It goes without saying that any movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep is going to be well-acted, but it bears repeating with Hope Springs. I was constantly amazed to watch both of these two perform the hell out of their roles as much when they weren't speaking as when they were.
Read MoreBecause this entire story has already been told before, there are absolutely zero surprises in Total Recall.
Read MoreLet me just say this generality, right up front. I'm a man. I'm genetically programmed to enjoy movies built like The Killer. Guys like me love over-the-top and gaudy action to the point where we find ourselves imitating the action when we think no one is looking. Guys like me are the ones that still make silly pistols with sound effects out of our fingers and do martial arts moves spoken to tough guy movie quotes in the bathroom mirror.
Read MoreI’ll say it right now. I’m a big fan of Jackie Brown. It’s arguably Tarantino’s most approachable film and straightest story when compared to the dancing timelines of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and his Kill Bill pair.
Read MoreAnytime you let three guys like Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, and Jonah Hill play off each other, funny things are going to come out of their mouths. It's perfectly acceptable to at least have a good idea or premise that puts these three guys together. Why not a neighborhood watch in suburban mid-America? Sure, we'll take that and the fun back-and-forth works for sure. However, once you they actually give something for them to do, the good idea of The Watch fails, especially if that idea is a cockamamie alien invasion.
Read MoreWith July temperatures soaring into the triple-digits in many places, the opposite is needed. Who needs a chilly fantasy to beat the oppressive heat? Here are a few frosty movie suggestions for summer escapes! Let's start with the creepy ones and end on the cute ones.
Read MoreWith In the Heat of the Night portraying a black hero asserting himself and a white anti-hero spewing slanderous rhetoric with every "boy" opening clause, they created a volatile situation of stereotypes that eventually find respect and compromise. Both characters change and they enforce that need to change within the Deep South setting of the story.
Read MoreIn having a little fun with the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympic Games, I couldn't help but notice a great deal of obscure and untapped athletic talent in the movie characters I've been seeing on on the silver screen so far this summer. I saw a red-headed Scottish princess with a knack for archery, a superhero team of immense talent and strength, and a few other flashes of brilliance.
Read MoreEvery character is beyond three-dimensional and fleshed out with dynamic emotions, origins, strengths, flaws, victories, losses, goals, and fates. All of our original core characters and our new entries each have their culminating moments for their characterization that makes The Dark Knight Rises a fitting and deserving conclusion to this now-historic and classic trilogy.
Read MoreFor movie fans who want to dive into the great and heavy works of Alfred Hitchcock, North by Northwest is the first of two movies that I steer them to first.
Read MoreThe film Harvey is a big dose of Jimmy Stewart. If you can't handle that warble or earnestness, this was a long hour and forty-five minutes. I, for one, can appreciate this version of Jimmy and still know that his better performances are in a dozen other movies.
Read MoreThe unevenness of Savages comes from the peaks and valleys of our rooting interest for Chon, Ben, and O. For a while, we're enviously digging their cool lifestyle, the drugs, the cars, and the hot sex. Who wouldn't? Then, we're hit with the extreme violence of torture, decapitation, and dismemberment by which the cartel operates. The bad taste washes over in a hurry. We sure don't want to be those three anymore and don't have much to root for.
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