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 […]
2004’s TV news comedy “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” is still one of Will Ferrell’s most popular films, even though it only grossed $85 million at the box office. Over the past decade, the film has become a “cult classic”, with fans demanding a sequel. And now their wish has been granted. As was […]
Dino Disaster. Tyrannosaurus Wreck. These may be bad puns, but they perfectly describe the family adventure “Walking with Dinosaurs”, which left its mark as one of the worst movies of 2013. The BBC is behind “Walking with Dinosaurs”, which is loosely adapted from the network’s groundbreaking 1999 miniseries that also gave birth to a global sensation stage show. […]
Peter Jackson directed the epic, Oscar winning “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. But his resume took a bit of a hit last year thanks to Part 1 of his new 3-Parter, the prequel to “LOTR” – “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”. It was long, dull, and shot using the previously unseen HFR (high frame rate) technology, which sped-up the […]
One year after director David O. Russell was able to earn all four of his “Silver Linings Playbook” stars Oscar nominations in their respective categories (the first time that had been done in 30 years), he did it again with the extraordinary ensemble of “American Hustle”, which is a smart, chic, sophisticated con-caper that’s hugely entertaining. A movie about […]
“Winds in the East – mist coming in. Like something is brewing – about to begin.” Colin Farrell’s opening lines in Disney’s “Saving Mr. Banks” say it all. I predicted five months ago when the first, and only, trailer for this film was released, that the “Making of Mary Poppins” movie was going to be […]