Now Playing: No Smurfing Way
How can you not like Smurfs, whose sole reason for existence is to live a peaceful life full of fun, dancing, singing and love? Not to mention that they live in cool mushroom houses in the forest and...
View ArticleNow Playing: Not 2 Bad
Surprisingly, I had a lot of fun with ’2 Guns’, the new action-crime thriller from Baltasar Kromakur, who previously made ‘Contraband‘ with star Mark Wahlberg. I didn’t expect much from this seemingly...
View ArticleNow Playing: Sweet Smell of ‘Jasmine’
Woody Allen is one of the most prolific filmmakers of the last 100 years. Despite his age, he continues to push out an original film each and every year. His latest, called ‘Blue Jasmine’, fares better...
View ArticleNow Playing: A Documentary Unlike Any Other
I’ve never quite seen anything like Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary ‘The Act of Killing’. With its horrific subject matter, the film is extremely difficult to watch. Oppenheimer was born in my native...
View ArticleNow Playing: ‘Elysium’ Less Than Heavenly
With ‘District 9‘, Neill Blomkamp quickly became one of my favorite directors. He not only created a realistic world infested with aliens, the film’s acting, action and politically-conscious story were...
View ArticleNow Playing: Call the NTSB –‘Planes’ Should Stay Grounded
Even though ‘Planes’ has the same style and animation as Pixar’s ‘Cars‘ and claims to take place in the same world, the Pixar name doesn’t appear anywhere on-screen in it. This little animated film was...
View ArticleNow Playing: ‘Lovelace’ Goes Deep
‘Lovelace’ is the first of two films this year based on the porn phenomenon Linda Lovelace, who rose to superstardom in the early ’70s with the film ‘Deep Throat’. [Ed: 'Inferno: A Linda Lovelace...
View ArticleNow Playing: Still Kickin’ Ass and Takin’ Names
Mark Millar’s ultra-violent superhero story is back in ‘Kick-Ass 2′. If you can believe it, this highly entertaining sequel amps everything up to eleven. From the characters to the story and especially...
View ArticleNow Playing: Think Different
Joshua Michael Stern’s bio-pic about one of the world’s greatest tech innovators offers a selective look into the life of Steve Jobs and his first twenty rocky years with Apple. Not only does the film...
View ArticleNow Playing: Pretty ‘Spectacular’
From the director of ‘Smashed‘ and the writers of ‘(500) Days of Summer‘ comes a charming little gem called ‘The Spectacular Now’. In a way, this is a high-school movie, but one that’s wholly original...
View ArticleNow Playing: For ‘Butler’ or Worse
Much like how ‘Forest Gump’ was a feather in the wind, observing and interacting with major historic events through the decades, ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’ uses a similar plot device as we follow a...
View ArticleNow Playing: ‘World’s’ Finest
‘The World’s End’ is the third film in the so-called “Cornetto Ice Cream Trilogy” by Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. This one is just as much fun and even more action-packed than ‘Shaun of the...
View ArticleNow Playing: I’m OK, ‘You’re’ OK
A few indie horror filmmakers lent their hands to the bloody, silly, fun B-movie flick ‘You’re Next’. Director Adam Wingard doesn’t shy away from chopping faces or slitting throats, and has cast...
View ArticleNow Playing: Can’t ‘Getaway’ Far Enough from This Mess
I expected something terrible from director Courtney Solomon (‘Dungeons & Dragons’), but nothing this bad. ‘Getaway’ doesn’t make the least bit of sense during its 90-minute runtime. You’d think...
View ArticleNow Playing: Wrong ‘Direction’
It was only a matter of time before someone made a concert film about One Direction, but I never could have guessed it would be Morgan Spurlock, the guy who gave us the Oscar-nominated documentary...
View ArticleNow Playing: ‘Circuit’ Bored
‘Closed Circuit’ is one of those cases where the trailer is far better than the actual movie itself. Whatever might have looked good in the script from writer Steven Knight (‘Eastern Promises’), the...
View ArticleNow Playing: ‘Family’ Matters
Director Luc Besson sure must love Martin Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’. His new film ‘The Family’ is a dark and ultra-violent comedy that plays like a follow-up to that movie, if it showed Henry Hill’s life...
View ArticleNow Playing: No Big ‘Rush’
There’s no doubt that Ron Howard can make great films. His movies have won numerous awards and have starred some of the biggest names in the business at one point or another. That said, with only a few...
View ArticleNow Playing: Take It or Levitt
In addition to starring, Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes his debut as a writer/director with ‘Don Jon’. At its core, the movie shows a simple man’s transition from an unlikable sex-obsessed douchebag into a...
View ArticleNow Playing: ‘Runner Runner’ Is Awful Awful
Even the title is bad. ‘Runner Runner’ might have looked good on paper, especially when director Brad Furman (‘The Lincoln Lawyer‘) hired Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake and Gemma Arterton to star in...
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