It’s been 10 years since Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the Best Picture Academy Award and his original fantasy film trilogy concluded. It seems that Hobbit Mania peaked a decade ago, with Jackson’s second prequel trilogy receiving mixed to indifferent responses so far, even from most die-hard […]
OUT OF THE FURNACE New Movie Review
Here’s the story of two brothers living in West Virginia. One is a hard working factory man named Russell, played by Christian Bale. The other is Rodney, a younger, directionless knucklehead, played by Casey Affleck. While the wise brother is aiming for a future with his girlfriend (Zoe Saldana), Rodney takes up amateur boxing. After […]
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB New Movie Review
During my days in acting school and the many theater classes that followed, my classmates and I moaned about the lack of great roles in movies. Like many whiny, Stanislavski-fueled Brando-wannabees, we’d say, “They don’t make movies like Midnight Cowboy anymore,” “Why can’t every movie be as good as Heat?” and/or “Will there ever be […]
HUNGER GAMES CATCHING FIRE New Movie Review
The new Hunger Games won me over immediately, with an opening that not only sets the scene but addresses a problem I had with the previous film. We begin with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), survivor of the kill-or-be-killed “games,” hunting in the woods. She kills an animal with her bow and, for a moment, hallucinates that […]
12 YEARS A SLAVE New Movie Review
How painful must a historical reenactment be in order for it to establish authenticity? This was a question I had while watching 12 Years a Slave, director Steve McQueen’s follow-up to his devastating Shame. His latest tells the story of Solomon, played by Chiwetel Ejiofer, a free black man living with his wife and family […]
ABOUT TIME New Movie Review
About Time has one of the most intriguing opening scenes of the year. A young man named Tim (played by Domhnall Gleeson) is single, looking for love and has just turned 21. His Dad (Bill Nihy) summons him to his office and sits him down for a serious father-son chat. But instead of offering advice […]
JACKASS PRESENTS BAD GRANDPA New Movie Review
Sometimes being a movie critic is simply acting as a reporter and informing the reader what experience the movie in question has to offer. With comedies like Austin Powers, Napoleon Dynamite, and, yes, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, I wouldn’t be doing my job without admitting right away that the audience and I laughed a great […]
THE COUNSELOR New Movie Review
You know you’re watching a film noir when the main character is presented with two choices and never picks the right one. Of course, if people in movies did the right thing, made the correct, morally responsible decisions and acted like good, upstanding citizens, we wouldn’t have a movie. In Ridley Scott’s The Counselor, Michael […]
MACHETE KILLS New Movie Review
There’s a website I love called Trailersfromhell.com, in which famous directors showcase their favorite coming attractions previews. Someone like Guillermo Del Toro or John Landis introduces and narrates a two-minute trailer, telling their personal experiences or the back story of the film in question. Sometimes, the filmmakers choose trailers for the likes of Rosemary’s Baby […]
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS New Movie Review
What a pleasure it is to watch Tom Hanks give a remarkable performance of untapped emotional depths in Captain Phillips. One of America’s most beloved actors, with a mostly sturdy career and a reputation as a modern day Jimmy Stewart, he finally found a vehicle worthy of his verisimilitude as a performer. If you look […]
GRAVITY New Movie Review
A group of kids from Maui were sent to Space Camp in 1989, where they spent a week at the training facility in Huntsville Alabama, learning how to operate spacecraft. I was one of those kids. It was a pivotal event in my young life, as I seriously wanted, at the time, to become an […]
RUSH New Movie Review
The 1976 Formula One championship remains a memorable season for racing fans, mostly due to the visibly edgy relationship between two of its top competitors. The handsome James Hunt was as reckless and carefree in his life as he was taking daredevil turns on the racetrack. He won victories for his ability behind a steering […]
SHORT TERM 12 New Movie Review
The miracle of Maui native Destin Cretton’s Short Term 12 is that it features dozens of young actors in the main cast and not one of them ever appears to be acting. While the film is a semi-comic look at the day-to-day experiences of young teens staying at a foster care facility and the barely […]
RIDDICK New Movie Review
As a child, I used to play with my Star Wars action figures every chance I got. My parents sensed my enthusiasm for The Force, so Christmas morning at my house was like an annual unveiling of the latest action figure George Lucas commissioned. I’d go over to my pal John’s house and we’d stage […]
BLUE JASMINE New Movie Review
Frequently, when reading about how corporate fat cats who send their careers and billion dollar businesses crashing down through fraud and financial deception, there’s always one commonly recurring detail. While the articles would focus mostly on the likes of Bernie Madoff or Ivan Boesky, the subject of their wives eventually comes up. More times than […]
THE WORLDS END New Movie Review
Gary (played by Simon Pegg) wants to relive the glories of the 1990s so badly that he reunites his old high school chums and band members, coercing them into recreating a legendary pub crawl from their youth. Problem is, Gary is in rehab, a delusional burnout and his former buddies don’t really like him. In […]
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