having said that, the action stars of yesteryear are still believable when it comes to pulling off the stunts [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

As a frequent movie-watcher, you are trained to endure a certain level of bad — I mean, it’s just the nature of cinema; most movies aren’t Oscar nominees, hell, most movies don’t even come close to winning any sort of awards. Nonetheless, we watch them. As for the reason, it really doesn’t really matter as [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

Sometimes it seems like there’s a website for every type of hopeless romantic out there. Women Behind Bars is a site dedicated to helping incarcerated women by connecting them with a plethora of interested men (why someone would be looking to date a convicted felon is beyond me). Trek Passions, as you’ve probably guessed, is [...]

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take. If I should live to future days, I pray Thee, Lord, to guide my ways. Amen. There’s something very unsettling about this one particular evening [...]

Christian Alvart’s Case 39 is basically what happens when you turn the Franklin D. Roosevelt quote, “. . . the only thing we have to fear is fear itself . . . ,” into a broader statement and use that to make a horror film. Furthermore, the film, penned by Ray Wright, who also wrote [...]

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 [...]

If I had to choose three people that I’d hate to be stuck in an elevator with, they’d be O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector, and Justin Bieber. However, M. Night Shyamalan would be a close fourth. Coincidentally, Shyamalan translates the horror of spending countless hours in such an enclosed space with the aforementioned names in Devil, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

If there’s anyone deserving of the electric chair, it’s Paul W.S. Anderson. Now I say this for a couple of reasons — most of which stem from a recent interview with the popular site, Rotten Tomatoes, however, a lot of my hatred also derives from his body of work which includes Soldier (bad), AVP: Alien [...]

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 [...]

The character of Machete has been swirling around in the warped mind of Robert Rodriguez for at least nine years (he made his cinematic debut in Spy Kids, of all things!). Seemingly just an interesting bit character, things changed after monstrous buzz was received from the fake movie trailer that was patched into Grindhouse. People [...]

I’ve never been one to believe in the hocus-pocus, piece of schlock that is the Bible. I’m sorry if this offends any fanatics, but it’s just how I feel. Although I was raised as a Catholic, even as a child I found the stories of Jesus’ resurrection and God’s seven-day creation plan to be just [...]

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 [...]

Spring break: Sun, water, ear-splitting hip hop music, booze-swilling horny guys, brazen bikini babes — and millions of razor-sharp teeth. Welcome to Lake Victoria, the fictional locale of Piranha 3D, the remake of Joe Dante’s 1978 movie of the same name. The film’s “coed rowdy-party” setting isn’t one you usually see in the work of [...]

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 [...]

Angelina this. Angelina that. I’m sick and tired of hearing about Brad and Angelina and their countless marital problems, but I guess I’m alone on this one because the mass media still manages to profit from the misery of these mediocre (at best) performers. I honestly don’t know whose still in Jolie’s fan base — [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Close your eyes. Transport yourself back to 1987. The high energy and surprisingly entertaining movie Predator has torn up the box office. A sequel has to follow. But in this alternate reality, Predator 2 never gets made. Neither do those abysmal Alien vs. Predator flicks. Now open your eyes. The sequel, as Robert Rodriguez envisioned [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I’m a middle aged guy (balding, beer belly, etc.), so I’ll admit it: I don’t get this whole Twilight phenomenon. Sparkly vampires and bare-chested werewolves fawning over a human, high school girl who isn’t that hot just don’t mix well with my testosterone (I can’t figure out how it mixes well with estrogen either, but [...]

Tom Cruise used to be the personification of “badass.” He struggled to become the best pilot he could be in Top Gun, he overcame the impossible in Mission: Impossible and of course, he tackled a dystopian future in Minority Report. But it seems like the action-hero has aged quite poorly and these days he’s tackling [...]

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 [...]

Then: The A-Team, an 80s television show good for pathetically bad stories, overall bad acting, a shitload of random explosions, gun battles in which no one gets shot, and the rise of a mohawked bad-ass Mr. T (a man, by the way, that had no right to find himself in that situation). It did, however, [...]

Frankenstein author Mary Shelley could not have foretold that her gothic tale of an errant scientist who creates a man/monster out of the limbs of dead bodies would become a harbinger of things to come with the emergence in the 21st century of the science of genetic engineering. Instead of stitching together body parts, today’s [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I want one of those super computers that create 3D images in real space that you can interact with — expand/collapse models, move them here and there, zoom in for close look and then out again for a macroscopic vantage — not because I actually have anything important to do, but because Tony Stark spends [...]

I know that remakes or jumper-cable reboots are a necessary, and inevitable evil in the movie business, but I do get so tired of these disproportionately disappointing efforts. Regardless, I do admit I was looking forward to this remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street but only because of the casting of Jackie Earle Haley, [...]

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 [...]

The scene: Ogden Marsh, a peaceful Midwestern town of ~1,000 where everyone knows everyone and it is safe to keep the doors unlocked and windows open at night. Certainly not the place one would ever imagine a neighbor ruthlessly killing another. And that is what makes The Crazies all the more creepy. When a plane [...]

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 [...]

Even with the much publicized production upheavals (directorial changes, reshoots and pretty much everything else that could be altered at the most inopportune moment) plaguing The Wolfman, is it too much to ask to ask for a movie that, while drawing inspiration from its 1941 source, retools — in inventive ways, mind you — the [...]

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 [...]

Via my forced high school readings of a novel or two and landing on a movie during a bored late night channel surf, I’m not surprised I remember very little of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation Sherlock Holmes. Literally, the only things that come to mind are: He was a condescending bastard who smoked a [...]

Legion is the second movie in so many weeks with a theme riddled with supposed religious overtones (The Book of Eli being the other). Instead, however, of delving into the way spiritual power can lift the hopes of the downtrodden, first time director Scott Stewart’s vehicle delves into how the power of God can be [...]

Ethical vampires practicing abstinence from human blood isn’t a premise I easily buy into. My attitude may be an unfortunate side effect from the entertaining, if silly Twilight films. But I can put aside my skepticism for a story with intriguing ideas and parallels to our own real-world challenges. On first impression, Daybreakers appears to [...]

The major difference in the fourth installment in the Final Destination series, The Final Destination is that it’s also available in 3D. Whilst the 3D is good, I’ve seen it done better. It follows exactly the same formula as the others, and it’s an entertaining way to spend an hour and a half, but assuming [...]

With Star Trek, Gene Rodenberry sought to “seek out new worlds and to boldly go where no man has gone before.” With the $300,000,000 bombshell that is Avatar, James Cameron can proudly stand with Peter Jackson (remember his little Lord of the Rings trilogy?) and proclaim he too has gone where none have gone before. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Somebody up there likes me, and so I light a candle at the altar of the movie gods in thanks for delivering to this scare-starved horror buff a horror film worthy of the name. Written, produced, and directed by Oren Peli on a micro budget of $15,000, Paranormal Activity reinforces what The Blair Witch Project [...]

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 [...]

Isolationism, claustrophobia and delirium are motherfuckers — especially when they’re mixed together with the darkness of space. Pandorum is word roughly devised to describe this scenario and director Christian Alvart hopes his movie of the same name can scare the shit out of you because of it. It can’t. Not for any reason other than [...]

Taking the projection of oneself one step further in the digital realm than the abysmal online world of Second Life does, Surrogates imagines a world where true 3D representations move about in the world in place of the living and breathing. Why risk actually interacting with others when one can sit comfortably at the house [...]

I swear, one can make a movie about absolutely anything, get Megan Fox to star in it and they can retire in the lap of luxury. Ordinary men, you see, don’t give a rat’s ass about whether the movie in question is any good; they just want to see a super hot chick in compromising [...]

2009 may well be remembered as the year of the remake or reinterpretation of classic B-film slasher movies. Sorority Row — an update of The House on Sorority Row — continues this trend. Regrettably, it appears new ideas may be a little thin on the ground. It’s disappointing because the genre is in serious need [...]

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 [...]

After 100 rewrites and multiple directors, it was impossible to not think the absolute worst of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Not screening for critics didn’t help the cause either. The reason for our occlusion became abundantly clear after viewing — those rewrites and reshoots added up to nothing more than expensive mediocrity; high [...]

Christopher Smith’s British, comedy-horror movie Severance is advertised as The Office meets Deliverance. I’m not really a fan of this mix of genres, as it’s almost impossible to get the mix right – the comedy dilutes the horror and vice versa. So as I expected, Severance is not as funny as the prior and not [...]

In contrast to Joseph Sargent’s 1974 original, Tony Scott’s The Taking of Pelham 123 is loud, fast, and action packed from start to finish. Right from the opening credits which roll to Jay-Z’s ’99 Problems’, we know we are in for a hell of a ride. From the outset Scott treats us to his usual [...]

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, [...]

Jonathon Levine’s All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, starring Amber Heard (Alpha Dog, Pineapple Express) was released over a year ago in the UK, but horror fans in the U.S. are still waiting. So will it be worth the wait? Mandy Lane (Heard), is every teenage boy’s fantasy. She’s blonde, she’s beautiful, she’s innocent, and [...]

Isn’t the fact that gypsies smell like cabbage and bring down the value of your house if they move into your neighborhood enough of a reason to hate them? Apparently not — Sam Raimi has given us another reason to dislike them: They’ll cast a hex on you if you shame them. Poor Christine Brown [...]

Just because Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the focal point in Terminator: Salvation is no reason to fret and sign the death certificate on an impressive movie franchise. The final product, while very different from the three previous installments, still packs plenty of punch in both the alternate reality and ass-kicking action fronts. The main differentiator here [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In Zack Snyder’s brilliant film version of Watchmen, it isn’t business as usual for a group of rag-tag costumed do-gooders living, working, and laying low in the alternate world of a Nixon-era 1985, a time when masked crime fighters have been outlawed. In much the same way as Chris Nolan did for Batman in the [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

There are several kisses of death a movie franchise may experience, including, but not limited to: The original writing/directing team deciding to move on to other projects The main actor or actress in the franchise deciding to not be involved in the latest project The decision to make a prequel Casting Paris Hilton to star [...]

It’s a bad sign when the predominant reactions to a horror movie are sarcastic shout outs and hysterical laughter. Contrary to expectations, The Unborn delivers the unintentional laughs but not the scares. It’s beginning to look like horror movies aren’t supposed to be scary anymore. Strange things are happening to teenager Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman). [...]

The new year is newly upon us and we already have a comic book adaptation thrust upon us in the form of The Spirit. Yes I know what you’re thinking, I have never heard of this “Spirit” character. Don’t worry I hadn’t either. However, after some painstaking research (thanks Wikipedia), I found out that the [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Writing a book or screenplay with vampires in it has got to be one of the easiest gigs around. These mysterious and charming undead basically lend themselves to just about any scenario possible — generally making said scenario that much more intriguing (its got a vampire in it, duh!). Proof in point: Twilight. Catherine Hardwicke’s [...]

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 [...]

A rejuvenated James Bond is back for his 22nd feature film: Quantum of Solace. Building upon the blocks laid down in 2006′s Casino Royale, this movie further “evolves” the Bond experience — presenting itself strictly as a kick-ass, take no prisoners action movie, leaving in the dust the nuances that set 007 apart from being [...]

Hope. Survival. Retribution. Happy endings. Years ago, these were the standard outcomes in the horror genre. Nowadays, we jaded human beings like things a bit edgier — and more unpredictable. James Watkins’ new movie, Eden Lake keeps to this new tradition. A movie about a romantic weekend gone horribly awry, the film’s title is a [...]

It may not be such a rarity these days for a premise with a central character to make its way to a sequel or even a trilogy. Something has to be said when a film franchise gets into the higher number of installments — a pentalogy is certainly worth some praise. That, however, is all [...]

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 [...]

Shame on me for not doing a background check on the latest horror film out of Hollywood, Quarantine. If I had, I would have noticed it was a remake of the foreign horror film [Rec], which, incredibly, is still currently enjoying a cinematic release overseas. That’s right, they didn’t even wait until the film had [...]

“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 [...]

War. There are countless reasons for them to be waged and I don’t pretend to know a damn thing about any of them. What I do I understand, however, is along with war comes great sacrifice and loss. Fifty Dead Men Walking is a film set in Belfast during the late 80′s that works to [...]

Yes, we know Big Brother is watching us. He’s been watching us for a very long, long time — the digital age and relentless media exposure just makes it that much more in your face. And just like when the internet was the new great unknown, Hollywood tried to capitalize on the horrors of it [...]

As much as I like myself a steady diet of violence in my movies, I’m mostly unimpressed with the whole “torture-porn” phenomenon. It’s not the glorification that I take issue with; it’s more about the difficulty in putting together a half-way decent movie around the concept. Only Saw with its ingenious contraptions tied to life [...]

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 [...]

To this day I am still baffled by the concept that Nicolas Cage crossed over to become an action movie star. More often than not, he’s starred in some real clunkers and based off of the fact Bangkok Dangerous is a remake of a Thai film of the same name and not screened for critics [...]

Some say there is biker blood coarsing through my veins. I can’t imagine why — I’ve only got a Harley, tats running up and down my arms and I run several meth labs in the suburbs. I also dig biker flicks. Even more, I like films in which Quentin Tarantino has had a hand in [...]

Hollywood hasn’t been kind to Vin Diesel. His last movies haven’t done too well at the box-office, so it wasn’t much of a surprise for him to want to return to the science fiction genre that spawned his career a decade or so ago (remember Pitch Black?). Good for him, as I’m sure on paper [...]

Six years ago the Hollywood remake of The Ring was one hell of an awakening to the freakish world of J-Horror (Japanese Horror) films. The Grudge, while not as good as the aforementioned, was pretty eerie as well. A semi-steady stream of crap like One Missed Call and the more recent The Eye followed. Today [...]

Not sure about you, but I can barely recollect anything of note from the The Mummy Returns or the original The Mummy that would necessitate a third installment. But I guess that is why I am not a producer of big budget films, because apparently there was something there that absolutely needed to be seen [...]

There’s a new action star in town and it isn’t anyone you would immediately suspect. Does the name Liam Neeson ring a bell? Yes, the same guys who has primarily played the nondescript role for the majority of his career has found his John McClane as Bryan in the French action, quasi-thriller Taken. Surprisingly, it [...]

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 [...]

Considering the terrible tax situation Wesley Snipes got himself in, it really shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s resorted to doing movies, that for the most part, would have been considered unworthy of his “action-star prowess” during his heyday (which I say was around the time of Blade). But a man’s got to his pay [...]

General note to all before reading this movie review: if you can’t leave your reasoning and common sense behind, stop reading – Wanted is not for you. For everyone else, continue reading – an entertainment guarantee awaits. Wanted is the story of a young account manager named Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) who is suffering from [...]

Idea. Let’s pitch a movie about some unexplainable occurrence that causes people to inexplicably kill themselves. Then M. Night Shyamalan can direct it so people will invariably think there is a monumental twist at the end. And to make it even more eerie and intriguing let’s name it The Happening. There you have, in a [...]

I consider myself a very big horror buff, and many of my favorite movies are in the horror genre. Horror does something that no other types of movies can do – when they’re done right, they can make you feel for the characters that are being put through such emotions like fear and agonizing pain. [...]

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 [...]

If you want a heist movie with class, you cast George Clooney and Brad Pitt and make a film along the lines of Ocean’s Thirteen (or any of the preceding ones). When you want a gritty, seedy heist movie, you hire the new action kid on the block, Jason Statham and end up with a [...]

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 [...]

The Signal is a limited release horror movie that I had very high expectations for ever since I saw a trailer for it last year. It is directed by three different people (David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry), who each do a separate segment of the story. This movie is absolutely fantastic and by [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

With the ongoing success of the Saw and the Hostel franchises, it was only a matter of time before the “torture-porn” phenomenon tried to weasel its way into a mainstream movie. Hollywood, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to take what was a horror-boys fantasy and legitimize it by throwing an established actress like Diane [...]

Holy viral marketing campaign, Batman. Cloverfield, the latest production from J.J. Abrams (best known for Lost and Alias), may be the most hyped movie of the decade. It was pure genius – the whole country had vivid images of the Statue of Liberty’s head rolling down the Avenue of the Americas for weeks prior to [...]

Hey all, my name is Mike but my handle around these parts will be Phntmbanana. I got a chance to take a look at Rambo the new Stallone flick, and it was certainly a view to behold. It pushed the boundaries of violence in movies to a point I have never seen before, and I [...]

I’ve broken a cardinal rule. I watched The Ungodly based solely on the fact it had a cool sounding title. The name conjured up thoughts of pure, unadulterated evil and in the current shitty mood I’m in, it seemed like a perfect way to embrace my aggravation. But, I’ve been around long enough to know [...]

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 [...]

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 figured before I sat down to watch the most hyped films of the winter, I’d schedule in one more low-budget, limited release flick. This film made its debut at the After Dark Horror Fest earlier this year and duly disappeared again. That’s a shame because the individuals I spoke with who attended the event [...]

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 [...]

Here we go again. Even though the old video game to movie adaption has played itself out some time ago, it has reared it’s ugly head above the surface once more to take a stab at our wallets and pocketbooks. No I’m not talking about a fourth Resident Evil (although I’m certain one is in [...]

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). [...]

Sadly, I missed P1 when it was released last year. But seeing as it was such a good horror movie, Summit Entertainment has been good enough to bring P2 to the theaters. Yes, I’m kidding. There was no film titled P1 that I am aware of and aside from a single advertisement last week, I [...]

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 [...]

Ever get the sneaky suspicion that someone does something with less than admirable intentions? That’s what I felt when I sat down to watch and review Saw IV. After all, since the original Saw was released in 2004, Lionsgate has bankrolled sequels every year, each film still remarkably making a healthy profit while getting progressively [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

Sometimes movies look so much better on paper and storyboards rather than on an actual reel of film. Such is the case with Shoot ‘Em Up. It is every writer’s wet dream, a movie light on plot, dialogue and substance; heavy on nonstop action, including incredible gun and knife fights, car chases, aerial battles and [...]

Question. Why does Hollywood think all the rural and desolate areas in the southern United States are filled with inbred, whacky rednecks who want to cause harm to the rest of society? I’ve met thousdands of southerners, many of whom I figured were the accidental offspring of close relatives (I used to work for NASCAR) [...]

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 [...]

Didn’t Jet Li retire last year? I guess the allure of making mostly grand action movies is just too strong — just like the smell of chocolate is irresistible to a fat person — because he is back and kicking ass in War. This time, instead of being involved in some obscure Chinese tale (i.e., [...]

The Invasion. How many people knew this was being released? I didn’t. Seems Warner Bros. didn’t put a lot of stock into either; no premier and a limited amount of advertising basically ensured this movie would receive little to no fanfare. Makes a person wonder whether the movie is worth watching, if the studio that [...]

Last night in a moment weakness (also known as boredom) I sat down to watch Beneath. It’s an MTV production and even though they’ve had their hands in some relatively good movies lately like Blades of Glory and Jackass Number Two, I set my set my expectations low enough to not be upset if the [...]

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 [...]

Werewolves seem to be enjoying a resurgence. The Underworld series and to a lesser extent, movies like Blood and Chocolate has made them cool again. And as of late there certainly appears to be a lot of buzz about Skinwalkers. I’m not entirely sure why, but whatever the reason, it was enough to pique my [...]

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 [...]

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea what to expect when the opportunity to watch Wind Chill presented itself the other day. I knew nothing of the story other than there were some ghosts harassing some stranded college kids. So like I do with all movies, I buttered my popcorn, sat back and prepared [...]

Many moons ago I heard some major rumblings about the upcoming movie Captivity. Apparently, there were a few movie posters plastered around that were extremely shocking and horrifying to passer-bys. This coupled with the fact that the very hot Elisha Cuthbert was starring in it caused a major buzz. Cuthbert being held in compromising positions [...]

Thank God for John McClane. That’s right I said it. Where would our great country be, if John McClane was not there to save it time and again? I’ll tell you where — right in the shitter. In Die Hard, he outwitted an international thief holding people in the Nakatomi Plaza hostage. In Die Hard [...]

Hotel rooms suck. No matter how gaudy or pretty they’re made up, they still suck. I know this because I travel nearly every week and spend way too much of my time in them. My problem with them is I simply never quite know what has happened in the room prior to my stay and [...]

Vampires. I don’t think there is a cooler, monstrous entity imagined. They’re immortal. They’re tough as nails. They drink blood. Can they be any more awesome? It sure can — Lucy Liu can be cast as a bloodsucker. Now they’re smokin’ hot. Rise: Blood Hunter puts them all together; what’s not to love? Well, let’s [...]

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 [...]

In 2002, we were introduced to the rage virus in 28 Days Later…. At the end of the movie we were made to assume that all will be well after mainland Britain was quarantined. But guess what? The rage is back in 28 Weeks Later and it’s badder than ever. 28 Weeks Later starts with [...]

Let me start of by saying that the most memorable part of Next is Nicholas Cage’s hair. I kept thinking of the Nick Nolte mug shot when he got caught for DUI. My main reason to go watch this movie was for Jessica Biel but I just ended up wasting some $10 on a ticket and [...]

Here it is, Spider-Man 3, the most anticipated movie of the year. As a Spider-Man fan for most of my life, I can safely say I was counting down the days for this release. After Spider-Man 2, I found myself yearning for more. Could the third installment best the sequel which actually bested the original [...]

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 [...]

Work has been kicking my ass for the past week or so, so I hadn’t had a chance to get out to the theaters to catch anything worth my while. Today, I had a few hours to kill so I looked at the leader board and saw Disturbia was still holding a commanding lead. The [...]

I hate warm beer. I hate it almost as much as I hate wet farts. But what I hate even more than both of those, are movies that offer nothing of worth to the viewer. They’re simply pushed out of the studio to lift a few of our hard earned dollars from our pockets. It’s [...]

After all the critical acclaim heaved upon Danny Boyle and Alex Garland for helping to redefine the zombie flick with 28 Days Later…, I was definitely excited to see if something similar could be done with science fiction genre. Granted, there are plenty of recent space movies but they’ve all focused on action and big [...]

From a religious perspective, I’ve never considered myself a non-believer but more of a sideline believer. I am fascinated by the Bible shows on the Discovery and History channels. So without question, I had to get out to the local cineplex to catch a viewing of The Reaping. It seemed to have all the good [...]

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 [...]

It’s been awhile since a zombie movie offered us something different. Usually, the movie will focus on a band of people trying like hell to survive an onslaught of flesh hungry living dead. While still the same premise Dawn of the Dead reinvigorated the genre with updated special effects and surprisingly mobile zombies. Shaun of [...]

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 [...]

I was fortunate enough to get couple of tickets to go watch this movie on a saturday night. I saw the trailer of this movie a few months ago and was very excited to see this one because of the director and the cast. Well it seemed that all that build up was for nothing, I was [...]

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 [...]

Flame On! Nicholas Cage character Johnny, blazes the big sceen as the Ghost Rider with some intense visual effects and the fight for the balance of good and evil. Wife and I decided to spend the saturday evening at the movies and of all the choices we had, we decided to go for Ghost Rider [...]

Nothing gets the blood flowing better in the morning than a scary movie based on some freaky, paranormal shit. Then again, a good shot of whiskey coupled with a mind-numbing blowjob will do the trick too. Unfortunately, I don’t get much of the latter anymore, so The Messengers are going to have fulfill my need [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

One of my favorite movie franchises has got to be James Bond. The man has it all — fine clothes, awesome gadgets, skills in every study known to man, kick-ass cars and of course, smoking hot chicks who line up to screw him. Who wouldn’t want to emulate that? However, it is with some skepticism, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Ah, summer blockbuster time. Sun is shing brightly, birds are chirping and Hollywood throws our way the movies that will make or break their year. The first movie of the season is Mission: Impossible III starring our favorite actor Tom Cruise as spy Ethan Hunt. Now I’m the first guy to get in line for [...]

With a moment to kill, I sat back with a cold Yuengling, a box of Wheat Thins and a jar of peanut butter and watched the latest Wayans brothers offering: Scary Movie 4. Now as always I try and be fair and watch all movies with an open mind – no preconceived notions here. There [...]

After a good long night of drinking, I finally sat down to watch what some are calling one of the best movies this year to come out of Hollywood. I’m obviously talking about the latest offering by the Wachowski brothers — V for Vendetta.  The movie based off of a UK comic book of the [...]

Let me start this review by saying that if my wife, whom I love dearly, didn’t want to watch this move, I wouldn’t have gone near it. I’ll be the first to admit Jodie Foster is a top-tier actress, but that fact didn’t outwiegh the notion that Flightplan is a hokey piece of shit. First, [...]

With my folks in town and some time to kill, we decided to sit back and watch the latest Wes Craven psychological thriller Red Eye. Personally, I had absolutely no idea what this movie was about except for the fact it had some shit to do with a plane and crazy guy. So, going into [...]

We’ve all seen the advertisements of the The Skeleton Key telling would-be movie watchers that ‘this movie is as good as The Sixth Sense’ and asking people to not ‘spoil the ending’. So, as most of mindless America, I bit the hook and and let them reel me in. In a nutshell the movie casts [...]

Why, oh why, do I do this to myself? I must be a glutton for punishment as that’s really the only way to explain my reasoning to watch the remake of The Amityville Horror. Where should I begin. I knew this movie had to suck ass before my wife and I sat down to watch [...]

With the mildly surprising success of Miss Congeniality, Hollywood and Sandra Bullock figured why not pump out a sequel and hope for similar results. What do they get? Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. A mildly entertaining movie (of course). Ms. Bullock reprises her role as FBI agent Gracie Hart. The dressed down, seemly stupid [...]

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 [...]

Last night, the wife and I sat down expecting to get a good scare before going to bed. She had her popcorn. I had high hopes. Although, I wasn’t a huge fan of the first movie (it reminded me of the shitty scarefest FearDotCom), I figured The Ring Two would be better. After all, Hollywood [...]

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 [...]

Ok, I’ll admit it, I went into Constantine thinking it was a pile of horseshit. Everyone I knew (and their mothers) claimed this movie sucked ass. “Shit movie,” and “Keanu Reaves can’t act,” are a few of the remarks I’ve heard. Although I can’t argue the latter opinion, I make a case on the first. [...]

The basic premise of the movie: a family man takes his daughter from their city home where a tragedy had occurred, to a country cottage where all hell breaks loose. Hide and Seek has a great cast so I expected good things. Robert DeNiro still has some acting left in him. Dakota Fanning is an [...]