The Kids Are All RightThe Kids Are All Right is an odd little film to find in the middle of an over-stimulated Hollywood summer. Heartfelt and funny, the film is like a cool shower on an oppressively hot day—refreshing and invigorating, the sort of unexpected surprise that catches you off guard and sticks with you for days.
Nic (Annette Bening) [...]…
SaltI’m not ashamed to say I love these sorts of movies—espionage thrillers jammed to the gills with hairsbreadth escapes, gladiatorial bouts and death-defying stunts. So it was disappointing when Salt turned out to be little more than a larger budgeted episode of 24, a double agent concept that started out successfully enough but quickly flew [...]…
The Girl Who Played with FireThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first film in the Millennium trilogy by the late, incandescently popular Swedish author Stieg Larsson, was a cross between the achingly forlorn films of Ingmar Bergman and another spine-chilling, suspenseful novel similarly adapted into a mesmerizing film, Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs. Bleached of color and at [...]…
AgoraAgora, extraordinarily ambitious and majestically cerebral, is a flawed film to be sure. Its reach—nothing short of celestial mechanics and the frequently violent intersection of science and religion—certainly exceeds its grasp. But the reach itself is worthy of praise. Religion is not alone in claiming martyrs; the secular has its fair share of fallen heroes [...]…
InceptionDo you remember how you first felt upon leaving the original The Matrix, that shell-shocked sense of having been given a heady glimpse into another fully formed world, that feeling of suddenly possessing dangerous and unearthly knowledge, that giddy realization that you’d just witnessed something intellectually breathtaking and truly original? Prepare for those sensations all [...]…
The Sorcerer’s ApprenticeDon’t tell my wife, but I love being wrong. At least when it comes to films. I’ll admit it, I came to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice prepared to hate it. It had all the hallmarks of a film that would rub me the wrong way—produced by explosive style over substance Jerry Bruckheimer and starring hammy overactor [...]…
Despicable MeDespicable Me is the sort of movie about which it is the most difficult to write. It is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. On the other hand, it didn’t set my heart racing either. It is a sort of lukewarm winner, neither terrific nor terrible. While that hardly sounds like [...]…
The Last AirbenderShortly before the release of his film Signs, Newsweek magazine heralded writer/director M. Night Shyamalan as “the next Spielberg,” a moniker that has proved to be something of a millstone about the neck of an artist whose films since then have met with nothing but exponentially mounting contempt. Taking a break from his twist-prone suspense [...]…
The Twilight Saga: EclipseThe Twilight Saga: Eclipse is superior to its two predecessors in every possible way. The mythology finally feels comfortable in its own skin, aware of both its strengths and limitations, and appears to be striding confidently into the future. Like the Harry Potter franchise, it apparently took Twilight a few films to get up to [...]…
Grown UpsIt’s official sports fans; we have a formidable contender for worst film of the year!
We first meet Lenny (Adam Sandler), Eric (Kevin James), Kurt (Chris Rock), Marcus (David Spade) and Rob (Rob Schneider) as 12-year-old boys winning a middle school basketball championship. Flash-forward 30 years. Their beloved coach has died and the teammates, who have [...]…
I am LoveI am Love, easily one of the most sensual films I have ever seen, is ravishing, an operatic melodrama of stunning beauty and luxuriant texture. It is a thing elemental, a piece of art that works as pure, unadulterated hedonism, electrifying the senses with incandescent fire. It is a film out of time, donning the [...]…
Winter’s BoneWinter’s Bone, a Sundance winner about what happens when a primal need for justice crashes violently into abiding and intractable tradition, is a gothic film noir set in the cold and cheerless Ozark mountains. Though it is a decidedly American tale, at its heart beats an almost Greek odyssey. The film also boasts one of [...]…
Knight and DayThis review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.
One of the main characters in the new action-comedy Knight and Day gets knocked out so many times it feels like she spends half the movie unconscious. I don’t blame her. I wish I’d spent the entire [...]…
Toy Story 3This review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.
When I was a child, I had a large stuffed buffalo. At night, I’d imagine myself a big game hunter on the old frontier. By rubbing my hair on the fur, I generated enough static electricity to [...]…
The Karate KidThis review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.
The Karate Kid proves that a good enough story can be retold again and again and still have something to say to each successive generation (the truly great stories need only be told once). You will cheer [...]…
The A-TeamThis review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.
This weekend is one that the children of the 80s have either been salivating over for months, or are doing their very best to pretend does not exist. The two big films opening this weekend, The A-Team [...]…
Get Him to the GreekThis review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.
Granted, it’s only June and there is still plenty of 2010 left, but if the world were to end tomorrow, Get Him to the Greek would easily go down as the funniest movie of the year. Borrowing [...]…
SpliceThis review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.
Both colleagues and lovers, Clive and Elsa (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, two indie actors not known for their genre work), are rock star scientists, genetic engineers who bump into their faces on magazine covers every time [...]…
Prince of Persia: The Sands of TimeThis review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is the first popcorn hit of the summer, a mindless, high-fructose, high-octane adventure that demands very little of your intellect but is sure to get your heart racing. Like the [...]…
Shrek Forever AfterThis review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Fish and guests stink after three days.” The same could be said of movie franchises that overstay their welcome and don’t know when to pack up gracefully. The good news is, Shrek Forever [...]…
Updated: 31 Jul 2010, 11:00 UTC