The film's cool and soothing central romance really won me over and I think it will win all of you over too. My initial skepticism level was very high, and not all from the usual book-to-movie debate. It's not often that a movie proves me wrong. The Great Gatsby sure did.
Read MoreWhile some of the wackiness never lets up and carries into the course of our villainous conflict, the humor is always bubbling up to the surface. Iron Man 3 is, without a doubt, the most comedic of the Marvel superhero films. That affable effect helps mask many of the really preposterous events and flaws and keeps the whole Iron Man 3 effort extremely likeable and entertaining.
Read MoreBuilding off that solid start, reuniting with Gosling, and bringing his storytelling to an ever larger scale than before, Cianfrance's latest film,The Place Beyond the Pines, is nothing short of a modern masterpiece. Brimming with more of that palpable emotion and wrought with ever-increasing tension, tragedy, triumph, and importance, The Place Beyond the Pinesis the first great film of 2013 and better than just about every movie this critic reviewed in 2012.
Read MoreCome to the film for the visuals and hang around for enough surprises and developments to make you feel better about the IMAX ticket price. Once again, it's not a sure-fire classic, but it's just the start to a promising 2013 for science fiction.
Read More42 completely stands as a respectful, heroic, and fascinating movie that matches the respectful, heroic, and fascinating man himself. Yes, it has its forgivable offenses of oversimplification, sunny optimism, Disney-like gloss, and convenient revision, but the film succeeds in its primary goal to inspire the viewer.
Read MoreOlympus Has Fallen dials up a spring picnic of R-rated thrills and summer-level action a month before the big summer season really gets things underway.
Read MoreAs fun as it is, G.I. Joe: Retaliation isn't breaking any new ground, but, again, it doesn't have to. While it's less out-there than the first film, it still delivers enough cool action to entertain. It was better than A Good Day to Die Hard in this critic's opinion. It's not a movie you'll brag about at the workplace water cooler on Monday, but it's one you'll catch yourself still sitting down to watch again on basic cable for the next several years. It's not dazzling enough to reach a cult status or guilty pleasure level, but if they keep bringing out the big guns, we are likely to keep coming back.
Read MoreAs the title of this editorial suggests, everyone around Chicago probably has a Roger Ebert story. Here's mine...
Read MoreI found Oz the Great and Powerful to be a beautiful mess of a movie. It spared no expense to throw so many dumb things together than I learned one new thing that most of these modern fairy tale movies lack: CHARM
Read MoreWhile it's no fine wine or instant classic, Bryan Singer and his team demonstrated better than the other steroid-enhanced fairy tale movies that the most important thing with this kind of retelling is to not tear up the roots. Jack the Giant Slayer's embrace of its bedtime story nature and that is its greatest strength. It should be a guide for future fairy tale enhancements to stick to the core ideals that made it great and to mold your spectacle around it, not above it.
Read MoreI may be aiming too high with this praise, but I really think Side Effects is the kind of movie famed director Alfred Hitchcock would make if he were alive and working in this era. It has that level of twisted nerve and ripe subject matter.
Read MoreIn a new editorial project to follow up this past weekend's 85th Academy Awards, I wanted to look deep into the crystal ball and see if I could earmark some movies coming here this year in 2013 that could shape up to be Oscar contenders for the 86th Academy Awards happening in 2014.
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