The last time that former visual effects technician Scott Charles Stewart directed Paul Bettany in a motion picture, the result was 2010’s quite literally God-awful “Legion.” Loosely based on the South Korean comic series of the same name, 2011’s Priest is an improvement over “Legion” . . . but not by much. As befitting of…
Lightning McQueen: Mater, you ARE the bomb. Never have truer words been spoken in a movie, and never have I had the displeasure to pronounce a Pixar film a failure — until now. Cars 2, the sequel to the 2005 runaway animated hit “Cars,” misfires on so many cylinders, it becomes a huge lemon long…
I’ve had my fair share of eccentric teachers. In junior high, there was Mr. Plotsker, who despite being fit as a horse, walked with a cane. Sometimes he would twirl it around during long-winded lectures. Other times, he’d pretend it was a machine gun. “Close, but no cigar,” he’d proclaim, pointing its end towards a…
In 2003 Brian Douglas Wells, a high school dropout, pizza deliveryman, and “valued employee” of the Mama Mia Pizzeria, was double-crossed by Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes, his co-conspirators in a botched robbery plot. On the afternoon of August 28th, at the end of a dirt road, the crooks fastened a time bomb to Wells’…
So we’re going with something a little different this week. In what is the first non-fiction film I’ve ever reviewed, Martin Scorsese gets behind the camera to present a part-concert, part-documentary film chronicling two night shows by iconic band The Rolling Stones at the historic Beacon Theatre in New York City. Although the original plan…
You know a movie, where the main plot line is skipping school, is bad when the main character tells the audience there are “rules” to such activities. And unless that character is Ferris Bueller, the viewers — for the most part — should just ignore those guidelines. I’ll even go a step further. The Art…
What a little gem of a film is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Many would put it in the often-mentioned “best films you’ve never seen” category, and I would not be one to argue. Shane Black sits in the director’s chair for the first (and to date, only) time and co-wrote the screenplay to this part…
