The plot summary provided for Darkness Descends by writer / actor Frank Krueger seems determined to leave audiences underwhelmed. The summary talks of wars declared and the possibility of New York City itself being torn apart, and yet the film never quite lives up to these expectations. Rather — even if we ignore the ambitions…
“We’re in the business of transformation,” says Colonel Frank Reichert shortly before proving to instead be in the business of humiliation, degradation and manipulation. Reichert is the camp director at Coldwater, a privately run juvenile reform facility (much like many institutions that exist in real life) to which parents send their children in an attempt…
A movie musical based on a stage musical built on pre-existing music certainly has some of its work done for it right from the point of cinematic conception, but even with such a head start, Clint Eastwood still applies enough tender, heartfelt identity to his adaptation, Jersey Boys, to make the screen version a touching…
The feature directorial debut of Dan Beers, Premature, doesn’t capture the complete or debaucherous high school experience like most of its raunch-fest predecessors (“American Pie,” “Superbad”) do, but the comedy is smart and in tune with a new generation of frustrated hornballs. At its heart is high school senior Rob (John Karna) and his world…
Tammy Banks (Melissa McCarthy, “The Heat”) is having the bad day to end all bad days. Thanks to a deer with a death wish she has managed to crash her poor excuse for a car and then get fired from her dead end job at the depressing burger joint Topper Jacks. To top it all…
Seeing Kevin Spacey back in action is a good thing. Back in action in Warner Bros. Pictures’ Horrible Bosses 2 is up to debate, however, as this is a sequel no one was looking to see happen. In it, instead of trying to eliminate their horrible bosses (which Spacey was one of) with a cockamamie…
The 1920’s were the culmination of the greatest wave of immigration in American history in which more than 25 million people arrived, mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, to escape the aftermath of the Great War and its resulting poverty and oppression, or simply to embrace the promise of the “American Dream.” Many of these…
