When I first saw the trailer for The Infiltrator, I had high hopes, considering it concerns a U.S. Customs agent (Robert Mazur, for the record), responsible for nearly bankrupting the Medellín Cartel, which was an organized network of drug suppliers and smugglers originating in the city of Medellín, Colombia. If you were into cocaine in…
I’ll be the first to say the 2012 Tom Cruise actioner, “Jack Reacher” was a pleasant surprise. So much so that I wouldn’t have minded a sequel. Well, Paramount Pictures has delivered that sequel with Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. In the first trailer (provided by Paramount Pictures), Reacher’s (Tom Cruise reprising) tough guy bravado…
I feel horror movies have grown more derivative than innovative as of late. The recent influx of supernatural horror has begun to wear out the genre’s tropes, and while every once in a blue moon we get a critical and audience darling like “The Conjuring” that’s only after we finish wading through a litany of…
As I have written before regarding movies of this ilk, the trick to any decent film featuring magic, or an element thereof, is to walk a tightrope between being just a bit smarter than the audience (or at least SOME members of it) and not being too accessible as to reveal too much to them….
Writer/director Shane Black certainly knows how to make a good buddy-cop movie. He chalked a first Hollywood kill with 1987’s “Lethal Weapon,” the tale of two trigger-happy LAPD detectives, now considered a cornerstone of the cannon. His partner on that project was producer (now super-producer) Joel Silver, with the pair continuing to collaborate in the…
One cannot overlook the Oscar overload of talent tapped to bring in the financial rewards for the tepid on-air monetary hostage drama Money Monster. Acting leads in George Clooney (Academy Award winner for “Syrianna”) and Julia Roberts (Academy Award winner for “Erin Brockovich”) and director Jodie Foster (Academy Award winner for “The Accused” and “The Silence…
The year is 1990. The place is a rural Minnesota town and a man there reports to the police station because his daughter has accused him of raping her. John Gray (David Dencik, “The Homesman”) is polite, cooperative, and remorseful, yet he claims to have no memory of the crime. He insists his daughter is…
