Given that it seems like a blank screen and a couple of loud roars would make any Godzilla movie superior to 1998’s Roland Emmerich debacle, one would think the cards would be stacked in director Gareth Edwards’s favor to bring the iconic monster back to the big screen with success.… Continue reading
Terminator 2: Judgment Day was my very first R-rated film. I remember, as a 10-year-old, watching it at a friend’s house. My Mom was none too pleased to find out I had seen such a violent film. For me, it was like Christmas. Even without fully understanding the finer details of… Continue reading
If you’re in the hunt for beautiful, touching, and emotional movie music, 1997’s Face Off original score would seem an unlikely starting point. Known primarily for director John Woo’s signature ballets of violence and an over-acting clinic by stars John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, Face Off did moderately well at the box… 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
How rare it is to see something that you’ve never seen before. Spike Jonze’s Her takes the romantic comedy/drama genre, one desperately in need of a genre-buster, and turns it upside down with one of the sweetest, most heartfelt films to come along in quite some time. In an era… Continue reading
Gravity is unlike anything you’ve ever seen, and in today’s Hollywood that really resonates. Most movies I have seen before, and most movies you have seen before. There’s no doubt that variations of the film’s bare-bones story have been done before, but writer/director Alfonso Cuaron, in his first directorial effort… Continue reading
Safety Not Guaranteed is a charming Indie project with an original story and plenty of laughs. If it has a flaw, it’s that it’s actually so charming that it never truly dives into the heavier themes that it presents. Nevertheless, it leaves you thinking about the consequences of our actions… Continue reading
Billed as a high-concept actioner, Looper is really more a high-concept drama. It works on both levels, but still runs into many of the same plot-hole traps that other time-traveling films encounter. At the same time, there’s something to be said for a pretty original story (remember those?) that poses… Continue reading
Frankenweenie sure feels like a deeply personal film for Tim Burton, the world’s favorite outsider director. It is, after all, a touch-up of his 1984 short film of the same name. This one comes up with the full Disney works: 3D, stop-motion, and daring black-and-white (I can only imagine the… Continue reading
The return of the viral outbreak film has been a long time coming (there hasn’t been one without zombies since 1995’s cheeky Outbreak), and Contagion is a damned good one. Feeling chillingly realistic throughout, director Steven Soderbergh and an all-star cast deliver a tense, first-rate thriller that will have you… Continue reading