KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE is the ultimate fractured fairy tale: A "tour de force" turned "turd de force." And if you're recoiling at that turn of phrase- just wait until you get to "the end" of the movie. What begins as a witty, exciting, and inventive update on the iconic James Bond gentleman spy thriller, descends into a crude gore fest that left me cringing in my seat. Keep in [...]
AMERICAN SNIPER keeps firing shots heard round the world. The film's impact has been reverberating ever since its opening weekend--continuing to dominate the box office, breaking box office records (though it was just ex- Sponged from the top slot this weekend by Mr. Squarepants) and igniting a firestorm of controversy among pundits, critics, movie stars, and the public. The movie directed [...]
Here's my take on the Oscar-nominated best-actresses and the movies they star in, STILL playing at a theater near you! See them before the Oscars are handed out on 2/22! TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT Marion Cotillard (Best Actress Oscar winner for LA VIE EN ROSE) stars in “Two Days, One Night” (in French with English subtitles), her glamor (but not her luminosity) tamped [...]
The race is on! Actor Chris Pine and Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs have let loose the 2015 Oscar nominations! Who's in? Who's out? Here are the top five categories and my very preliminary two cents worth! BEST PICTURE (including total number of nominations for each) Birdman (9) The Grand Budapest Hotel (9) The Imitation Game (8) Boyhood [...]
Will they be holiday hits? Will they win OSCARS? Add these to my Fall Movie Preview list for a complete big screen Holiday Movie Guide! (11/14) THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING He's the English-speaking Einstein--British physicist Stephen Hawking--whose book A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME made us all think we could almost understand the theory of everything. This biopic stars [...]
Win a pair of tickets to the one-night-only event MAYHEM: MAYWEATHER VS. MAIDANA 2! MAYHEM: MAYWEATHER VS. MAIDANA 2 will be shown in select theatres on Saturday, September 13th at 8:00PM live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. For a chance to win a pair of complimentary passes to the Showcase Patriot Place in [...]
So many screens-- so little to see. GODZILLA is godawful. And put a big X through X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. Coasting on the devotion of diehard fans who remember the back stories, this latest installment suffers from franchise burnout and never breaks a sweat. How about MALEFICENT? What could be better than Angelina Jolie [...]
Two quick reviews before the weekend! NOAH is a crazy film by Darren Aronofsky (THE FOUNTAIN, BLACK SWAN) manifesting the filmmaker's trademark tussle with the unknowable and a feverish attempt to reconcile good and evil, faith and fear, while yoking the otherworldly to concrete reality. Russell Crowe as Noah gets the message to build an [...]
The race is ON! Chris "Thor" Hemsworth helped hammer home the 86th Oscar nominations with Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and the results are pretty much as I expected: AMERICAN HUSTLE and GRAVITY tied for most nominations--10 each, followed by 12 YEARS A SLAVE with 9! What I'm delighted about? Matthew McConaughey. It's his year [...]
I like THE HUNGER GAMES: series, and the second installment, CATCHING FIRE--despite a colleague's calling it "a long slog"--absolutely held me. Once again, the charismatic Jennifer Lawrence as the reluctant firebrand Katniss Everdeen continues to rebel against the capitol. Having out-witted the powers that be in the first Hunger Games--a TV spectacle in which children [...]
