It is a beautiful morning in the Big Apple — a perfect way to start my two-day stint at the New York Film Festival. Held at the gorgeous and expansive Lincoln Center, this year’s festival has already been going on for two weeks, leading up to tomorrow’s closing night film, Robert Zemeckis’ drama, “Flight.” But […]
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Greeting moviegoers less than two years after the release of the first film in the trilogy, “Atlas Shrugged: Part II – The Strike” comes equipped with a brand new director, cast, and writing team. Unfortunately, this complete creative overhaul results in little improvement over the lumbering, TV-grade original, which took Ayn Rand’s infamous 1957 literary
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Despite the jarring locational shift from the streets of present-day Boston to those of 1980 Tehran, Ben Affleck’s “Argo” is very similar to his previous effort, “The Town.” As he did in that robbery thriller, Affleck here takes a straightforward heist plot and transforms it into a respectable piece of entertainment by distinctly evoking the
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office grosses. After “Taken 2” dominated last weekend, with nearly $50 million in domestic sales, it’s unlikely that we’ll see another blockbuster-sized opening this weekend, especially with six wide openers vying for ticket-buyers’ money. However, the wealth
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Whenever a film critic writes that a movie “doesn’t know what it wants to be,” the oft-used line is invariably the thesis of an overwhelmingly negative review. The reason for this is obvious: If a filmmaker’s intentions are unclear, then their work can’t adequately convey a message — the fundamental act of storytelling. But there
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“Frankenweenie,” Tim Burton’s stop-motion remake of his own 1984 live-action short, retains the macabre charm of the original while delivering the distinctive animated visuals that audiences have come to expect of the director. The film also, unfortunately, reflects Burton’s usual difficulties with pacing, but let’s save the bad news for later. “Frankenweenie” may be imperfect,
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“Taken 2,” the wham-bam action sequel starring Liam Neeson as an ex-C.I.A. agent who must once again save his family from kidnappers, opened with an incredibly strong $50 million this weekend, doubling its predecessor’s first weekend gross. Sweetening the deal: the film made an additional $67m in foreign markets, for a worldwide total of $117m,
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“Taken 2” is one of those sequels built on the assumption that audiences want what they enjoyed the first time around — nothing more, perhaps a bit less. Based on that line of thinking, the film succeeds, albeit narrowly. The first “Taken” saw Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills, an ex-C.I.A. agent with a savant-like competency at
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office grosses. Last weekend, the animated family comedy “Hotel Transylvania” and the sci-fi allegory “Looper” opened to unexpectedly high numbers, and this weekend’s new wide releases–“Taken 2,” “Frankenweenie,” and “Pitch Perfect”–should keep the momentum high. Let’s crunch
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As a Southern California resident, I’ve long considered attending the annual Newport Beach Film Festival, but after watching “General Education,” which earned writer/director Tom Morris the “Breakthrough Filmmaker Award” at this year’s event, I think I can safely put that thought to bed. Any organization that would bestow such an honor upon this amateurish production,
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