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May 22
There is a certain amount of raunchiness, absurdity and juvenile humor expected from the "Hangover" films. The name itself makes it clear this isn't a Mensa tea party.
May 14
Director J.J. Abrams proved with 2009's "Star Trek" that it is OK to boldly go where others had gone before, as long as the journey is exciting, original, entertaining and respectful to legions of loyal fans. His film, which found the balance between reprising and reimagining, was a direct hit.
May 02
Director Henry Alex Rubin's "Disconnect" is a harrowing cautionary tale about the dangers that loom with every computer click. He weaves multiple story lines together with a gripping darkness to show how innocent online activities can have devastating consequences.
May 02
In the first "Iron Man" feature film and its sequel, director Jon Favreau showed a real commitment to the comic book's roots. Action and angst were such major conduits for delivering the story that it was as if Favreau had created three-dimensional versions of comic book panels.
April 25
At this stage in his life, it appears that Robert Redford only directs and stars in a movie where he feels a personal connection. It's been five years since he last graced the big screen in the political talker "Lions for Lambs," and it took another film that blends politics and people -- "The Company You Keep" -- to get him back into theaters.
April 25
At the beginning and near the end of director Michael Bay's "Pain & Gain" are reminders that the film is based on the true story of Miami bodybuilders who committed a long list of crimes, including torture and murder, in the mid-'90s. It seems Bay and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely are proud of how they took this true story and turned it into a dark comedy.
April 25
Colin Firth has the uncanny ability to play both king and commoner with the same compassion, dignity and reverence. Whether it was his lovesick efforts in "Love Actually" or his frustration in "A King's Speech," Firth showed it's heart that makes for a great performer. His heart-filled work is plentiful in "Arthur Newman."
April 25
Jeff Nichols' script for "Mud" is a lot like the Mississippi River that serves as a backdrop for the tale of unrequited love. There are times it is big and powerful and other times when it becomes so serene it's easy to forget the depths that hide below.
April 25
Relationships are fodder for this week's new DVD releases.
April 11
There's a natural beauty and romanticism about baseball that transitions to the silver screen as perfectly as a well-turned double play. If you add in a powerful story that resonates through history as sharply as the crack of the bat on a warm spring day, then what you have is "42."
Director and writer Brian Helgeland recounts how Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947 when he was offered a contract by owner Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Helgeland shows a deep respect for the game and for what Robinson accomplished by telling this baseball story through the human drama. Read more →April 11
Derek Cianfrance's "The Place Beyond the Pines" is a three-act examination of how hard it is not to cross the line between good and evil.
April 11
Director Danny Boyle dives deep inside the human psyche to look at what makes people act the way they do -- whether it be for love or just the inherent passion to survive -- with movies like "Slumdog Millionaire" and "127 Hours." He loves to take his characters to clear thresholds where they must decide the right courses for them to accomplish their goals.
March 28
Hollywood has always shown a fondness for adapting books -- whether they be classic, contemporary or comic -- into movies. Not only does this provide instant fodder for a script, but it guarantees a built-in audience.
March 28
It was originally reported that "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" was bumped from its planned June 2012 release so that it could be changed to 3-D. If that was the reason, it wasn't worth the wait.
April 04
Twenty years ago, director Steven Spielberg dazzled audiences with the herds of running and lumbering dinosaurs that filled his "Jurassic Park." Computer-generated images have become such a norm today that this kind of technology barely registers, but two decades ago it was spectacular. Check that: In the case of "Jurassic Park," it's still spectacular.
March 21
If "The Croods" is an example of what's supposed to be prehistoric comedy, then the genre should be allowed to become extinct. There's the potential for humor, but it never develops beyond a few sight gags that will entertain the pre-school crowd.
The movie follows a family of cave dwellers -- The Croods -- who only venture out long enough to search for food. They are afraid of anything new, the dark and, apparently, any joke that doesn't have to do with one of them falling down. The only member of their group with an adventurous heart is Eep (voiced by Emma Stone), but she would have to defy her protective father, Grug (Nicholas Cage), if she wants to see the world. Read more →March 21
"Stoker" is a visual treat from the creative opening credits to the colorful splendor of nature that's almost blinding. Director Park Chan-wook embraces texture, shapes and colors with such exuberance that each scene is a celebration of the visual. It's almost brilliant enough to distract from a plot that has some very dark problems.
March 21
Check the calendar, we must have jumped a few months ahead. That's the only way to explain why the supercharged, action-packed "Olympus Has Fallen" -- the kind of movie that fills movie theaters during the summer -- opens today.
This high-powered tale of terrorists who take over the White House is "Air Force One" meets "Die Hard." Read more →March 14
If the celluloid service for "The Call" had run out after 60 minutes, the new film from director Brad Anderson would have been an edge-of-your seat thriller about a 911 operator's valiant efforts to save a kidnapped young girl.
March 14
Comedy -- like magic -- has to be performed quickly, cleanly and with enough intelligence that it makes the improbable entertaining. Fail to do this, and the comedic illusions lead to disillusions.
"The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" fails on all three counts. There are a few funny moments in this story of a Las Vegas magician who loses his magical touch, but the pacing is too slow, the performances too uneven and the writing too juvenile to make this a bewitching comedy. Read more →March 14
This week's new DVDs include an Oscar-nominated effort, a film with performances that should have been nominated and a new release that sounds as if it was up for an Oscar.
March 07
There are plenty of movies in the feature film library vault having to do with every major -- and many minor -- battles of World War II.
March 07
You've never seen "Julius Caesar" like this.
March 07
"Oz the Great and Powerful" should have been called "Oz the Good and Passable." The new film from director Sam Raimi has flashes of brilliance but overall the latest trip down the Yellow Brick Road has a few too many bumps in the road to make this a magical journey.
The latest film production inspired by the writings of L. Frank Baum explains how Oz (James Franco) goes from being a two-bit sideshow magician in Kansas to ruling the land of Munchkins, Quadlings and Flying Monkeys. In true Dorothy fashion, Oz is taken via tornado to the weird and wonderful land. Read more →February 28
In sports and the military, "professionalism" describes people who go about their work with a calm, dispassionate efficiency -- no fuss, no panic when things go wrong, few mistakes, little attention paid to the odds, the chance for glory.
You can apply that word to movie actors, too. The great cast of character actors of "Phantom," a solid Cold War-era submarine thriller of modest ambitions, never reveals that this isn't "The Hunt for Red October" or "K-19: The Widowmaker." Ed Harris, William Fichtner, David Duchovny and Co. show up, hit their marks, give their lines some punch and play the heck out of this B-picture, which could easily have been just a prop (a submarine) in search of a movie. Read more →February 28
Old musicians -- they have the best insults.
"Your singing brought tears ... to my ears." Read more →February 28
"Jack the Giant Slayer" -- the latest film foray into giving classic fairytales a modern look -- combines a likable hero with a fun story and flashy special effects to make the movie fee fi fo fun.
This isn't the typical story of a young farm boy who plants magic beans and climbs the vines to steal a golden harp from a slow-moving giant. In this version, from screen writers Darren Lemke, Christopher McQuarrie and Dan Studney, Jack (Nicholas Hoult) accidentally creates the sky-high vine and in the process puts Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) in danger. Jack joins members of the King's army -- led by the chivalrous Elmont (Ewan McGregor) -- who climb the vines to take on more giants than you will find in San Francisco. Read more →February 21
There is a massive Rock in the way of "Snitch" being the movie it wants to be -- a thought-provoking story about the ills of the legal system.
The casting of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as a worried father who becomes a drug runner to get his son out of prison immediately suggests that this is another explosive action film. Wrong! There's some action, but it comes along in the last act -- far too late to wake those who have nodded off and are dreaming of a better movie. Read more →February 21
"Bless Me, Ultima" is like the cobbled memories we might have while reflecting on our own lives during a warm summer day. These bits and pieces of retained memories come skipping back with only a tenuous thread to hold them together. Observed in linear form, there is a disconnection and disruption that is too jarring to ignore.
The film, based on the much beloved novel by Rudolfo Anaya, offers a look at the simple life of a Hispanic family living in New Mexico during World War II. This world is shown through the eyes of Antonio (Luke Ganalon), an elementary school student with a large appetite for learning. This quiet world changes when Ultima (Miriam Colon), comes to live her final days with the family. Read more →February 13
When it comes to trying to make you cry, there are no safe havens in "Safe Haven."
February 13
The plot of "A Good Day to Die Hard" has more holes than a 25-year-old pair of favorite socks. But just like those tattered toe covers, there is something fun about the latest in this long-running film series to make you glad it's still around.
Bruce Willis dusts off the tough guy attitude to reprise his most iconic role, detective John McClane -- a man who always seems to be in the wrong place at the right time. This time, he travels to Russia in hopes of saving his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney), from a lifetime in prison. He ends up in the middle of a political and military mess -- the norm for McClane. Read more →February 13
It's easy to try to force "Beautiful Creatures," the film based on the young romance novel of the same name, into the same pigeonhole as other stories about teens -- one mortal, the other supernatural. That's unfair.
While the film includes the basic elements that have been used in everything from "Twilight" to "Harry Potter," they take on a fresh look through some interesting writing, a handful of fascinating characters and a pair of young lovers who look emotionally awake. Read more →February 07
"Identity Thief" is such a gargantuan stinker its stench can't be confined to one theater. Fumigate all you want. A stink this bad lives on forever.
Jason Bateman plays Sandy Patterson, a hot shot accountant on the verge of making the biggest move in his career. He needs to advance because Patterson, his wife (Amanda Peet) and their two daughters live on a very tight budget. Read more →February 07
WARNING: Watching the movie "Side Effects" may cause drowsiness, a blurred sense of reality, explosive confusion and a slight tingling in the logic center of your brain.
This alert is necessary because the new thriller from director Steven Soderbergh requires so many coincidences, chance meetings, ignored signals and plot oversights that the surprise ending is not that surprising and the story to get there is as illegible as a doctor's handwriting. Read more →January 31
Fisher Stevens hasn't directed a lot of movies, but he shows veteran savvy with his work in "Stand Up Guys."
He's smart enough to know that when you have actors like Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin, the best thing to do is point the camera and let the masters do their jobs. Read more →January 31
Zombie love story "Warm Bodies" introduces a new film genre: the zom rom com. It has all the leg shuffling, brain-eating fun of a horror film played out against a modern day "Romeo & Juliet" tale. The combination might sound as compatible as chicken and chocolate, but director Jonathan Levine makes the odd mix work.
The film is based on Isaac Marion's novel about a not-so-distant future where a weird plague has turned the majority of the population into zombies. One of these walking dead, a zombie (Nicholas Hoult) who can only remember his name starts with an R, shuffles his way through a local airport. Except for a few shared grunts with his best dead bud M (Rob Corddry), life's relatively uneventful. Read more →January 17
"The Last Stand" is the vehicle former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger selected to make his return to starring in action films. If this is an example of his work in the post-governor days, Schwarzenegger should seriously consider a return to politics.
January 17
"Mama" would have been good for a few scares if the biggest plot point made even a tiny bit of sense.
Director Andrés Muschietti's horror film looks at what happens when two small girls spend five years in the forest being raised by a spectre. How they got there is a jumble. It has something to do with the stock market disaster, murder and divorce. Considering that most of the movie has such a slow pace, it would have been nice if Muschietti set up the story. Read more →January 10
LOS ANGELES -- Josh Brolin takes a few puffs on a cigarette before returning from the balcony of the Four Seasons Hotel room where he is spending the day talking about his latest movie, "Gangster Squad."
January 10
Most of the efforts to track down and kill Osama bin Laden remain classified information. The only details readily made to the public have been about his death at the hands of Navy SEALs in 2011, which ended one of the greatest manhunts in history.
"Zero Dark Thirty" (a military term that means 30 minutes past midnight), the new film from Oscar-wining director Kathryn Bigelow, offers a detailed -- very detailed -- accounting of the years the CIA spent following every tiny lead in their quest to find bin Laden. This lengthy accounting is so tedious at times that the finale seems as illusive as the man at the center of the manhunt. Read more →January 10
Chris Colfer has taken the suggestion of "write what you know" to heart. His script for "Struck By Lightning" isn't autobiographical -- he's never been hit by a lightning bolt -- but it's rife with elements of his own less-than-happy days in high school.
January 03
"The Impossible," a film based on the true story of a family's effort to survive after the Indian Ocean tsunami hit their hotel on Boxing Day 2004, generates the deep emotions needed to reach out and put a death grip on your heart.
January 03
In many ways, "Promised Land" travels the same moral pathways that made "Up in the Air" so compelling. Just as that Oscar-nominated film delved into the complicated issues that arrive when human values get mixed in with business, "Promised Land" cast a relatively even light over the unwinnable choice many farmers face when they have to decide between two evils.
December 24
Christmas is one of the busiest movie-going days of the year. But the trick for many families is trying to pick a film that will entertain youngsters, parents and grandparents alike. Here's a clue: "Django Unchained" isn't it.
December 20
Haven't heard the buzz yet about Anne Hathaway's tour de force moment singing "I Dreamed a Dream" in the strong new movie version of "Les Misérables"?
December 20
To transform the much-beloved "Les Misérables" from stage to screen, director Tom Hooper had find a way to maintain -- and amplify -- the emotional power of the original words and music with the trappings of a big-screen production.
December 20
Tom Cruise has found in his latest movie, "Jack Reacher," a fast-moving and interesting action role that could replace his "Mission: Impossible" days, should it become a film franchise. There aren't as many cool gadgets or super spy disguises, but Jack Reacher, the character introduced through a series of best-selling novels by Lee Child, is as rough and tumble as Cruise's Ethan Hunt in the trilogy of spy movies.
December 20
"Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away 3D" uses a rather standard boy-meets-girl plot to take the audience on a fanciful journey to a land of acrobats and artists who look at gravity as more of a suggestion than a law.
December 13
Like walking into a dark movie theater from a sunny day, it'll take your eyes a little while to adjust to director Sacha Gervasi's "Hitchcock." Both the story and Anthony Hopkins's performance as the ground-breaking director Alfred Hitchcock can't be judged at first glance.
December 13
Sometimes the smallest among us can do great deeds, Gandalf the Grey tells us.
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