“John Carter” contends that, to get in touch with your inner humanity, you must take an inexplicable trip to Mars, come to the aid of a beautiful princess and serve as a heroic soldier of fortune in a civil war among three alien warring groups. Well, isn’t that always the way? Maybe it’s why...
Parents who think global warming is a bunch of poppycock can kill two birds with one stone---misrepresent the inconvenient truth and impart an early lesson in the abrogation of First Amendment rights---by forbidding their kids to see “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.” Maybe take them shooting or to a tractor pull instead. Teach ‘em something...
“Wanderlust,” David Wain’s comically entertaining what-if scenario about a New York couple who accidentally traipses onto a neo-Hippie commune whilst fleeing the rigors of unemployment and big city anxiety, recalls the road not taken. Its charm lies in a satiric revival of a time and place where many a romantic thought they might spend...
Note: The following essay, believed to be written by our film critic, was found in a Snapple Diet Raspberry bottle retrieved from a nearby river. No direct explanation regarding its origin or intent was given. It is reprinted here in its entirety.
Alternating from unintelligible to amateurishly surreal, the Marvel Comics-based “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” causes me to speculate that this is the outcome when those 100 monkeys put in a room with 100 typewriters fail to write the Great American Novel. Expecting the guilty thrills of junk food cinema, I was fed Third World...
A little Prometheus, a smidgen of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and a sociologically keen helping of teen angst mark “Chronicle,” Josh Trank’s auspicious entrée into the ranks of feature film directors. A script co-written with Max Landis, son of John Landis (“Trading Places”-1983), doesn’t hurt, while also proving that the wit doesn’t fall far from...
Death, the great unknown, haunts at every instance in director Joe Carnahan’s “The Grey,” a tale of survival as exhausting as it is unsettling. This is brutal, in-your-face stuff, a big, icy metaphor set in Alaska that won’t relent in its harsh fatalism. Yet, just because it has some highfalutin philosophy doesn’t earn it...
When first the Tuskegee Airmen take to the sky in “Red Tails,” director Anthony Hemingway’s action-filled chronicle inspired by the African-American 332nd Squadron’s service during WWII, you want to be a pilot, too. At least I did. And the six fifteen-year-old boys to my right, who quieted down once the pageantry began, apparently agreed.
In Phyllida Lloyd’s “The Iron Lady,” the great Streep and great makeup doth a prime minister make. It’s gotten to be an old saw, touting Meryl Streep’s thespic brilliance in spite of whatever flaws detract from the film containing her performance. Here, she is probably more Margaret Thatcher than Mrs. Thatcher herself. Aye, it’s...
Director Brad Bird’s “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol,” starring Tom Cruise as agent Ethan Hunt, reminds of that rather interesting guest who overstays his welcome. While amiable and engaging through dinner, after dessert his stories become repetitive. Unfortunately, the only way to edit the fellow would be to kick him out of your house.
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