Category: Review
The Contrarian: The Hobbit is Way Better than Any of the LotR Movies
That The Two Towers, the weakest of the LotR movies, is one of the most critically lauded films of the last ten years and that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, as of writing this piece, is certified rotten by the “Top Critics” on Rotten Tomatoes is a tragic miscarriage of filmic justice. An Unexpected Journey is not only the best […]
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The Company You Keep (Trailer)
The 10 Best Food Scenes in Film
Ever since Public Enemy‘s James Cagney smashed a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face, food has been an intricate part of film. From delicious dinner scenes to randy road trip rest stops, chow and its link to cinematic subtext has been a necessary narrative and artistic staple. Here are ten examples of how important comestibles are […]
Identity Thief
Effectively without merit, Seth Gordon’s (Horrible Bosses) tiresome Identity Thief still managed to make $172 million. Good news for Melissa McCarthy, I guess. Bad news for American comedy, though, as now Seth Gordon will continue to make movies. Let’s begin with the premise which, even for a broad comedy, is unusually lacking in credibility. Sandy […]
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
While it might be the height of critical cliché (and analytically wrong) to call G.I. Joe: Retaliation “a real American Zero,” if the combat boot fits… Actually, this amped up pseudo-sequel to Stephen Sommers’ incessantly brain dead 2009 adaptation of the Hasbro toy brand wallows in a weird level of kinetic testosterone which sees Dwayne […]
The Host
And you thought Twilight was bad… The latest from the so-called writer of those undeniably bad (and undeniably popular) sparkling vampire romances centers around an alien race, known as “Souls” who — apparently — take over the entire Earth in a bloodless, destruction-less coup. Like a Maxim version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, these […]
The Place Beyond the Pines
Following her cameo in Leos Carax’s astonishing Holy Motors, Eva Mendes gives one of the more memorable performances of her career thus far in Derek Cianfrance’s woefully self-serious The Place Beyond the Pines. As Romina, the erstwhile love interest of motorcycle stuntman Luke (Ryan Gosling), Mendes engagingly conveys the conflicting desires of a woman who […]
Tyler Perry’s Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor
When urban entertainment phenomenon Tyler Perry thumps his Bible, an entire demographic of underserved audience members usually responds. Mostly, it’s because he is bringing his (occasionally) hilarious drag act with him. However, with the failures of last fall’s Madea’s Witness Protection (it was profitable, if otherwise pathetic) and his attempted commercial crossover, Alex Cross, it’s […]
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Blancanieves
It’s nice to see that in this time of “reimagined” childrens’ stories from Jack and the Beanstalk to Alice a filmmaker can import a classic tale into a brand-new template and retain the dreamy dark beauty and cruel logic (for none of those old stories were light-hearted in their original form) that always fascinated audiences. […]
From Up on Poppy Hill
From Up on Poppy Hill, the latest animated transmission from the out-world known as Studio Ghibli, shows Goro Miyazaki working in the same medium but in a wholly different timbre than his promising debut, Tales from Earthsea. Here, he has switched from imaginative myth-maker to chronicler of memory and nostalgia extremist, as his latest relays […]
Room 237
Who knew? When Stanley Kubrick was standing on the set of his heralded horror “classic” The Shining, he had a lot more on his mind than creating a faithful adaptation of the beloved Stephen King novel. Indeed, in the opinion of a few obsessive cinephiles (who become the subject of this provocative documentary), he was […]
Pain & Gain (Trailer)
Warm Bodies
At this point in the zombie mythology, there’s not much more a filmmaker can do. We’ve had the old fashioned voodoo version that made the horror films of the ’30s and ’40s quite laughable. Then there was the slow walking menace of the whole Night/Dawn/Day of the Dead ideal. Amped up when the Romero remake […]
The Host (Trailer)
Upstream Color (Trailer)
The Place Beyond the Pines (Trailer)
Scary Movie 5 (Trailer)
World War Z (Trailer)
The Contrarian: I Want the Kathryn Bigelow Who Made Point Break Back
There’s a scene in Point Break in which the Ex-Presidents reveal to Johnny Utah (remember how there’s a character in this named Johnny Utah?) that they’re not robbing banks for the money. No, no, no my friend. Only Republicans rob banks for money. We rob banks to put our finger in the eye of The […]
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