Too bad the 1926, silent version of “The Great Gatsby,” filmed only a year after F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the book, is missing. Add that to the 1949 edition, the 1974 adaptation I consider the best, and this latest techno-charged remake directed by Baz Luhrmann, and we’d be dangerously armed for all sorts of didactic,…
Oh, to be fifteen and totally grok director Shane Black’s “Iron Man 3,” seen with your best pals and later praised over cholesterol-ridden burgers, accompanied of course by an unconscionably-sized basket of fries. Inside that magic circle, this film is probably great. Outside it, the third episode of the Marvel Comics-derived adventure is just pretty…
Remember that time long ago at some cousin’s wedding when your crazy Uncle Herb just stood up, yelled something at your dad and stormed out of the place? Baffling, it was your official indoctrination to family dysfunction. Well, just in case you desire a refresher course in the wacky dynamic, director Justin Zackham provides it…
You know that dream you have…the one you think you’ve had several times before, but when you awake can’t recall the recurrence? Well, if you can explain what that’s all about, you’ll have no trouble following director Danny Boyle’s quasi-linear “Trance,” about a psychologist’s attempt to help some art thieves find a misplaced masterpiece.
I love baseball. Some even claim I’m moved to tears when taking in the playing field of Yankee Stadium for the first time each season. So it is in that vein that I declare Brian Helgeland’s “42” both a stirring depiction of Jackie Robinson’s epic breaking of the color line and a fine addition to…
By Michael S. Goldberger, film critic I grew anxious as “Evil Dead,” director Fede Alvarez’s remake/reboot/continuation of Sam Raimi’s horror franchise, neared its invasion of the Bijou. In the parlance of my filmgoing childhood, just as when either “Them” (1954) or “Creature from the Black Lagoon” (1954) loomed as the Saturday matinee, I was “a-scared,” and…
Call it a testament to the strength of our culture. The incredible thing about director Jon M. Chu’s “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” an old fashioned shoot-‘em-up dressed in brave new world clothing, is that for all its nihilistic, cacophonic violence, there seems to be a need to include some sort of storyline. Alas, all is not…
Smarty pants me figured I had director Paul Weitz’s “Admission” all figured out. She’s the uptight, overachieving admissions officer at Princeton who gave her baby up for adoption back in college. He’s the easygoing head of an alternative school, anxious to get a pet prodigy into Princeton. So of course we know how it plays…
Sam Raimi’s “Oz the Great and Powerful,” being hawked as a prequel to L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” is filled with so much goodness that it almost compensates for its lack of greatness. Which, ironically, mirrors the moral message of the film. PG-rated, the fantasy provides Junior a good bridge to more…
Watching director Bryan Singer’s “Jack the Giant Slayer,” a half-hearted variation on the beanstalk fairytale, is like being the fan of a middling sports franchise. You root for them to improve and somehow wow you, but know full well it’s fat chance that they will. After showing us all his moves in the first ten…
