A dominating presence in the 90s, revitalized with an animated film in 2007 and a Nickelodeon series beginning in 2012, the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” have come out of their shells once again with this semi-triumphant return to the big screen. On the heels of a fourth “Transformers” and TNT’s “The Last Ship”, The Summer […]
Director Richard Linklater’s films, including “The School of Rock”, “Bernie”, “A Scanner Darkly” and the “Before” trilogy, have satisfied audiences with their attention to authentic human situations and emotional truths. His latest, “Boyhood”, is an ambitious project shot over 12 years (with a budget of $2.4 million, or just $200,000/year), with the same narrative and […]
Director Michael Bay, best known for his big-budget explosion extravaganzas, and more recently, for storming-off a convention stage because his teleprompter wasn’t working, is rebooting his most famous franchise. “Transformers: Age of Extinction” is the fourth installment in the Hasbro toy robot series, though this title would have been more appropriate to describe the series […]
The build-up to “X-Men: Days of Future Past” has been gigantic. For the first time, the mutant characters we’ve come to care about over the past 14 years, and their younger selves we were introduced to in 2011’s “X-Men: First Class”, come together. It was promoted as an “Avengers” in the “X-Men” universe. But after […]
“The Wizard of Oz” is considered to be one of the greatest films of all-time – one that simply can’t be touched. However, that’s exactly what’s been done over the past 75 years, with musical spinoffs (such as “The Wiz”), prequels (last year’s Disney blockbuster “Oz: The Great and Powerful” and Broadway sensation “Wicked”), and […]
I’ve been going to screenings of The Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films for the past five years and I’ve had the pleasure of watching some truly memorable shorts, including “Wallace & Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death”, “Logorama” (if you’ve never seen it look it up on YouTube), and great entries from Disney, […]
“Ride Along” is the first box office smash of 2014 thanks to the appeal of its two stars: rapper turned actor Ice Cube and comedian Kevin Hart. The two play-off each other nicely in this solid, but not hysterical buddy-cop action comedy. The all-too-simple premise features Cube as veteran Atlanta PD detective James Payton. His […]
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. […]
Four years ago Morgan Freeman received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for playing legendary South African activist Nelson Mandela in the rugby-based film, “Invictus”. Now, Idris Elba takes-on the task of playing the iconic figure in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”, which is based on Mandela’s autobiography. This is a full-on life story. The movie […]
The pitch meeting for “All Is Lost” must’ve gone something like this: “Robert Redford…in a boat for 90 minutes…lost at sea…and he may have a chance to win his first acting Oscar.” And obviously it worked. This film is a floating one-man show. Redford is the only performer seen on screen for the entire movie, playing the only […]