Category: GENRE
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Safe Haven [2013] ★★
People crave romantic movies, be they dramatic or funny (the box-office numbers prove it) and novelist Nicholas Sparks has provided the raw material for a number of such films including “Dear John”, “The Lucky One”, and most successfully, “The Notebook”. I think it’s fair to say that moviegoers know what to expect when they see one of these…
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The Master [2012] ★★★½
“The Master” makes it six-for-six for writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson, who follows “Hard Eight”, “Boogie Nights”, “Magnolia”, “Punch Drunk Love” and “There Will Be Blood” with his most ardent and ambitious movie yet. Anderson keeps a tight lid on his work so that audiences can approach his character-based dramas with a sense of discovery. Fair…
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Broken City [2013] ★★
“Broken City” should have and could have been a lot better. I mean just the idea of Mark Wahlberg playing a cop who is used then discarded by the mayor (Russell Crowe) sounds like a dream popcorn movie. But the movie, directed by Allen Hughes (“From Hell”, “The Book of Eli”) goes down in a sea…
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A Good Day To Die Hard [2013] ★★½
It’s easy to joke about Bruce Willis, now past 55, returning for a fifth chapter in the “Die Hard” series. It’s been over 20 years since the first one and 5 years since the last. Shouldn’t Willis be retired by now? OK, I said the jokes were easy. But you know what? Willis gets the last…
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The Paperboy [2012] ★½
Matthew McConaughey rises once again above the material as Miami Times reporter Ward Jansen who returns home to investigate the case of Hillary Van Wetter (a creepy John Cusack ), a prisoner about to be executed for killing a cop. Charlotte Bless (Kidman), a weird blonde with a hots for men on death row thinks Hillary is…
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Seven Psychopaths [2012] ★★★
I don’t care how much you think director Martin McDonagh is working you over with “Seven Psychopaths”, his first movie since 2008’s “In Bruges” (terrific movie by the way). And I don’t care how many annoying film critics complain that McDonagh doesn’t yet know his way around a camera. “Seven Psychopaths” is literate, lively cinema. A bit…
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Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters [2013] ★½
Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton hunt and kill witches. That’s it for subtext in this formula January flick. Were you expecting more? Didn’t think so. It’s obvious that Norwegian writer-director Tommy Wirkola has no faith in his story, so in order to keep goosing the audience, he throws in one witch after the other, explodes heads and…
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Warm Bodies [2013] ★★½
Comparing “Warm Bodies” to “Twilight” doesn’t do this movie justice. Unlike “Twilight”, this is a larger-than-life zombie yarn with special effects and a sense of humor. It isn’t my favorite kind of entertainment, but writer-director Jonathan Levine (who won us over with his 2011 movie “50/50”) has brought an appealing cast to the story adapted from Isaac…
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Killing Them Softly [2012] ★★
I’m a bit late reviewing this movie, but having seen it a while ago I can safely say that it was one of the most disappointing films of 2012. It isn’t a requirement that you like a movie’s central characters, but it usually helps develop rooting interest. That’s one reason “Killing Them Softly” comes up short: it’s…
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Texas Chainsaw 3D [2013]
The worst movie of this very new year has a good chance to retain the title for all of 2013. This putridly written, directed and acted movie claims to be the “real” sequel to the 1974 original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. So fucking what? The horror begins with the slaughter of the infamously cannibalistic Sawyer clan, but of…
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Amour [2012] ★★★½
What can you say about a film that is so vividly real, and so intense, that it holds you spellbound for two hours, without letup? “Amour” would be superior filmmaking under any circumstances. With rare subtlety and transforming art, the remarkable writer-director Michael Haneke takes us into the emotional heart of an old french couple. Both are…
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Hitchcock [2012] ★★★
What do you say about a movie that introduces the master of suspense as you’ve never seen him before, proves once again that Helen Mirren is one of the finest actresses alive and launches a charm assault that is damn near irresistible? I say, see it. Director Sacha Gervasi has crafted a delightful movie about, of all…
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Gangster Squad [2013] ★★½
Expectations are murder. With a dynamite cast (do Sean Penn and Josh Brolin ever fuck up?), and director Ruben Fleischer who inspired worship for “Zombieland”, you assume a new classic. What you get is an ambitious try. Yet “Gangster Squad” pulls the magician’s trick of distraction, offering enough superficial entertainment value with good use of locations, charismatic actors,…
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Zero Dark Thirty [2012] ★★
Finally Hollywood has produced a movie that dramatizes the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Lol as if you didn’t see that coming. In a nutshell, “Zero Dark Thirty” is the most overrated movie of 2012. Overrated because it’s been nominated for a best picture Oscar and everyone is talking about director Kathryn Bigelow’s wonderful achievement.…
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Hyde Park On Hudson [2012] ★★½
Sometimes, a solid performance makes a movie worth watching. Case in point: Bill Murray, who portrays President Franklin D. Roosevelt in this charming little movie that takes place in the summer of 1939. The story focuses on Roosevelt’s distant cousin Daisy Suckley (Laura Linney) and her relationship with the President. Director Roger Michell imagines what may have happened…
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Django Unchained [2012] ★★★½
Like a crazy motherfucker, Quentin Tarantino lets all his obsessions hang out in “Django Unchained”. Some people may want to kill him for it, but if you’re down with that, head off to the “historically inaccurate” “Django” which should have been called “The Good, the Bad and the Slave” by Quentin Tarantino. In fact, “Django” is an act…
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Lincoln [2012]
I sometimes recoil when people start spreading Oscar buzz about a movie I haven’t seen. Yet I’m willing to forgive this year’s campaign for “Lincoln” because it’s such a terrific movie. At first glance, it sounds like another history lesson about the last four months in the life of America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. Instead, “Lincoln” is a crowning…
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This Is 40 [2012] ★★★
If you want to hate on Judd Apatow’s “This is 40” then go ahead. But get ready to be drowned out by the sound of laughter from the rest of us. Yes I laughed. Then I laughed some more. I’ll admit there’s something sitcom-trite about the setup. Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) from “Knocked Up”…
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Stand Up Guys [2012] ★½
Excuse my sarcasm but why in hell do Studios always choose January to bury their misfires? They must think we won’t notice, distracted by award season and all. But we do, especially when it’s a film starring legendary actors Al Pacino and Christopher Walken. I’m talking about “Stand Up Guys”, a sorry excuse of a movie about…
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The Possession [2012] ★★
“The Possession” was one of the better horror movies released in 2012, but that’s not saying much. I’m a huge fan of Producer Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” films, but his latest attempt feels awfully repetitive and corny. The plot is pretty basic fare: Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a divorced man, his daughters live with their mother…
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