movie reviews

“They don't make 'em like that anymore!” That's what my old man always liked to say when we'd watch a black and white Hollywood classic. Sometimes he meant it as a sign of respect. Sometimes he meant it to mean, "Wow, that was super cheesy." George Clooney's 'The Monuments Men' goes right down the middle.

Quite frankly as misguided and problematic as the forlorn romanticism of Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 adaptation, not to mention as ridiculously self-serious, Stuart Beattie’s ‘I, Frankenstein’ isn’t even campy enough to be fun. Cut from the mold of the films in the ‘Underworld’ series, Beattie’s film similarly eschews the natural intrigue of the original mythology to pump it full of steroids and Hot To

A newlywed couple (Allison Miller and 'Friday Night Lights' star Zach Gilford) returns home from their honeymoon with an unexpected pregnancy, but as the husband documents their lives, the pair begin to notice that something isn't quite right with the baby. 'Devil's Due' is the latest entry in the found footage horror genre, and while it does have its fair amount of creative visual effects, the th

If you’ve recently watched Antoine Fuqua’s hard-bitten 2001 cop drama ‘Training Day’ and found yourself imagining what it would look like with a zippy comedic cast and a bizarrely convoluted plotline, Tim Story’s 'Ride Along' is the answer to your oddly specific cinematic dreams. For the latest round of big screen "good cop, bad cop, dumb cop," Kevin Hart and Ice Cube star as diametrical

Animated animals have long been used as cuddly, fluffy stand-ins for actual human beings and their fraught interactions, and director Peter Lepeniotis' 'The Nut Job doesn’t break from that tradition in the slightest, using the hungry inhabitants of a sunny park to frame up an allegory about political machinations and maneuvering. No. Really. That’s what 'The Nut Job,' an animated film about squirr

In the late 1950s, American bodybuilder Steve Reeves somehow ended up in Italy and made a cheapo production of 'Hercules.' It spawned an avalanche of knockoff strongmen films -- some starring Reeves, some featuring a rather malleable new character named Maciste -- and are just wretched examples of boring cinema that, for whatever reason, I ended up seeing quite a bit of as a little kid. But to an

There are a handful of extremely funny, laugh-out-loud moments in 'Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.' One happens early – the reveal that David Koechner now runs a cut-rate fast-food joint that saves money by serving fried bats (or, as he calls it, “chicken of the cave"). Another is a retread from the first film – a battle royale of news teams from various networks, but this time even more

There comes a time when we must stop kidding ourselves. These 'Hobbit' films – with 'The Desolation of Smaug' representing the shank of the trilogy – are not real movies. These are exploitation films for Tolkien nuts, for enthusiasts of the original 'Lord of the Rings' movies and for audiences so hungry for high fantasy they'll gobble up whatever is served to them and ask for seconds. As someone w

There is so much hair in 'American Hustle.' Christian Bale's disastrous comb-over/rug combo basically opens the film with a wordless monologue. Beneath that unnatural mop is the sharp mind of Irving Rosenfeld, a “from the feet up” con man making the leap from running legit (but boring) dry cleaning businesses to grifting down-on-their-luck rubes on bad bank loans. His operation starts taking off w

Sometimes great artistry comes from coloring inside the lines. Walt Disney Animation's newest film, 'Frozen,' does precious little to push the boundaries of narrative storytelling. Indeed, it is a quite predictable – might I even suggest formulaic - culmination of elements. While picking over the bones of a half-remembered Hans Christian Andersen story, 'The Snow Queen,' Jennifer Lee and Chris Buc