The documentary “Amy” powerfully chronicles the successful and sad life of singer Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011. The Grammy-winning Jazz artist from England rose to fame with her “Back to Black” album and hit songs such as “Rehab” and “I Heard Love Is Blind”. However, her personal life was more often in the spotlight […]
“Ted” was “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane’s first feature film, co-writing and directing the tale of a foul-mouthed teddy bear who comes to life. Saying the film was a success is an understatement, so it’s no surprise that – 3 years later – we have “Ted 2”. What is surprising is that this sequel is […]
The indie drama “Dope” was one of the darlings of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Open Road, best known for distributing the animated comedy “The Nut Job” and the excellent Jake Ghyllenhaal thriller “Nightcrawler”, won the multi-studio bidding war. Writer/director Rick Famuyiwa (“Our Family Wedding”) collaborated with the powerhouse production team of Pharrell Williams, Sean […]
“Bridesmaids” and “The Heat” director Paul Feig has returned for a third go-around with the Academy Award nominated star of those blockbuster comedies – Melissa McCarthy. “Spy” is a slick, sophisticated, very solid action comedy. McCarthy is CIA analyst Susan Cooper. For years, Cooper has been the voice inside the earpiece of suave secret agent […]
Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart in a buddy comedy should equal gold. But with “Get Hard” the result is the exact opposite. In fact, even though it attempts to play it tough with a Hard-R tone, it’s actually quite light and wimpy – often not even trying to make us laugh. The premise itself is […]
“Run All Night” is the fourth action/thriller starring Liam Neeson to be released in the last 13 months. Jaume-Collet Serra directed Neeson 2011’s underrated gem “Unknown” and last year’s “Non-Stop”. Both of those films provided intrigue, suspense and engaging storylines worthy of your full attention from the first frame to the last. “Run All Night” […]
“Chappie” is the latest sci-fi effort from “District 9” and “Elysium” director Neill Blomkamp. Is it sappy? Yes. Will seeing it make you happy? No. Is it, overall, crappy? Unfortunately, yes. But “Chappie” goes way beyond these slightly above-average, yet obvious puns. In an attempt to sum-up what I watched for two hours, I quote […]
Will Smith hasn’t starred in a movie since 2013’s sci-fi disaster “After Earth”, a Smith family affair that also involved son Jaden as co-star and wife Jada as co-producer. Oh, and M. Night Shyamalan was the director. And…it laid an egg. If Smith believed, after reading the script for “Focus”, that this could be his […]
I did not see the original “Hot Tub Time Machine”, which was released in 2010, but a lot people did and many consider it a modern cult classic comedy. Now, a whopping five years later, we get the just plainly ridiculous “Hot Tub Time Machine 2”, which joins the list of “Taken 3” and (while […]
In 2011 Colin Firth won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in “The King’s Speech”, which included many memorable scenes. Now, four years later, Firth stars in “Kingsman: The Secret Service”, director Matthew Vaughn’s follow-up to “X-Men: First Class”. “Kingsman” does provide Firth with the opportunity to appear in, quite possibly, the most memorable […]