The funny fat man. The jolly plus-size jester. It’s a trope as old has Hollywood. From silent star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle to John Candy in the Read More

Unfriended is a gimmick-based horror movie. Like The Blair Witch Project, which turned the first person POV found footage approach into a now well-worn waste of Read More

2010’s Monsters was innovative in its stripped-down sci-fi approach. Gareth Edwards’ directorial debut used rarely seen, though beautifully rendered, hulking aliens as foreboding atmospherics that enhanced Read More

The Dead Lands, an import from New Zealand, is a breath of fresh air. It’s got enough hardcore action to please the most dedicated of fight Read More

For those of us who grew up during the ’60s and ’70s, the Cold War with the Soviet Union and its various Eastern European offshoots (which Read More

Trilogies used to be simple. One series, three films, no fuss, no muss. Now, we’ve become addicted to the bountiful box office tendencies of the cinematic Read More

Ex Machina feels like a Danny Boyle film, and it should. It was written (and now, directed) by the Oscar winner’s longtime collaborator Alex Garland. Responsible Read More

Nicholas Sparks is the king of plot catalysts. Whenever his sloppy, manipulative narratives stall out, or run head first into a contextual dead ends, the (in)famous Read More

According to standard definitions, a serial killer is someone who kills more than three people over an extended period of time (usually months), almost always motivated Read More

Ever since the Fast and Furious franchise took a left turn away from street racing and into international intrigue and espionage territory, the entertainment stakes have Read More

Back in the old days, they were called “marriages of convenience.” They were used when property needed to be protected (damn those arcane inheritance laws), interpersonal Read More

At the sixth annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, the big closing-night world premiere was a silent movie from 1919 that almost no one had Read More

Home is a perfectly serviceable, often quite likeable family film. It’s not Pixar, and frankly, it doesn’t pretend to be. Instead, it falls somewhere in between Read More

Get Hard is probably the lamest comedy of all time that also happens to be occasionally amusing. I mean, I guess it’s hard not to happen Read More

Somewhere between the future shock allegories of the ’70s and their TV spin-offs circa The ABC Movie of the Week lies White God. On the surface, Read More

Kill Me Three Times is a darkly comic backstabbing caper flick that cruises right down the middle of the road. It’s pretty slick, but not really Read More