Review: The Secret World of Arrietty
Every few years I look forward to a new Studio Ghibli film. Beginning with my personal experience with “Spirited Away” I was mesmerized by the amazing complexities and unique worlds that Hayao Miyazaki creates in all of his films. This year the film community is blessed (Insert Torchwood reference here) with yet another brilliant work [...]
Review: This Means War
Valentines Day was this week which means we at the Dork are forced to watch a slew of new, hard to watch films that make us regret choosing a life of film critiqing. This Means War is only different in that it falls into a separate category one called…. “who the fuck does McG think [...]
Review: Safe House
One thing you quickly realize when you sit down to watch a Denzel Washington movie is he nearly always give the pleasurable illusion that whoever he is portraying, he is playing exactly himself. Whatever the scripted setup the spotlight is always on Denzel, the ultra-cool, can-do-it-in-his-sleep, nonpareil hero for all occasions. We’ve come accustomed to [...]
Review: The Vow
In a brief but tone-changing scene in The Vow, Jessica Lange plays things out with an attitude of “OK-I’ve-had-enough-of-this-fluff//pay-attention-now-if-you’d-like-to-see-some-real-acting.” In the scene the award-winning actress gives her daughter (Rachel McAdams) a passionate explanation for Lange’s ostensible weakness in her relationship with her alpha lawyer husband (Sam Neill). In this Romcom, specially served for Valentine’s Day, [...]
Review: Pina
Even If you don’t know modern dance from “Modern Family” you should make a beeline for the limited theaters showcasing this landmark 3D documentary of Pina Bausch’s work. Almodovar fans (count me in) know Bausch’s work from her breathtaking opening scene in Talk To Her. Waiting to see this film without the 3D aspect is [...]
Review: Man on a Ledge
Phone Booth came to mind the moment I saw the trailer for this movie. Colin Ferrell cursing his mouth off for an hour (Seriously it’s barely longer than an episode of Boardwalk Empire) was intriguing to me but it made me feel like this movie had been done before. Un-original January crap. Thank you Sam [...]
Review: A Separation
A Separation turns real-life conflict into a sociocultural masterpiece. It unfolds with bursts of familial tension and ends up an overview of a society whose conflicting ideals express themselves in dramatic disagreements. All before the watchful eyes of an often disinterested court. Setting out to dissect an Iran where there are often no good choices, [...]
Review: Haywire
In Hollywood there are many different types of action movies. From the huge blockbusters with tons of money and lots of CGI. Then there are the independent-ish type of action films. Still large-budget action films that push a creative spin on things. (Hannah, Kick-Ass) Then there is Haywire, a film that feels like you are [...]
Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Welcome to the hammy 9/11 fable about a real swell 11-year-old boy, Oskar, who deals with the loss of his likeable, earnest father (Tom Hanks) in the tragedy. A nerd of nerds, he conjures up a compulsive game on which to channel his grief into grandiosity. He finds a mysterious key hidden in a vase [...]
Review: Contraband
As much as you would expect me to pan this movie, it’s really quite the opposite. This film is a solid, highly-entertaining popcorn flick. That in itself is a huge feat nowadays (especially for Universal). Most of these big budget action films are just so hard to watch it almost makes you wanna walk out [...]
Review: Carnage
Those poor parents! Who are none other than John C. Reilly and Jodie Foster, whose 11-year-old son was slugged in a playground by the son of Kate Winslet and Christopher Waltz. We start out in Reilly and Foster’s Brooklyn apartment with an overly-cordial and cozy (mmm), above-the-fray march toward making amends despite the victim’s damaged [...]
Review: Joyful Noise
I don’t mean to be a nitpicker but when a modern gospel movie needs to enlist Dolly Parton and Jeremy Jordan to annie up the box office you might expect inconsistencies in tone and intonation. (“ba dum dum ching”). In the annals of musicals out to sweep the widest commercial swath, Joyful Noise is particularly [...]
Review: Pariah
A film that will surely be missed by the masses but is a film that everyone should see, Pariah will make you laugh as easily as it will break your heart. Alike (Adepero Oduye) plays a young child prodigy who is coming to terms with her sexuality. She hangs with her best friend and confident [...]
Review: In The Land of Blood and Honey
“I don’t need to see things like this,” a disgruntled viewer was overheard commenting in the lobby after the screening of Angelina Jolie’s “In The Land of Blood and Honey.” Well disgruntled audience member, Jolie is strictly writer and director of this Bosnian language-English Subtitled film about the horrors of the Balkan conflict in the [...]
Top Cinedork Articles of 2011
Top ten lists are all over the place so here at Cinedork we decided to take our Top Ten List and make it all about ourself (how narcissistic of us). Below are the top visited articles of 2011 on Cinedork.com! 10. Interview with James Wan and Leigh Whannell for “Insidious” – We sat down with [...]
Don’s Best (and worst) Films of 2011
The Best: The Artist (France, Michael Hazanavicius) This nearly totally silent, black-and- white film is a sizzling masterwork that celebrates not just the silent film but the film medium in general–both as a whole and as two very distinct halves separated by the breakthrough of sound. Simultaneously amusingly and poignantly, it portrays the emotional turmoil [...]
Review: War Horse
Steven Spielberg’s latest, War Horse, welds the boy-and-his-horse tearjerker with the isn’t-war-senseless gripping depiction of World War I battle scenes. Benign film manipulation rarely gets this good. Plumbing the depths of wretched hand-to-hand trench warfare, the film’s calm eye of the hurricane is equine Joey, who we first meet in a tranquil Devon just before [...]
Review: We Bought a Zoo
How do you take the sexy out of Scarlett Johansson? You put her in the role of a Zoo-keeper. Essentially We Bought a Zoo is exactly what the title entails. Matt Damon buys a zoo. What they don’t tell you in the previews is why, that why is the exact reason the movie has a [...]
Review: The Artist
The Artist, the nearly totally silent film shot in black-and-white, is, paradoxically, a joyful noise that will delight your senses and leave you, no pun intended, speechless. If you decide to skip it based on either its silent or black-and-white characteristics, you’ll be doing yourself a major disservice. Director Michel Hazanavicius has constructed no less [...]
Review: Tinker Taylor Solider Spy
What’s long and complex and has the best British acting cast ever assembled? Tinker Taylor Solider Spy. This Christmas season you get to choose to see a movie about a Horse that goes to war, a man who buys a zoo, a kid who thinks he’s Indiana Jones, a movie about women abuse, and this [...]
Review: The Adventures of Tin Tin
What’s been missing from the movies all year? Fun. And “Fun” is exactly what The Adventures of Tin Tin is full of. 2011 has been a year of reboots, remakes, sequels, and just a whole lot of average films. Most movies I see never actually go beyond telling an average story with average visuals and [...]
Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the first volume in Steig Larsson’s immensely popular Millennium Trilogy, is essentially about Lisbeth Salander’s response to the perpetration of violence against women, including herself. It’s original Swedish title translates as “Men Who Hate Women,” euphemistically changed to what long-time Larsson companion Eva Gabrielsson calls a title which sounds [...]
Review: Sherlock Holmes 2 – A Game of Shadows
Once upon a time Robert Downey Jr.’s considerable talent and moxie was enough to protect even the most insipid project from total abomination. Alongside his numerous achievements (Iron Man, Chaplin, Tropic Thunder, and the underrated Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Two Girls and a Guy), Downey has been able to buffer numerous lesser films from [...]
Review: Young Adult
The trouble with a flawed film, whose good parts and core “feel” are head and shoulders above most movie fare, is viewers with limited moviegoing time are tempted to dismiss it. Take the case of Young Adult, the new Charlize Theron film directed by Jason Reitman (Up In The Air, Juno) and written by Diablo [...]
Review: Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Tom Cruise is old. But thankfully he’s still insane enough to make yet another ridiculous action film. Mission Impossible kicks it up another notch, from the already far and beyond belief notches it has made in the previous Mission Impossible films. This time it’s cut so close at the end that even Tom Cruise is [...]
Review: New Year’s Eve
Is the stress of ludicrously manipulative films getting on your nerves? Had it up to here with the canned, filtered and processed holiday dreck that is a Garry Marshall movie? By all means stay away from his latest, New Year’s Eve, unless you’re able to make a deal with the movie theater and allow them [...]
Review: Shame
Michael Fassbender can act himself out of a box. He is brilliant in everything his face has graced in 2011. But Shame is a creature upon itself. I’ve been having trouble describing Shame to people. Is it an Anti-Erotic film about sex? Is it a film about two tortured souls? Is it just a film [...]
Review: The Sitter
Vanilla. Plain Vanilla. This movie never sparkles… it never shines… it’s not technically bad… It’s just not good either. Jonah Hill plays a babysitter that takes the children he is babysitting on a road trip to have sex with his girlfriend. It’s a simple concept, very much like Pineapple Express was back in the day, [...]
Review: Hugo
I don’t really see who would like this movie…. From start to finish you have a 3D film that takes advantage of the newest, latest, and greatest things you can do with 3D. The depth of the picture is brilliant as it brings out elements (like snow) that are safe to say some of the [...]
Review: My Week With Marilyn
To quote a phrase: if you look up “sex symbol” in the dictionary, a photo of Marilyn Monroe would stand alone. (And Probably take up the whole page) Her myth endures despite the nearly 50 years since her death of an overdose of sleeping pills. Part indomitable goddess, part vulnerable child-woman, nifty actress, insoluble enigma. [...]
Review: The Muppets
It’s time to raise the curtain. It’s time to light the lights. Thank god for Jason Siegel for bringing The Muppets back tonight. In a complete surprise that shocked the world (kinda) we now have another Muppet movie! YAY! Just the concept of another Muppet movie brings joy to the world! Or at least it [...]
Review: Happy Feet 2
Who doesn’t love Penguins that can dance and sing? In a highly unsurprising sequel, Happy Feet 2 takes the best things about Happy Feet one and cuts out all the rest. In a journey to save his family and friends Elijah Wood, I mean Mumble, is forced to combine forces with his friends and neighbors [...]
Review: The Descendants
In the The Descendants the line between comedy and pathos forms a perfect tightrope that has stretched through all of Alexander Payne’s films from “Election” to “Sideways.” George Clooney, Hawaiian shirt and boat shoes in tow, faces a dilemma: his self-professed role as “backup parent” is about to swiftly change. His wife is suddenly in [...]
Review: Tower Heist
A little way into Tower Heist you are lulled into feeling you’re watching a pretty good funny movie. Eddie Murphy’s actually back in a groove reminiscent of his heyday. Alan Alda plays a Bernie Madoff-type character. Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Tia Leone, and Judd Hirsch are all around for good measure….Then the baloney [...]
Review: J. Edgar
As historical enigmas go, none can top J. Edgar Hoover for sheer cuckoo quotient. The story of how an insecure, repressed man who transferred his neuroses onto an entire country ought to make a grand story. In Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, what we get instead is an occasionally well wrought study that tiptoes around its [...]
Review: A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
I love the Harold and Kumar movies. I love Christmas. Putting the crude and rude with the joy and merriment of Christmas is… Well.. Fucking Brilliant. This movie was made for 3D. Take Final Destination (The newest one) where the gags and tricks take use of the fact it is in 3D. This film takes [...]
Review: Puss in Boots
When you take a franchise like Shrek and make 4 movies it all starts to feel old. That’s why there is Puss in Boots, a film that takes the original Shrek formula and places a cat with a lot of sexual innuendos in it. Puss goes with Humpty Dumpty (a very dull Zack Galifianakis) to [...]
Review: Martha Marcy May Marlene
First-time director Sean Durkin has created one of the year’s most beguiling films, which is not to say it is free of bewilderment. MMMM is a moving portrait of the mental and emotional disintegration of a refugee from a rural “cult” of young people (mostly women) drawn into the clutches of an older, tyrannical male [...]
PFF – Review: The Women in the Fifth
The Women in the Fifth Is a french Fight Club drama piece-of-crap gone horribly wrong. If you want to see a movie where Ethan Hawke is really depressed and has sex with lots of women to try and compensate for it this is the film for you. Ethan Hawke’s performance in this is comparable to [...]
PFF – Review: The Kid With a Bike
- You’re an 11-year-old boy living in a home for orphans. – You’re insistent on finding a way to ecape at every turn. – You’d do anything to find your father who abandoned you. – You stumble on a local hairdresser willing to take you in on weekends. So begins the latest heartwrenching odyssey from [...]
PFF – Review: Melancholia
Everywhere you look these days new films are tackling mental illness, the end of the world, or both. Leave it to provocateur, Hitler commentator, and visual poet Lars Von Trier (Dogville, Antichrist, Breaking The Waves) to tie the two subjects together with an uncanny verve and a vision which, while pitch-dark, contains more than a shred [...]
PFF – Review: La Havre
It’s not that Aki Kurismaki’s Le Havre uses the director’s trademark deadpan humor to escape from life’s harsh realities. Rather, Le Havre’s exquisitely offbeat style and genuinely believable, quirky characters stand up as a commonsense solution to the film’s theme of the ethics surrounding illegal immigration. Andre Wilms is wonderful as a shoeshine man who [...]
PFF – Review: Butter
A movie about butter sculpting. Ha! As in not-so-funny…. While exhibitng a handful of moments of sharp satire, Butter is largely a toned-down send-up of a Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachman-esque character (Jennifer Garner) smack in the middle of Iowa. The film is far too schmaltzy to effectively hold up a mirror to the timidity and insipidness of [...]
PFF – Review: Miss Bala
According to the new film Miss Bala, the bizarre level of corruption in response to Mexico’s drug cartel violence infests every nook and cranny of the country’s society. Director Gerardo Naranjo offers a searing peek into this harrowing, topsy-turvy world in one of the year’s most inventive films (Mexico’s official entry into this years Academy [...]
PFF – Review: A Dangerous Method
There’s a memorable and telling line in A Dangerous Method, David Cronenberg’s intellectually stimulating film about psychoanalysis pioneers Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and the affect a young female patient turned psychiatrist has on their relationship. Freud, happy to finally meet his younger disciple, is also careful to instruct him to stick with rigid scientific [...]
PFF – Review: Underwater Love
This parody of sorts is probably the strangest thing you could possibly see at the Philadelphia Film Festival, or ever maybe…… A tale of a factory worker who is about to get married to her kind yet sex-crazed, husband when she meets a Kappa. This…. part duck-part turtle-part human creature is a reincarnation of her [...]
Review – Johnny English Reborn
I was up late the night before I saw Johnny English reborn and while flipping through the channels on the TV I found Mr. Bean playing on HBO. For the next hour or so I was reminded of the fantastic simplicity and hilarity of a turkey on the head of a man. But everyone has [...]
PPF20 – Review – Like Crazy
A good chunk of Like Crazy is so minimal you’ll need a magnifying glass to find it. Director Drake Doremus (2010′s Douchebag, and no he didn’t win the snag award) valiantly tries to emulate masterful British director Mike Leigh by going essentially scriptless. About all this film has in common with Leigh (Another Year, Secrets [...]
PFF20 – Review – The Artist
The Artist, the nearly totally silent film shot in black-and-white, is pure stunning. If you decide to skip it based on either of those two unique characteristics, you’ll be doing yourself a major disservice. Director Michel Hazanavicius has constructed no less than a sizzling masterwork celebrating not just the silent film but the film medium [...]
Review: The Thing
How do you squeeze more money out of a franchise that really has no place to go? — Make a prequel. (See: Rise of the Planet of the Apes) How do you make fans of the original happy? — Make the ending match the beginning of the movie it’s based on (See: Rise of the [...]
Review: The Big Year
To the non-participant a film about the birding passion seems precarious from the get-go. Fraught with the potential to bore silly, The Big Year manages to keep at a distance most technical aspects of (sorry to get pejorative) “bird-watching.” What results nonetheless leaves one no less abashed than had director David Frankel gone for straight-up [...]
Review: Ides of March
If all politics is hardball, the brand of presidential politics depicted in George Clooney’s Ides of March is a Tony Conigliaro bean-ball. At issue: a Democratic primary campaign driven by the sole and sullying motivation to win. The only tools of the trade needed are the ability to out-trick and out-manipulate not only the opposition [...]
Review: Machine Gun Preacher
All too often, plots of movies seem so far-fetched that they could only have been thought up in Tinsel Town think tanks. Seldom does one of these extraordinary stories turn out to be based on truth. An example of the latter case is Marc Forster’s newest film Machine Gun Preacher, which opens in Philadelphia on [...]
Review: 50/50
Cancer is a word that strikes fear into peoples’ hearts like nothing else. Whereas it used to be ‘something that always happens it someone else,’ now it seems that many are resigned to the fact that it may be inevitable and just pray that their case is treatable. Nonetheless, it’s something that we don’t want [...]
Review: Dreamhouse
Rather than making this horrible excuse for a film here is a list of things they should have spent their millions on. Feel free to comment below! – Feeding the poor – Helping harry the homeless man with his acholol addiction – Improve the transportation system in Philadelphia Film seals eating each other – Film [...]
Review: Killer Elite
The humdrum high-tech, low-plot action vehicle these days needs more and more oomph to rise above the brazen yet boring rabble….More solid, realistic characters? Largely absent here. More tortuously disgusting set pieces? Getting warm! An all-star cast stooping beneath their usual stature to add what they can to the mess? Bingo! Clive Owen could probably [...]
Review: Moneyball
Moneyball lucidly, and often comically, pays earthy homage to the lustre of baseball’s stature as “America’s pastime.” Just beneath the surface of a story arc portraying the maverick ideas of rebel general manager Billy Beane lurks a playful and endearing love of the game and its characters. It’s brought to life by Brad Pitt’s best [...]
Review: Bellflower
Who knew that one day someone would make a film where Mad Max and John Hughes combined into a celebretory mashup? That film is Bellflower, a film that always feels rough around the edges, but has such a soul that all its imperfections are washed away by its style, grace, and absolute greatness. For a [...]
Review: I Don’t Know How She Does It
I think it’s only prudent to be wary of films that purport to take on the whole notion of, say, a woman juggling the demands of work and family while paying little attention to the equally immediate demands of plot and character and the credibility of each. The question in my mind is how far [...]
Review: Drive
In Drive, the superb new thriller, Ryan Gosling can do more with his eyes in a single scene than many A-list actors can achieve given the wittiest, busiest screenplay. Scene after scene here almost approachs silent movie turf. Gosling’s character achieves a stunning minimalism that is at once terrifically appealing, and, over the course of [...]
Review: Straw Dogs
James Marsden is no Dustin Hoffman and director Rod Lurie is no Sam Peckinpah. The remake of the controversial 1971 film Straw Dogs, contemporizes, Americanizes, and adds just enough Grindhouse/slasher effects while making things paradoxically safe and somewhat sanitized. A film that on first thought seemed beyond the scope of a remake, also happens to [...]
Review: Red State
He’s baaaack! (But not in the lewd humor kind of way brought to you by pot smoking convenience store clerks, burger flippers or shit monsters from another world) Director, Kevin Smith brings us his latest indi film by crashing right into our living rooms for $9.99 with his on-demand cable release that will hit at [...]
Review: Contagion
Watching a full-fledged plague roll in front of you really broadens your outlook. Contagion is yet another disaster flick, only this time from top-shelf director Steven Soderbergh, who knows how to achieve a slow burn toward the relatively believable dread of a global pandemic. Ready to curl up to a lot of lab coat and [...]
Review: The Debt
Two Helen Mirren movies in under a week should be considered wildly fortunate for admirers of taut, no-nonsense acting of the first order. The problem arises when the subsequent film, The Debt, merely gives pause to fond remembrances of last week’s superior Mirren performance in Brighton Rock. On paper, The Debt should blow Brighton’s doors [...]
Review: Brighton Rock
Brighton Rock has a lot going against it: The plot of The Town. A 31-year-old actor (Sam Riley) playing a teenager. A 1960s time-frame yet the song credits are devoid of identification with any particular era. An ending that adds an ironic humanity to the far colder conclusions in Graham Greene’s 1938 novel or the [...]
Review: Warrior
Some say MMA is the new boxing. Despite their differences, ‘Warrior’ seems to prove that whichever of the two sports is caught on film, the end product can yield an all too similar story. ‘Warrior’, seemingly having a fresh slate with the lack of mainstream MMA films, doesn’t break rules, set new boundaries, or take [...]
Review: The Names of Love
Your girlfriend sleeping around can be a king-hell headache. Your girlfriend as a French film character sleeping around for the express purpose of converting right-wing dimwits is a fairly innocuous conceit. Sara Forester (as Baya Benmahmoud) pulls off this dicey role with just enough ease and charm to allow straight-arrow Jacques Gambin (as Arthur Martin) [...]
Review: Our Idiot Brother
He’s not an idiot, he’s just very naïve. Ned is “crunchy granola” from upstate New York who’s completely content raising vegetables, watching Pink Panther movies and smoking a joint every now and then….. Ned gets released from jail and while in there, his ex-girlfriend takes his dog, (named Willie Nelson, which has an fucking adorable [...]
Review: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Film Review by Tony Glinski When first hearing about this remake, I got a hold of a copy of the original 1973 made-for-TV version but told myself I would not watch it prior to my review. When seeing the clunky claymation live action in the original trailer, I knew this remake was ripe for an [...]
Review: Fright Night
While it has a prime cast (Colin Farrell, Toni Colette) and some decent production values Fright Night does little more than conjure up pleasant memories of the original 1985 film. Mainly though it strikes out on one not so teensy detail: it’s neither terribly funny or scary. The film’s biggest handicap may be that it’s [...]
Review: The Future
Is 40 the new 50?
Review: 30 Minutes or Less
Nothing more than a moronic, politically incorrect on all fronts, slacker flick; 30 Minutes Or Less is also nothing less than a good time. Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) continually rescues his train-wreck of bad taste with tight, frantic pacing and shrewd comic timing. When all seems to be going to the dogs, Jesse Eisenberg (The [...]
Review: Final Destination 5
These films are all the same….. Same format, same bad acting, same bad plot, but what makes Final Destination 5 work is that they took it all to the next level. EXTREME!!!! MOUNTAIN DEW!!! FOOTBALL!!! SAUSAGE!!!!
Review: Glee the 3D Concert Movie
The most horrifying film ever made in 3D.
Review: The Help
Emma Stone can do no wrong. She’s a magnet for the best projects in Hollywood. Easy A, Zombieland, Spiderman, and now The Help.
Review: Terri
Much ado is made about the whale-like lead character of Terri (Jacob Wysocki) wearing pajamas to class as if it were the most inventive and creative idea to come along since the internet. (Thank you again for that one Al Gore) When his empathetic assistant principal Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly as his usual top-shelf [...]
Review: Point Blank
The French thriller Point Blank is a nerve-racking, relentlessly action-packed feast. To ignore it is to lose out on the summer’s most exciting escapist yarn.
Review: The Change Up
Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman pull a “Face/Off” in the newest R-rated comedy of 2011. But does this Freaky-Friday-cliche-plot-line movie have anything going for it? It does if you like to hear the word “Fuck.” “Fuck” is a word that The Change Up does not forget about. From scene to scene Reynolds and Bateman are [...]
Review: The Devils Double
One actor, playing a duel roll with sex and cocaine, even though this has Linsday Lohan written all over it, I doubt she even knows where Iraq is on a map. The Devil’s Double is one of those films that supports the fact that rich people are just as fucked up (if not more) than [...]
Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Rise of theses Damn Dirty apes bring many new things to the table. To start off it uses Weta’s amazing CGI in combination with a real live action movie. Unlike Avatar where everything was animated, this time around the only thing that is fake are the monkeys and James Francos acting abilities. As the [...]
Review: Sarah’s Key
Sarah’s Key is not just a holocaust film. From it’s technique to it’s distinct visual style Sarah’s Key is a film that accurately portrays the material it was conceived from while also creating something new and impact-ful on fresh eyes to the subject matter. For anyone not familiar with the story, Sarah’s key is a [...]
Review: Another Earth
Mike Cahill’s directorial debut of ‘Another Earth’ is fantastic. This indie gem was awarded the Arthur P. Sloan Commissioning Grant at Sundance, which is annually given to a feature film of which concerns a science or technology related narrative. The science fiction element within the film is used as a backdrop to the more prominently [...]
Review: Crazy Stupid Love
Few smooth operators are more likable than Ryan Gosling’s lothario in Crazy, Stupid, Love. Left and right, he reels in women, effortlessly and mostly believably. We root for him admittedly for his charisma but also for his compassion. The invulnerable playboy player Jacob (Gosling) discovers passive/ aggressive, self-described “cuckold” Cal (Steve Carell) as a regular [...]
Review: The Smurfs
Growing up, I was a big fan of the lovable blue creatures of smurf village. So when I heard that all of my favorite blue people would be hitting the big screen, I was nothing less of excited. In this new movie, smurf village is destroyed by evil sorcerer Gargamel (Hank Azaria). Accidentally lead to [...]
Review: A Better Life
This undocumented immigrant is surrounded by a scary insecurity. Buying a truck to start a business despite having no driver’s license one moment, and having to find a fellow illegal who steals the truck the next. All along the way, single-parenting a teenager teetering on the edge of joining a gang. So goes Chris Weitz’s [...]
Review: Project Nim
Project Nim tells the story of Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee subject from the 1970s who was designated to spend his time exclusively with humans bent on teaching him sign language. Early in the film the study’s founder, Columbia University professor Herbert Terrace, complains that the experiment is getting shortchanged by Nim’s first human surrogate Mom, [...]
Review: Friends With Benefits
When you think about it… this movie came out already. It was called “No Strings Attached” and it starred Ashton Kutcher and the lovely Natalie Portman. However there is one stand out difference between “Friends with Benefits” and “No Strings Attached.” One sucks more than any movie I’ve been forced to sit through in the [...]
Review: Tabloid
Errol Morris’ latest documentary, Tabloid, features a downright wacky story that not only entertains but also confronts the audience with questions of true love and the nature of truth.
Review: Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, is an engaging and entertaining documentary which features an interesting look at the legacy of one group, and its impact on Hip-Hop.
Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
It all ends… and it’s awesome.
Review: Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh was a complete surprise in 1966, when Disney first visited the “Hundred Acre Woods”. I find it hard to believe that Disney is taking the risk of bringing it back considering how animation tastes and technology has changed since then. After seeing it though, I have no reservations in saying that it [...]
Review: Horrible Bosses
3 Bosses Vs. 3 Employees. First up is Kevin Spacey, the quintessential boss from hell. Next is Colin Farrell, practically in disguise through the film, is a boss whose nicest of moments can make Spacey look like Mr. Rogers. Lastly you have Jennifer Aniston as the more subtle head honcho, if subtlety includes sexual blackmail [...]
Second Opinion: Transformers: Dark of the Moon
While Steve has already written up his optimistic view of the latest in the Transformers series, I adamantly disagree with his assessment of the film and here’s why.
Review: Larry Crowne
When Tom Hanks gets fired for not having a college degree in the beginning of Larry Crowne, he’s fired by a bunch of pricks including one who shows up later in the film as a pizza delivery man. (Which means jerks get their due) When Hanks decides to go to Community College after leaving his [...]
Review: Transformers – Dark of the Moon
If only Transformers 2 was half as good as this….
Review: Bad Teacher
Bad Teacher squarely belongs to Lucy Punch. The pluck British actress portrays Amy Squirrel, a righteous Suzy Creamcheese, Miss-Prim-and-Proper foil to Cameron Diaz’ badass, conniving central character, Elizabeth Halsey. Buffeted time and again by the aloof yet shrewd Halsey, Squirrel reacts with irrepressible determination to hold her place as John Adams High School’s champion boot [...]
Review: Cars 2
It may not be the best Pixar movie, but Cars 2 takes the original formula, throws it out, and makes something completely new.
Review: Green Lantern
Green Lantern is a perfect example of a great tale hijacked by poor storytelling, heavy-handed CGI, bad acting, and poor execution in general.
Review: The Trip
You don’t need to be a fan of “dry British humor” to appreciate The Trip. Filmgoers eager to witness the very best in improvisational comedy with an edge of pathos need look no further. Failing to snag his foodie American girlfriend for a car trip around northern England reviewing restaurants, Steve Coogan, playing himself (or [...]
Review: Submarine
Early in the Welsh comedy Submarine it’s a delight to find 15-year-old Oliver Tate gauging the movement of the dimmer switch in his parents’ bedroom to determine whether they are still sexually active. One half expects the assured yet determinedly serious teen to burst in one night proclaiming his discovery directly to his parents. Not [...]
