It’s been a big season for Steven Spielberg fans. Not only does the director’s famed “Jaws” drop today on a beautifully restored Blu-Ray, but now comes news that perhaps his most beloved work of all-time, the Indiana Jones adventure “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” will play IMAX theaters on September 7 to celebrate/promote its own […]
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” returning to theaters… in IMAX! Read More »
Even the most vocal detractors of David Frankel’s “Hope Springs” must recognize the miracle of the film’s existence. This is a studio-funded production about the sex lives of old people that is neither an Oscar-hungry downer nor an outrageous farce. It approaches an issue that affects married couples over 40–hardly Hollywood’s target demographic–honestly and empathetically.
Review: “Hope Springs” Read More »
“Two and a Half Men” gets a bad rap for being a misogynistic, uninventive CBS sitcom, but for those of us who prefer our “so bad it’s good”-style comfort food relegated to the boob-tube rather than the silver-screen, the show hits the spot rather well. Now comes news from The Hollywood Reporter that “singer-actress” Miley Cyrus,
Miley Cyrus to play Jake’s love interest on “Two and a Half Men” Read More »
Ever since “The Dark Knight Rises” took the megaplexes by storm, the box office has been in a relative slump, what with “The Watch” and “Step Up Revolution” bombing two weeks ago and “Total Recall” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days” underperforming last weekend. Well, that slump just ended, because “The Bourne Legacy”
Weekend Box Office: “Bourne,” “Campaign” end Hollywood’s two-week slump Read More »
One moment of quiet solitude stands out amongst all the kinetic action sequences and globetrotting theatrics that have defined the Jason Bourne trilogy up to this point: a man’s lifeless body floats in the ocean, captured in low angle by a submerged camera and backlit by brilliant moonlight. It’s a shot that represents the fragility
Review: “The Bourne Legacy” Read More »
Hello and welcome back to Box Office Beat, the column in which I predict the upcoming weekend’s box office grosses. It must be August, because we finally have a weekend with a healthy four new releases after many consecutive weekends of just one or two, which is the standard schedule for summer tent-pole season. That
Box Office Beat: Weekend of August 10 Read More »
Since his audacious gangster film debut “City of God” made him an instant art house sensation in 2002, director Fernando Meirelles has tackled one heavy subject after another in what has felt like a desperate attempt to be taken seriously as an artist. In turn, Meirelles’s films have been defined by a troubling self-seriousness that
Director Jay Roach’s “Game Change,” which aired on HBO earlier this year, ranks among the most blockheaded political movies ever made. Without so much as smirking, Roach and writer Danny Strong ask the viewer to accept the impossible proposition that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was so ill-informed when she joined the McCain campaign that
Review: “The Campaign” Read More »
Rashida Jones’ Celeste, the protagonist of “Celeste and Jesse Forever,” publishes a non-fiction book called Shitegeist, which, as you may have inferred, is about how the zeitgeist has been turned to ‘shite’ by entitled rich kids and talentless pop-stars. This could have been the basis for a sharp, funny observation of the fact that the
Review: “Celeste and Jesse Forever” Read More »
With 2009’s “Coraline” and now “ParaNorman,” the artists at LAIKA, Inc. have asserted themselves as some of the best minds in contemporary animation. While not as cerebral as Pixar’s best works, LAIKA’s two features achieve the same great feat that the productions of that preeminent studio are known for: transcending the “family film” mold by
Review: “ParaNorman” Read More »
