It’s Alive, and it’s Awful. “I, Frankenstein” is the perfect example of a “let’s bury it in January” film. From the cheesy visuals, to the lifeless performances, to some of the weirdest action sequences ever put on screen, this truly is a horror movie, as in “horr-ific”. Written and directed by Stuart Beattie (who’s contributed […]
There have been many “secret relationship” movies involving famous people brought to the big and small screen over the years. “The Invisible Woman”, directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes as legendary author Charles Dickens, is most recent and one of the best in the genre. Fiennes skillfully draws us into this story, making time and […]
The original Jack Ryan movies, beginning with 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October”, were both box office and critical successes, and are still considered to be some of the best spy/action films of the past 25 years. Now “Star Trek”‘s Chris Pine begins steering the ship of another reboot franchise with “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit”, […]
“The Legend of Hercules” was one of the first, and will likely end-up being one of the worst, movies of 2014. A beefed-up Kellan Lutz, who played one of Edward Cullen’s vampire brethren in “The Twilight Saga”, stars as the title Greek hero. We witness Hercules’ rise from birth (with some electrical assistance from his […]
“Lone Survivor” is based on the true story, chronicled in a 2007 book, of the Navy SEALS “Operation Red Wings” mission in Afghanistan in 2005. Director Peter Berg (“Friday Night Lights”) begins the film by showing us who the “Lone Survivor” is going to be. For those who don’t know any details of this story going in, this decision […]
Director Spike Jonze is known for his visually vivid films with quirky stories, including “Being John Malkovich”, “Adaptation”, and the dark, big screen version of the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are”. In his latest, the futuristic romantic drama “Her”, Joaquin Phoenix stars as Theodore, a successful greeting cards writer who’s just getting over a divorce. […]
When I first heard the idea for “Grudge Match”, I immediately thought it was a winner: Sylvester Stallone (best known as Philadelphia fighter Rocky Balboa) and Robert De Niro (who won an Oscar for playing real-life boxer Jake La Motta in Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull”) play longtime rivals who meet in the ring one final […]
Back in 2007 director Martin Scorsese captured an Oscar for “The Departed”, a film that many thought did not deserve Best Picture honors, which it also won. For me, Scorsese departed from first-class moviemaking with 2011’s “Hugo”, which surprisingly, got some awards consideration. The 71 year old is back with “The Wolf of Wall Street”, […]
I imagined Ben Stiller’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” to be a much stronger film than it turned out to be. This is a very loose adaptation of the 1947 original and the acclaimed James Thurber short story. The beauty of the written work was figuring out, through the words, which situations were real […]
Meryl Streep is a three-time Oscar winner, who has given mesmerizing performances in such films as “The Devil Wears Prada”, “Julie & Julia”, “The Iron Lady” and many more. And while she is fantastic as wife and mother Violet Wilson in the big-screen version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “August: Osage County”, this has to be the most discombobulated movie […]