Bad Teacher is a solid summer diversion; no more, no less. It will inevitably be compared to 2003’s Bad Santa, a superior and significantly edgier film that really went for awkwardness and black comedy. Bad Teacher has attitude, but it never feels like it wants to be truly “wrong.” This… Continue reading
Green Lantern is a loud, obnoxious, joyless video game that pretty much makes you want to write off superhero origin movies all together. The genre has become such a cash cow that studios now just assume that throwing a character onto the heap automatically guarantees a franchise. Warner Brothers may… Continue reading
The Hangover Part II is more of a remake than a sequel, and the more you think about it the sadder that thought gets. The glass half-full people will say, “well, even a lackluster sequel to The Hangover will be better than just about any other comedy this year.” They’re… Continue reading
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides represents the fourth entry in this unlikely series. Not bad for a series whose source material is a Disney theme park ride. They are, perhaps, the face of disposable, inconsequential summer films, but On Stranger Tides has the faint stink of a phoned-in… Continue reading
The Adjustment Bureau somehow successfully combines romance, comedy, and science-fiction into an elegantly woven tale of the lengths in which we’ll go to defy Fate to be with the one we love. It may sound heavy, but the film introduces just enough ideas to keep interest and provides just few… Continue reading
Let this be said right off the top: Rango is a visual masterpiece and one of the finest works of computer animation to date. Seen theatrically on a DLP projector, one can only sit in awe of the attention to detail, lush locations, and incredible textures. It’s all so amazing… Continue reading
I Am Number Four is being billed as a high-octane superhero movie. It does eventually become one in the third act, but it happens long after anyone could possibly care about the story, characters, or anything else in this teenybopper cross-pollination of every superhero film ever made and the Twilight… Continue reading
From the “guaranteed to depress” files comes Blue Valentine, writer/director Derek Cianfrance’s exhaustive dissection of a relationship from beginning to end. Put an accent on “end,” because the film spends much of its runtime wallowing in its own misery and piling catastrophe upon catastrophe. Where Cianfrance does succeed, however, is… Continue reading
By now you pretty much know the drill when it comes to Jason Statham action vehicles. He plays a largely charisma-free lead, usually a hit man or other stealthy dude, gets wronged in some way, and takes it out on, well, everyone and everything. The Mechanic, a remake of sorts… Continue reading
The Green Hornet represents a pretty big shot in the arm to the recent crop of self-serious superhero films. While those films like reflect on the problems of the times, The Green Hornet is really only interested in having fun, satirizing the genre, and packing in plenty of over-the-top action.… Continue reading