You’d think a movie about Liam Neeson duking it out with wolves in the wild would be exciting. You’d be wrong. Turns out The Grey, a macho but mushy existential survival tale directed by Joe Carnahan, is actually quite a slog — dreary, overly talky and capped by one of those maddeningly ambiguous endings that [...]
Read More action, adventure, Dallas Roberts, David, Dermot Mulroney, drama, Frank Grillo, Joe Carnahan, Liam Neeson, The Grey
In Chronicle we get one of the year’s best films, a fun and cool and awesome piece of lower-budget sci-fi that uses the found footage format, a simple but neat premise and seamless special effects to deftly detail in larger-than-life fashion what I imagine are the horrors of being a bullied teenager today. Dreamed up [...]
Read More Chronicle, Dane DeHaan, David, drama, Josh Trank, Max Landis, Sci-Fi, thriller
Having skipped the prequel Rise of the Lycans, Kate Beckinsale returns to rock skintight leather and kick quite a bit more butt as beautiful bloodsucker Selene in Underworld: Awakening, the slick but strangely spiritless fourth entry in the nearly decade-old vampires-vs-werewolves franchise.
Read More action, blu-ray, David, DVD, Fantasy, horror, Kate Beckinsale, Michael Ealy, Stephen Rea, Theo James, Underworld
Rarely have I rolled my eyes, or wanted to gag, more than while watching New Year’s Eve, director Garry Marshall’s nigh unbearable Valentine’s Day follow-up, a movie seemingly constructed to be the Gone with the Wind of soft-serve rom-com mash-ups, and run nearly as long.
Read More Abigail Breslin, Ashton Kutcher, blu-ray, comedy, David, DVD, Garry Marshall, Hilary Swank, Josh Duhamel, Katherine Heigl, New Year's Eve, Robert De Niro, romance, Sarah Jessica ParkerBlack Hawk Down meets Independence Day in Battle: Los Angeles, an entertainingly gung-ho alien-invasion epic starring Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez that practically doubles as a military recruitment film.
Read More Aaron Eckhart, action, Battle: Los Angeles, blu-ray, David, DVD, Michelle Rodriguez, Sci-FiHaving seemingly fallen off the Hollywood map after their 2007 remake of The Heartbreak Kid, the Farrelly Brothers return in a big way with Hall Pass, a raunchy and very funny comedy starring Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis in which the filmmakers once again mix over-the-top toilet humor with lots of heart.
Read More blu-ray, comedy, David, DVD, Farrelly Brothers, Hall Pass, Jason Sudeikis, Owen Wilson, R, romanceThe characters in Vanishing On 7th Street spend most of the time running away from shadows, a notion that initially may sound as silly as seeing people flee from the wind in The Happening, but one that, in the capable hands of director Brad Anderson, gets turned into a nicely low-key hair-raiser of a horror [...]
Read More Brad Anderson, David, DVD, Hayden Christensen, horror, Jacob Latimore, John Leguizamo, Mystery, R, Thandie Newton, thriller, Vanishing on 7th StreetI don’t have kids, so I can only imagine what it would feel like to suddenly lose one. Rabbit Hole, a pretty-looking piece of Oscar bait starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, means to show us such pain, but doesn’t wholly succeed.
Read More Aaron Eckhart, blu-ray, David, Dianne Wiest, drama, DVD, John Cameron Mitchell, Miles Teller, Nicole Kidman, PG-13, Rabbit Hole, Sandra OhIf I were Jonathan Swift, I’d be turning over in my grave at how my classic novel about a man encountering a race of people less than six inches tall was turned into a somewhat crude and simple-minded comedy starring Jack Black and featuring giant robots and giant wedgies.
Read More adventure, Amanda Peet, blu-ray, Chris O'Dowd, comedy, David, DVD, Emily Blunt, Fantasy, Gulliver's Travels, Jack Black, Jason Segel, PG-, Rob LettermanI was about 10 years old when the original Tron hit theaters in 1982, so I have a certain fondness for it. It just looked so cool, with the Light Cycle races and giant ships, rendered via very early computer graphics, and the actors clad in glowing costumes with glowing Frisbees strapped to their backs. [...]
Read More action, adventure, blu-ray, Bruce Boxleitner, David, DVD, Garrett Hedlund, jeff bridges, Joseph Kosinski, Michael Sheen, PG-, Sci-Fi, Tron: Legacy