I really liked The Avengers, but there’s something inherently a bit dry about a group of self-important goody-goody characters. It’s the problem of Superman and Captain America (and yes, I know that Superman isn’t one of the Avengers. And never shall DC and Marvel overlap at the cineplex, alas). In fact, the only character who was any sort of relief from the tone was Tony Stark / Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr), but his was…Read More
The “sins of the father becoming the sins of the son” is the heart of The Place Beyond the Pines, and the story begins with ne’er do well circus stunt rider Luke (Ryan Gosling) learning that he has a baby boy. The mother, Romina (Eva Mendes) has kept it from him and lives with another man, Kofi (Mahershala Ali), who is everything Luke is not: stable, level-headed, and fiercely protective of his step-child Jason Luke…Read More
There’s little worse for a film critic than watching a perfectly good idea for a movie be bungled in its adaptation to the big screen. Limitless falls into this category, however, with a brilliant concept that ends up so sloppy and poorly written that it made me want to open my laptop and start writing a new script. The story is based on Alan Glynn’s novel “The Dark Fields” about a drug that rewires your…Read More
There are some movies that are good date films but are really “guy films”, then there are guy films that are really just for men and would most likely go down in the annals of bad dates if you, a guy, were to bring a gal with you. Yeah, that’s sexist, but think of The A-Team as the guy version of Sex and the City 2 and you’ll understand what I mean. Based on the…Read More
This is a guest review from my friend Steve Oatney. Generally, I run guest reviews of movies when the critic has a strongly divergent opinion to my own or when it’s a movie that I just know I’m not going to see (like a scary horror film or chick flick). Anyway, here we go! Having recently seen The Hangover, I feel I must start by telling you, I LOVE TO LAUGH! Having said that, The Hangover succeeded in…Read More