Recent Stories
FAST & FURIOUS 6
Parallel Lives: The latest in the Vin Diesel franchise reminds one writer too much of The Great Gatsby.
The elephant in the pop-culture room at the moment is the obvious fact that Fast and Furious 6 and The Great Gatsby are the same movie. So I invited Gatsby narrator Nick Carraway to guest-review ...
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS
A Dark Night Rises: Star Trek Into Darkness mixes inside jokes, politics, story and acting into one great ride.
There’s a thing that makes me very sad about Star Trek Into Darkness. It’s not the perfect geek storm of an opening gambit that evokes not only the old-school boldly-going adventures of the crew of ...
Evil Dead
Snore Gore Bore: Unnecessarily remake of Evil Dead lacks the charm, interest and Bruce Campbell of the original.
It’s “the most terrifying film you will ever experience,” Evil Dead would have us believe. Bah. Is it gory? Sure. This is one of the most disgusting movies I’ve ever seen, grading strictly on a ...
Zero Dark Thirty
Uncomfortable Reality: Zero Dark Thirty has the potential to be great, but rips off the Bin Laden bandage too soon.
Too soon? Too soon for a kickass political action movie about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden? It’s been less than two years since a black-ops team of elite American soldiers executed the purported mastermind ...
Gangster Squad
Darkly Delicious: Gangster Squad embraces noir of ’40s L.A. cops and cons with reckless, fun abandon.
If L.A. Confidential were a comic book, this is the movie spun outta that: blustery postwar mythologizing about the violent birth of the modern metropolis, all pulpy-bright even when it’s night, bursting with violence that ...
Jack Reacher
Reacher Feature: Tom Cruise swings hard at this action-detective flick, but it’s better suited for basic cable.
The trailer makes Tom Cruise’s latest foray into action look like Jason Bourne channeling Martin Riggs, but it’s more like a midseason episode of a television detective show. Sure, the finale is a standard shootout ...
Skyfall
Look Out Below: Delicious villainy, Daniel Craig sexuality make for a thrilling Bond adventure in Skyfall.
Ah, finally we understand the masterplan that has been quietly ticking over since Casino Royale. That movie was not, in fact, the 007 reboot – it merely set the stage for the reboot. It introduced ...
Cloud Atlas
High in the Sky: Time flies in more ways than one in soaring, enthralling Cloud Atlas
It opens in the same way that, most likely, the very first story told for entertainment began, 100,000 years ago: with an elderly person wizened by wisdom speaking to an audience gathered ’round a campfire. ...
Frankenweenie
Tale of the Pup: In Frankenweenie, Tim Burton resurrects a child’s pet – and his own ethos – with his most Burtonesque film in years.
Tim Burton, Hollywood’s goth nerd, returns to his roots, literally and figuratively, with Frankenweenie, and thank the ghost of Mary Shelley for it. Burton’s most recent films – Dark Shadows; Alice in Wonderland – have ...
The Cold Light of Day
Turn Off This Light: Henry Cavill’s pretty face isn’t enough to save lackluster The Cold Light of Day.
The Cold Light of Day! Brought to you by the Madrid Film Tax Credit Production Office and the Society for the Promotion of Henry Cavill as the Next Big Thing! What’s that? You’ve never heard ...
