Past Stories
Cinematic Treasure
David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook finds comic beauty in life’s darkest moments
Love in the movies is rarely shown in the way most of us deal with it in life, with all the messy complications and daily struggles tha...
Overrated Epic, Underrated Gem
Lincoln is a bloated misfire, while A Late Quartet is a quiet masterpiece
Epic movies may get the biggest hype, but that doesn’t always make them the best films. At the same time, sometimes the films with the least hype…
Dark Journey
Daniel Craig takes James Bond to new depths with the riveting Skyfall
For the past 50 years, James Bond has been jet-setting around the globe, bedding exotic women while saving England and the rest of the planet from nefarious ...
Flying High
Denzel takes on his most daring role as a drug-fueled pilot in Flight
Whip Whitaker is the kind of guy who lives life in a perpetual swagger. He sleeps with incredibly beautiful women, drinks people under the table and snorts&h...
The Sky’s the Limit
With Cloud Atlas, a team of struggling A-listers break free of career ruts via a transcendent tale
In a time when many movies can’t even make one story compelling for 90 minutes, the new film Cloud Atlas achieves the seemingl...
The War at Home
Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In paints the War on Drugs as a costly failure
I was reminded of Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In while driving home to Pasadena recently. The latest film by the New York-based…
The Role Of A Lifetime
With Argo, Ben Affleck solidifies his status as Hollywood’s hottest young director while giving us a thriller for our times
Some movies luck into being released at just the right time. Ben Affleck’s superb new historical th...
The Christian Crash
SoCal filmmakers take on the world Sunday with the surprisingly gritty Crossroad
David Dginguerian had a lot of things going well in his life: a successful marriage to a model and actress and a string of successful business end...
Do Overs
The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Looper take a look back at the past and the future
The Perks of Being a Wallflower depicts the lives of three social outcast high schoolers—a depressed guy, the reformed promiscuous girl he...
From Top To Bottom
The Master and Dredd 3D—the year’s best and worst films—hit theaters
It’s rare when a critic sees both the best and worst film of the year in the same day. But that’s how things played out last week, when I…
Talent Awakened
Comedian Mike Birbiglia proves he has plenty of other talents in Sleepwalk with Me
Some people really can “make lemonade out of lemons,” as the saying goes, by turning life’s setbacks into successes. Mike Birbiglia is suc...
Good Medicine
The Campaign provides the laughs America needs with stinging satire and sharp performances
With the two most divisive and partisan weeks of the year—the Republican and Democratic national conventions—behind us, we could all...
Analyzing the President
The controversial 2016: Obama’s America explores how Obama’s youth led to his current policies
In June 2004, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore released Fahrenheit 9/11, a devastating and comedic attack on incumbent Presid...
Breaking Away
Joseph Gordon-Levitt speeds toward stardom with Premium Rush
There’s a sense of excitement that comes from watching a young actor on the verge of superstardom. These days, that particular level of attention seems to be focuse...
Old Guys Rule!
Stallone’s The Expendables 2 is a dream come true for die-hard fans of ’80s action films
Anyone who enjoyed action films in the 1980s—perhaps the last great era of truly macho American heroes—often fantasized about what...
The Bourne Redundancy
Jeremy Renner stars in a franchise reboot, but Searching for Sugar Man offers audiences a truly tasty time
We live in an age where Hollywood loves to reboot its movies, especially when they’re blockbusters. Already this summe...
Sparking Interest
Indie rom-com Ruby Sparks has plenty to say between lots of laughs
Calvin Weir-Fields is a novelist who wrote an instant classic bestseller on his first attempt at a book at the age of 19. But for the past 10…
Battling the Dark
The Aurora theater massacre should not force us to give up our rights
“Where was Batman when we really needed him?”
That was the comment posted on Facebook by one of the victims of the last week’s massacre inside an&hel...
Originality Guaranteed
Two Alternative Films Offer Audiences a Break from Batman
This weekend, you could join the millions of people crowding into overpriced multiplexes to see the latest soulless superhero movie when The Dark Knight Rises hits the n...
Savage Ineptitude
Oliver Stone’s Savages drags viewers through the mud of America’s pot wars
Have you ever gone to a movie and felt like you needed a shower afterwards? I’m not talking about sitting in run-down, flea-bitten theater where 2...
Weak Webbing
The Amazing Spider-Man is really just average
There are few people more annoying than drunken storytellers who feel they have to top the story of the guy who talked before them. You know, the ones who say: “But wait! When&hel...
Proven Theory
Ted and two other films show that an auteur’s point of view is sometimes best
Far too many modern American films feel like they’re made by committee, bringing together a bunch of pre-tested story elements and viewer-appr...
Vid Kid
(Photo by Suzy Poland)
Vice Cooler gives punk rock an art house kick
Four pajama-clad teen girls frolic about the living room unaware that young men are watching from the window. The young vixens, laughing with playful abandon...
Never-Ending Neuroses
Even after directing 43 films, Woody Allen is looking for the answers to life’s biggest questions
At the ripe old age of 75, comic legend Woody Allen still has plenty of surprises up his sleeve. One big one has been…
Boy, How Childish
With That’s My Boy, Adam Sandler has a blast being a bigger kid than ever
When you’re the No. 1 comedy star on the planet, what moves do you make to stay on top? Do you play it safe and…
Back To Their Roots
In their new films, directors Ridley Scott and Wes Anderson return to brands that launched them
Nearly every great artist hits a dry spell at some point. For directors Ridley Scott and Wes Anderson, the dry spell in each of&hel...
This Movie Bites
Piranha 3DD sinks to new lows to bite into filmgoers’ wallets
There are some films that leave audiences with a sense of wonderment about how they were made. They look in awe at the screen and experience special effects, actin...
Three The Hard Way
Not as creative as its predecessors, MIB3 is just entertaining enough
It’s been a few years since Will Smith was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, with a new blockbuster released every July 4th weekend. His last&h...
