Battleship Review
RATING: (0 STARS) If nothing else, Battleship is true proof of mankind’s resiliency. This resiliency is shown in the characters who rise up and fight with everything they have against the evil(?) alien invaders. It’s also shown in the viewers who manage to make it through this pathetic excuse for a movie without walking out, […]
God Bless America Review
RATING: (3 STARS) The way you respond to Bobcat Goldthwaite’s latest, God Bless America, might depend on your feelings toward 2010’s Kick-Ass. The two films have a lot of things in common—not the least of which is a murderous, and very nonplussed, teenage girl. In fact, the way both films deal with violence in general […]
The Avengers Review
RATING: (3 STARS) With five separate films, years of hype, and billions of dollars all leading up to this, how in the world can director Joss Whedon satisfy expectations surrounding his new film, The Avengers? Easy: Up the stakes as high as they’ll go and pack in as many glory moments as humanly (or, in […]
The Revisionaries
Anyone who’s watched The Daily Show or The Colbert Report knows there’s a humorous side to even the most poisonous political battles. In The Revisionaries, director Scott Thurman skewers the Texas State Board of Education in a similar vein and to great effect. Unless you’re a “young-earth creationist” like board member Don McLeroy (pictured above), […]
The Five-Year Engagement Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) A group of people sit in a room with a box of stale doughnuts. They’re told to eat if they wish, but fresher doughnuts are only 20 minutes away if they’d like to wait for something better. Will they really come? It’s up to each individual to decide, but needless to say, […]
The Giant Mechanical Man Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Calling Lee Kirk’s The Giant Mechanical Man slight would be a massive understatement. It’s infinitesimal. It focuses on two kindly individuals going through pre-mid-life mid-life crises. That’s a subject certainly worthy of the screen, but any film this formulaic just isn’t. The characters are flat and frustrating, the beats are totally predictable, […]
The Russian Winter
John Forte was once on top of the music world, helping write and produce songs on The Fugees tremendous, Grammy-winning album The Score. Just a few years later, however, Forte was arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison for cocaine trafficking. In 2008, his sentence was commuted by President Bush, and though he’s still […]
Town of Runners
Who knew the world capital of running was the small rural village of Bekoji, Ethiopia? In Town of Runners, documentarian Jerry Rothwell takes us to this place, where the roads are made of mud, where phones have yet to be introduced, and where children know their only chance at a future outside Bekoji is through […]
Death of a Superhero Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) For a few wonderful minutes in Death of a Superhero, it appears we’re in for something truly inspired. Films with dying characters trying to complete one final task or fulfill their last wish all play out the same way, but Ian Fitzgibbon’s film appears cut from a totally different cloth. Unfortunately, it […]
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, the latest documentary from Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock, opens with the titular convention’s founder expressing hope that 500 or so will attend the inaugural event. Cut to hordes of costumed men and women frantically descending on San Diego. The entire history of Comic-Con would have made for […]
The Hunger Games Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) While reading Suzanne Collins’ novel, The Hunger Games, you’re immediately struck by the story’s cinematic potential. A dystopian future, an elaborate death match, and an angsty young-adult love triangle—what’s not to like? But with the good comes the potentially terrible—opulent cities with multi-colored buildings, the inevitable neutering down of the novel’s bloodier […]
The Deep Blue Sea (2012) Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) All too often, the word “melodrama” has a negative connotation. It’s used interchangeably with “manipulative” to describe a film with less-than-authentic emotions. The truth is that the melodrama is a perfectly respectable genre of film with a number of genuine masterpieces to its name (Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven comes immediately to […]
21 Jump Street Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) If you groaned upon hearing the news that the short-lived 1980s detective series 21 Jump Street was getting a big screen remake, prepare to be surprised. Not only does the film depart greatly from the series (the latter was a drama, while the former is 100% action-comedy), but it’s actually good—really good. […]
Game Change Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Those on the political Right will go to their graves arguing that Game Change is just a crock of liberal lies. Whatever. That’s irrelevant, as far as I’m concerned. True or false, this is an incredibly juicy and engaging piece of work, and it really does ring true, whatever the facts are. […]
John Carter Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) It’s hard to believe a film so skillfully crafted and brimming with so many ideas could elicit such a blah reaction. But this is John Carter. Director Andrew Stanton‘s live-action debut is a hodgepodge of epic battles, clunky dialogue, interesting mythology, and trite romance. Much has been made of the film’s massive […]
Perfect Sense Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Another year, another apocalypse movie. In Perfect Sense, however, the end of the world comes with a delicious twist. It’s not another planet coming to destroy us (a la Melancholia), nor is it necessarily a Contagion-like epidemic. Rather, it’s the sudden and inexplicable loss of our senses. Director David Mackenzie utilizes an […]
