Recent Stories
The Lucky One
Sappy Sparks: A meandering, under-developed protagonist and schmalzy score are just a few drawbacks to The Lucky One.
From a casting perspective, Zac Ephron is the ideal embodiment of vanilla American mediocrity to stand in as Logan, a politically ambiguous Iraq war vet who stalks a woman whose photo he finds on the ...
The Secret World of Arrietty
Famed Tokyo animation house takes on a classic story in The Secret World of Arrietty.
Meshing Japanese animation styles with Mary Morton’s beloved 1952 children’s novel The Borrowers, animator-cum-director Hiromasa Yonebayashi and co-director Gary Rydstrom create a delightful adaptation. Tokyo’s famed animation production house Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away) provides ample ...
The Grey
Lost in The Grey: Men battle their innermost demons while battling nature in the bleak Alaskan wilderness.
A strand of Moby Dick runs through director/co-writer Joe Carnahan’s wild and wooly tale of survival in the Alaskan wilderness. Like Moby Dick, this amorphous story is an anti-narrative made up of dark encounters with ...
We Bought a Zoo
Bring tissues: You’ll sniffle (happily) at the new Matt Damon vehicle We Bought a Zoo.
Director Cameron Crowe casts a heart-warming cinematic spell that will milk many a tear from its widespread target audience. However calculated to meet the demands of family-friendly holiday movie fare, We Bought a Zoo does ...
The Rum Diary
Another Shot: Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson combine for a second boozy-but-insightful episode in The Rum Diary.
The Rum Diary is clearly a labor of love from Johnny Depp, who came across Hunter S. Thompson’s unpublished early novel while visiting his literary friend at his home in Colorado. The discovery incited an ...
50/50
Mad Dramedy: 50/50 treads the tricky boundary between comedy and drama beautifully.
Director Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) has a knack for conveying unconventional drama with enough droll spice to make the medicine go down easily, even if the subject is cancer. Television-producer-turned-screenwriter Will Reiser (Da Ali G ...
Wrong Battle
The Debt owes its audience a little more cohesion to match the entertainment factor.
In director John Madden’s remake of a 2007 Israeli film by the same title, what starts out as a gripping Cold War-era espionage thriller devolves into utter fantasy. Told mainly in flashback sequences, the story ...
Horrible Bosses
Like a Boss: Horrible Bosses thrives on a standout ensemble cast and a wacky screenplay.
A much more successful bromance comedy than The Hangover 2, Horrible Bosses benefits from the volatile comic mixture of chemistry between its actors and a genuinely quirky script. Contentious scenes between Jason Bateman’s corporate-climber Nick ...
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Jim Carrey entertains with 'Mr. Popper’s Penguins'.
Loosely based on Florence Atwater’s 1938 children’s book, Mr. Popper’s Penguins never completely gels. But that doesn’t stop Jim Carrey from using everything in his arsenal of comic physicality to keep his audience entertained – ...
The Hangover Part II
Hangover Hangups: The Hangover Part II is more of Part I – which is both good and bad.
The formula mold that worked so well the first time around loses some steam in this follow-up to the most successful R-rated movie ever made. With so much of its would-be surprise elements given away ...
