Past Stories
Skip This Trip
Scares and chuckles cancel each other out in The Cabin in the Woods
Sometimes you can be too clever for your own good. If only the filmmaking duo of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard remembered that before they teamed up…
A Fish Called Blah
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen goes belly up
Man, if that title doesn’t get your blood pumping, nothing will! Kidding aside, the actual concept of salmon fishing in the Yemen is the most intriguing aspect of Salmon Fishing in t...
To Party Or Not To Party
American Reunion and Damsels in Distress offer two different ways of living
It’s an irrefutable law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That fact doesn’t apply just to physics and the movement of obje...
Funny Fairytale
Mirror Mirror is not just the fairest, but maybe the most entertaining movie of the year so far
What’s a parent with young children to do this weekend, as every moviegoer in the world will seem to be lining up…
Hunger Satisfies
Worldwide blockbuster novel comes to cinematic life through top-notch acting and filmmaking
Arnold Schwarzenegger has become famous in several different life arenas: as a world-champion weightlifter, an international cinema sup...
Say What?
A Thousand Words and Casa de Mi Padre get the comedic message across
Ever since the fall of the Tower of Babel, when the Bible tells us an angry God forced mankind to speak in different tongues, people have been…
Stuck In The Middle
Despite a virtual cast reunion, Friends with Kids is no Bridesmaids
If you’re in your late 30s or older, chances are you’ve dealt with some of the thorniest questions an adult can face: Will I find my soul mate? Do…
Raunchy Road Trip
There are some fundamental questions we all face in the current bad-economy, fast-paced times we live in: Is it better to live in the city or country? Will you be happier working for a lot of money or for a…
Silence is Golden
No matter who wins actual Oscars Sunday, the biggest winners are likely to be home audiences, who will be able to enjoy Billy Crystal as host for the first time in a decade. But having one of the greatest hosts…
Ain’t no Sunshine
There have been plenty of great screen comedy teams—from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello to Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. Now Greg Kinnear and Alan Arkin are trying to stake their own place in that exalted lineage by...
Super Scary
Ever since The Blair Witch Project blasted into the American moviegoer consciousness in 1999, en route to a $150-million gross built upon a mere $30,000 budget, the genre of “found footage” films has provided some pretty in...
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Quiet
The Academy Awards will always have several hit movies as Best Picture nominees, as well as a few films that haven’t yet caught on with the public.
This year’s two smallest Best Picture nominees are a pair of films that&he...
Lost
What if you knew you were going to die today, due to circumstances far worse than you’d ever imagined? Would you rage at the heavens or scoff at the idea of God? Would you humble yourself in prayer and thank…
Hellacious Heroine
Picture a tall brunette who is a whiz at performing secret missions and capable of kicking the behind of any man who crosses her path. Perhaps you’re thinking that I’m writing about Lisabeth Salander, the heroine of The Gir...
Sing Your Song
Some might go to see Sing Your Song out of nostalgia for a man who captured the hearts of men and women everywhere during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.
But this candid movie about singer/actor Harry Belafonte is not as…
Pushing the Envelope . . . Off a Cliff
It’s always strange to consider the movies released around Christmas time, as they veer to two extremes: Either they’re fun family escapism, or they’re emotionally draining “serious” fare begging for Oscar attention. ...
Adventures in Journalism
Back in 1982, Steven Spielberg tapped into the mindset of childhood so perfectly with his film E.T. the Extraterrestrial, that the film became what was then the biggest box-office success of all time. And through the rest of th...
Achieving the Impossible
For the past six years, Tom Cruise has been on a seemingly impossible mission: to reclaim his former status as the most popular movie star on the planet. For after a 20-year run of hits ranging from Risky Business to…
Late Lessons
Growing up is hard to do, and the new movies Young Adult and The Sitter offer two different looks at that awkward stage from opposing perspectives and wildly different tones.
In Young Adult, Charlize Theron plays Mavis, a gho...
A Welcome Gift
Watching your wife get knocked into an irreversible coma by a freak accident has to be one of life’s most unimaginable horrors. But in The Descendants, George Clooney plays Matt King, a Hawaiian real estate mogul who has to d...
A Boy Out Of Time
After a four-decade career, in which he directed countless elaborate murders and double-crosses on film, Martin Scorsese could be expected to want a change of pace. But nearly everyone in Hollywood was surprised by his choice f...
Muppet Magic
Most of the favorite things of our childhood fade into the recesses of our minds, as new toys and trends come along to attain mass popularity with a new generation. These days, most popular toys and trends fade from popularity&...
Gods Among Men
There are some figures in history that rise to the level of gods among men, and in American history, J. Edgar Hoover was one of them. Rising to the top of the powerful Federal Bureau of Investigations by the age…
Murphy Steals The Show
There are few actors in Hollywood history whose careers have been as utterly confounding as Eddie Murphy’s. Exploding onto the big screen from a three-year stint as one of the most wildly talented people ever to emerge from...
Time To Shine
Sometimes people you’d least expect to be movie stars surprise you.
In the case of Elizabeth Olsen, for instance, it would be easy to scoff at Olsen as the coattail-riding little sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen of Full H...
Doubly Devilish
In an era when far too many Hollywood movies are high-budget train wrecks heavy on spectacle and light on relevance, two films opening this week do a terrific job of demonstrating that good storytelling always results in an ent...
Man of Mystery
There are certain people whose exploits or accomplishments are so colorful they pass straight from reality into the realm of legend. Often, those legendary figures are outlaws who disappeared before they could be brought to jus...
Gunning For God
It’s a blazingly hot and humid day in the rural small town of Albany, Ga., in June 2010, and Ken Bevel is having a very hard day. He’s been carjacked repeatedly, each time jumping onto the driver’s side door of…
