“Despicable Me” is one of the funniest and most original animated movies of the past decade thanks, in large part, to the Minions. In case you don’t know, they’re the little yellow creatures who assist scientist Gru (Steve Carell) in his lab and help him to try to stealing the moon. They pull a lot […]

Pixar sequels have been pretty successful at the box office and so far they’ve been very good films that stand on their own: “Toy Story 2”, “Toy Story 3” and “Cars 2”. This streak will be tested next year with the prequel – “Monsters University”. And now comes the news is that Pixar is planning […]

It’s a small, independent documentary about inter-city playground basketball. And it was shot in Albany, NY, not far from where I live. But “Ballin’ at the Graveyard” is much more than simply a sports film. It’s an honest look at the men who spend every weekend a local park to play, most of them for […]

UPDATE: Along with a new theme park for DreamWorks Animation, the studio has also announced at Comic Con 2012 that a “Penguins of Madagascar” movie is confirmed for 2015 and that they’re going ahead with “Kung Fu Panda 3”. DreamWorks Animation has been longing to bring their popular animated characters to a theme park for […]

DreamWorks Animation has been longing to bring their popular animated characters to a theme park for a long time. After deals with China, Abu Dhabi and Dubai all failed, they’ve decided that the United States would be the perfect home for Shrek, the Madagascar clan and even Po the Panda. The studio has announced plan […]

We’re officially into the second half of 2012, but it’s time to look back at the best performances and movies from the first six months with my annual “Half Year Awards”: Best Picture: Live-Action Bully Game Change Marvel’s The Avengers Seeking a Friend for the End of the World Snow White & the Huntsman Best […]

While in NYC last weekend I saw the Broadway musical “Newsies”, which is based on the 1992 Disney film that starred a young Christian Bale and Robert Duvall. The movie pretty much bombed, but the show is surprisingly good. The story, which set in 1899, is about the poor, mostly orphan boys who sold the […]

Normally live-action superhero films are on the big screen and the animated superhero movies (from B-level studios with C-level animation) are either produced for TV or direct to DVD. But Disney and WB have decided to bring comic book and Lego action stars to movie theaters. WB’s “Lego” (opening February 28th, 2014) will star the […]

Writer and director Nora Ephron has passed away. Ephron was nominated for three Academy Awards for writing the Meryl Streep-Cher drama “Silkwood” and the romantic comedies “When Harry Met Sally” and “Sleepless in Seattle”. Both of those films starred Meg Ryan – “Sally” with Billy Crystal and “Sleepless” with Tom Hanks. Ephron’s scripts always featured […]

UPDATE: “Brave” opens with a strong $66.7M for the weekend. This marks the 5th highest-grossing open for a Pixar film behind “Toy Story 3” ($110.3M), “The Incredibles” ($70.5M), “Finding Nemo” ($70.3M) and “Up” ($68.1M). “Brave” barely beat “Cars 2″‘s open from last year ($66.1M). We’ll see if that changes once the actuals come-out. ——————————————————————————– It’s […]