Draft Day takes on the challenging task of balancing the sports-nerd event that is the NFL draft with a story that the average, non-football fan can take in. The results are mixed, with the verbal battles between the general managers making for far better entertainment than the sappy and under-cooked… Continue reading
You know fun? Think the exact opposite of that and you’ll be in the right mindset for Sabotage, an exceedingly dreary and uninteresting revenge/whodunit that easily ranks as one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s worst films. Stripped of his larger-than-life persona and forced to play a grieving widower and leader of a… Continue reading
300: Rise of an Empire is pretty much the same lame video game as the first 300 film, but what this one has going for it is an occasional sense of a humor and a biting, entertainingly evil performance from Eva Green. She’s hands-down the best part of this monotonous,… Continue reading
Non-Stop features such a brilliant set-up that you spend most of the film wondering if it can pay it off. The answer is no. But for three-quarters of the run-time it is a taut, tense thriller that demands and keeps your attention. Once the Big Reveal is made, things go… Continue reading
Pompeii may have razor-thin characters and the least-convincing romance of the past few years, but one thing it is not is boring. As sort of a cross between Dante’s Peak, Gladiator, and Titanic, it blows up people and ancient architecture as efficiently as any disaster movie could. There are plenty of… Continue reading
The new RoboCop is a lot like the old RoboCop in that a lot of people are shot and killed. Whereas the 1987 film conducted its business with a sly, dark sense of humor and an ear for social commentary, this 2014 remake (or is it reboot?) plays everything with… Continue reading
There’s way more going on in The Lego Movie than initially meets the eye. This is a high-energy, smart, and surprisingly touching family film that truly delivers something for everyone – and maybe even more so for adults. What could have been nothing more than an annoying product placement film… Continue reading
“Damon, Murray, Blanchett, and Goodman are in? Well, then, our work here is done.” It seems more than likely that sentence or a variation thereof was uttered during the early stages of The Monuments Men, a dreary and largely uninteresting film about events that shouldn’t be dreary and uninteresting. A… Continue reading
20 Years Ago Having missed Ace Ventura: Pet Detective during its theatrical run in February/March of 1994 (some of my friends still haven’t forgiven me), I finally saw it in June on our annual family vacation to Siesta Key, Florida. I remember my brother and I perusing the shelves at… Continue reading
If you like bizarre, confusing tonal shifts wrapped around a sloppy, never-believable-for-a-minute story, look no further than Labor Day. A Lifetime movie with good actors, the film represents the first true misstep of writer/director Jason Reitman’s (Juno) career. This is one strange film, with melodrama that doesn’t dig deep, uncomfortable,… Continue reading