Big Movie Ads returned in full force for Super Bowl LVII. From 5:50pmET to before the National Anthem, studios delivered teasers for four major upcoming releases. Paramount showcased “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” (out March 31) and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” (opening June 9). Sony had “65” (out March 10). And Universal ran […]
“The Accountant” was one of my favorite films of 2016. Director Gavin O’Connor delivered a unique, multi-genre piece of filmmaking with a dynamite Ben Affleck as the title character. Now O’Connor and Affleck reunite on the drama, “The Way Back”. For the most part, this is a much calmer and more straightforward movie — and […]
Writer/director J.C. Chandor gave us the grittiness of crime and money with “A Most Violent Year”. Fellow writer Mark Boal took us into the war zone with “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty”. These two put their skill sets together, teaming-up on the new Netflix all-star action drama “Triple Frontier”. Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, […]
My previews of “The Happytime Murders” and “A.X.L.” Plus “2001: A Space Odyssey” will be in IMAX for its 50th Anniversary. Lights Camera Jackson can be heard LIVE every Friday morning at 7:10am on 107.7 WGNA-FM. WGNA, “#1 for New Country”, is the top radio station in the Albany, NY market. Jackson joins hosts Brian […]
Ben Affleck’s directorial follow-up to 2012’s Best Picture, “Argo”, is a 1920s gangster action crime romance thriller drama, and while obviously ambitious, “Live By Night” plays-out in straightforward, uninspired fashion. The biggest mistake Affleck made was casting himself in the lead role. Affleck was perfectly acceptable as the lead in both “Argo” and “The Accountant” because […]
“The Accountant” is one of the most unique films I’ve seen this year. In describing the “genre-bending thriller”, director Gavin O’Connor (“Warrior”) told Entertainment Weekly, “It’s such an odd movie, man.” One of the integral lines of dialogue featured in the trailer and the film is when a supporting character says “Different scares people.” But […]
The opening scenes of “Gone Girl” are filled with so much rapid-fire dialogue and whip-fast editing that I thought Aaron Sorkin had re-teamed with director David Fincher. But then I remembered that author Gillian Flynn, who wrote the hit 2012 novel, adapted her own work into this screenplay. Set in the summer of ’12, “Gone […]