The favorable trend as of late is the recurring gimmick of gender-switching casting in films of previous familiarity. The craze was recently ignited — seemingly — by the 2016 Paul Feig-directed “Ghostbusters” estrogen-driven remake to this year’s earlier released “Overboard” remake with Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez demonstrating the sex role reversal routine. So who…
I don’t mind telling you, when I hear the words, “spin-off,” regarding film or television, I don’t get the best of feelings. The history of the term (which I will not go into here) conjures up as many negative thoughts as does the phrase, “third movie in a film franchise series.” Still, being the profession…
As the sly penguins have outgrown their “Madagascar” roots so have the lovable minions of “Despicable Me.” Taking place before the days of Gru (although it may end with his being involved), the Twinkie-shaped, mumbling servants are getting their own movie aptly titled Minions to go on a comical adventure to search for an evil…
Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón’s explosive, white-knuckle sci-fi instant classic is a wonder to behold, with devastatingly realistic effects as a backdrop to a terrifying, compelling story and terrific work by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. It is both a concrete what-if story and a mesmerizing existential mindbender. The U.S Space Shuttle Explorer is docked at the…
The buddy cop genre gets a gender twist in Paul Feig’s The Heat, much as the pre-wedding shenanigans genre did in Feig’s 2011 film “Bridesmaids.” Both films are comedies full of outrageous moments that are determined to throw subtlety out of the window. Of an airplane. Into a volcano. Yet as important as it is…
“No one can hear you scream in space.” That tagline (or something along those lines) belongs to another movie, but it also applies to Alfonso Cuarón’s upcoming science-fiction thriller Gravity. It spotlights the life and death struggle of two astronauts — played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney — who are stuck in space after…
A decade later and 9/11 has become the new “it” thing in Hollywood. Now, much like with homosexuality, movies — particularly late-winter melodramas — dealing with the terrorist attacks have become foolproof investments. As such there was no stopping Stephen Daldry’s latest film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s eponymous…
