If you look on the “Rotten Tomatoes” website, you will see that the critics “Tomatometer” gives Parental Guidance a mere 19% fresh, while the Audience score is 65%. So if you are part of the audience, you are pretty likely to enjoy this film. Three generations of us went to see this movie in the [...]
Read More Bette Midler, Billy Crystal, comedy, joyce, Marisa Tomei, Parental Guidance, PG-, Tom Everett Scott
If a century of cinema is any guide, it appears that there is no greater narrative device than a war. While the first World War is mostly ignored (aside from a few classics like All Quiet on the Western Front or Sgt. York), there has never been a shortage of films about World War II [...]
Read More drama, Edgar Ramirez, History, J.D., James Gandolfini, Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Kathryn Bigelow, Kyle Chandler, Mark Boal, Mark Strong, thriller, Zero Dark Thirty
A wandering wizard, long haired and bearded, comes to dinner at the home of our short but stout hearted hero, who up till now has lived his life sequestered from the great world beyond. The worldly warlock invites our innocent friend to join him on a dangerous adventure–joining a party of embattled warriors in a [...]
Read More adventure, blu-ray, DVD, Fantasy, Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Peter Jackson, Richard Armitage, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, will
A single father, Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) has come with his son Sam (Armand Verdure) to Antibes in the south of France. A former boxer, it’s obvious he’s having a tough time of it as he and Sam scrounge for food on the train. They’re relocating to be with Ali’s sister and her husband. This is [...]
Read More Armand Verdure, Belgium, blu-ray, drama, DVD, France, Jacques Audiard, Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, romance, Rust and Bone
Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) has finished North By Northwest and is desperate to find his next project. While leafing through newspaper articles he finds a review of the book Psycho (Author: Robert Bloch). Drawn to the story, he takes it to Paramount. Afraid this movie will be a flop, they turn it down. Hitchcock was [...]
Read More Anthony Hopkins, biography, camilla, drama, Helen Mirren, Hitchcock
I do find something peculiarly refreshing about a good shipwreck story. Maybe it’s just my own lifelong, landlocked fascination with the isolation offered by the middle of the ocean. It’s a very particular, and for me particularly bracing, brand of escapism. I’m a sucker for books like Joshua Slocum‘s classic-in-some-circles Sailing Alone Around the World, [...]
Read More adventure, Ang Lee, blu-ray, drama, DVD, Irrfan Khan, Life of Pi, Suraj Sharma, will, Yann Martel
If you’ve ever met me, you know I don’t often go for French films. Nothing against them, I’m not a subtitles guy. And since I believe that dubbing is against nature, I have a tendency to avoid foreign films. So, when I say something foreign is worth it, you’d better believe it’s a good film. Intouchables is [...]
Read More biography, blu-ray, comedy, drama, DVD, François Cluzet, Noah, Omar Sy, The Intouchables
A mere week after the home video release of Chasing Mavericks, in which he turned in a pretty decent performance as a surfing mentor, Gerard Butler returns to us in yet another sports-themed flick, Playing for Keeps, which turns out to be a pretty horrendous attempt to once again position the manly Scottish man as [...]
Read More Catherine Zeta-Jones, comedy, Dennis Quaid, DVD, Gabriele Muccino, Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Judy Greer, Noah Lomax, PG-13, Playing For Keeps, romance, Sport, Uma Thurman
Of all the ’80s films to remake, you may ask (as I did to thin air upon first hearing about it), why 1984′s Russia-invades-America thriller Red Dawn? It was a film of its time. Russia hasn’t been a threat for years. There’s no reason for a redo. Fortunately, the suits at MGM don’t really care [...]
Read More action, Chris Hemsworth, Dan Bradley, David, Isabel Lucas, Josh Hutcherson, Josh Peck, PG-13, Powers Boothe, Red Dawn, Will Yun Lee
It would be moderately easy to sum this up as “Toy Story with video game characters instead of toys.” Or “Monsters, Inc. with video game characters instead of monsters.” Maybe even “The Incredibles, but with video game characters instead of superheroes.” But all of these sound far too dismissive for Wreck-It Ralph, which is an [...]
Read More adventure, animation, blu-ray, comedy, DVD, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, John C. Reilly, PG-, Sarah Silverman, will, Wreck-It Ralph