Recent Stories
Men In Black III
Back in Black: Men in Black III offers a funny and fun look at aliens among us, and the cops who love them.
That old canard is right: comedy is not easy. Science fiction comedy is even less easy. Which is why there are so few examples merely of attempts, and, of course, far fewer actual successes. In ...
Battleship
Bored Game: Despite its classic board game inspiration, Battleship founders.
It’s pathetic enough that Battleship is pretty much the dullest alien invasion movie ever, featuring an uninteresting incursion by nondescript aliens doing boring things and not even blowing shit up in exciting new ways. But ...
The Avengers
Awesome Assembly: The Avengers’ all-star cast and fantastic plot pushes the superhero genre to the next level.
How many superheroes spoil the broth? More than six, apparently, at least when Joss Whedon is wrangling them. Because there’s an awful lot of stuff crammed into Marvel’s The Avengers. Not just six superheroes – ...
The Raven
Midnight Dreary: The Raven comes nowhere close to living up to its Edgar Allen Poe-solving-mysteries potential.
Oh, I so wanted to love this flick. Two hot guys – John Cusack and Luke Evans – hunt down a killer in 1840s Baltimore. A killer inspired by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. ...
The Cabin in the Woods
Deep Fear, Deeper Fun: The Cabin in the Woods reinvents the horror genre, with deliciously scary results.
Absolutely genius movie. Totally brilliant. I know countless variations on the phrase “ultimate horror film” have been thrown around before. But I can’t see how any movie is more worthy of that claim than The ...
The Hunger Games
Still Stuffed: The Hunger Games fills up an action adaptation quite well.
Every once in a while, just as I’m about to succumb to Hollywood-stoked despair and ennui, a movie like The Hunger Games comes along: A big, brash popcorn entertainment that’s resolutely not dumbed down. A ...
This Means War
War Torn: Superspies vie for Reese Witherspoon’s affections, but lose their humanity, in This Means War
It’s adorable, ain’t it, how women are so easily manipulated? Show ’em some art and fake some bullshit about it, pet a rescue dog like you mean it, take her to meet your granny, and ...
Safe House
Smoke and Mirrors: An unrealistic plot and shallow dialogue sends Safe House the way of countless failed CIA semi-thrillers.
Oo oo oo, it’s CIA action porn when Safe House finally gets going, all mysterious black SUVs and “kill the surveillance cameras” and stoic badassery all around. It’s sorta exciting, apparently, for Ryan Reynolds’ Matt ...
Chronicle
Birthing a Hero: Chronicle takes a stylized, seductive page from comic book stories of yore.
Teenage boy with a drunken, abusive dad and a sick mom. Lovelorn and lonely. Bullied and picked on at school. Bit of a loner. Full of rage and feeling very ineffectual. And now he’s got ...
Haywire
Secret Agent Meh: MMA star Gina Carano’s brawn meets director Steven Soderbergh’s brains – and it goes kind of Haywire.
We’ve seen this movie before. A helluva lot. Secret agent/gun for hire/covert badass gets burned. Who did it? The bad guys? The colleagues? The boss? Our Hero has to work hard and fast to pull ...
