EMPIRE is a nitty, gritty look at life on the mean streets of the wrong part of New York. Its message, crime doesn’t pay, isn’t a new one, but any film that proffers a moral compass is one worth paying attention to. Also worth paying attention to is co-producer John Leguizamo’s performance as Victor Rosa,… Read More »
TED
From the fertile and unconventional mind of Seth MacFarlane (FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD!) comes TED, the rude yet surprisingly sentimental tale of male bonding as played out by a boy, his magical teddy bear, and what happens when adulthood is thrust upon them. The biting wit and sophomoric sensibility of the writing is not a… Read More »
EASY MONEY (SNABBA CASH)
EASY MONEY is an ironic title for a sharply observed, tonally complex story of people who dont fall into easily definable categories. Money is the driving force in all their lives, but they are not all people who have sold their souls for it. There is nothing so cliché in this Swedish import starring Joel… Read More »
THIS IS THE END
THIS IS THE END is a ribald frolic of a film that willfully, gleefully skewers both film conventions and the cult of celebrity. As the world collapses into fire, brimstone, and anatomically correct demons, an inept band of well-known actors attempts to keep death at bay while the film careens through every horror fiick ever… Read More »
WE’RE THE MILLERS
The problem with seeing Jennifer Annistons name in the credits of any film is that there is little doubt that what will be seen is Jennifer Anniston. Not that she isnt a nice-looking woman, attractive without being threatening to either sex. Nor, from all reports, is she a bad person, as attested to by the… Read More »
SABOTAGE
I can’t fathom why when END OF WATCH was so dynamic, David Ayers directorial follow-up, SABOTAGE, is so inert. Where END OF WATCH had depth and energy, SABOTAGE is is rambling, and at times incongruous, as it unspools a set of stock characters dithering about in a cesspool of rubbery ethics and dogged determination. Perhaps… Read More »
GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’
I can see why this seemed like such a good idea. Jim Sheridan, a director who has made brilliant films about the strife and violence in Northern Ireland and has done so without becoming maudlin, put at the helm of a film that deals with the gangsta culture of violence in contemporary New York. The… Read More »
THE DEPARTED
With THE DEPARTED, Martin Scorsese has taken a good film, the Hong Kong minor classic INFERNAL AFFAIRS, and remade it into a movie that is as bloated as it is bland. Gone is the dramatic tension of a slick action flick, gone is the suspenseful psychological subtext that pondered the nature of identity, subsumed into… Read More »
A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS
With some films, the 3-D effect is tacked on to generate a few extra bucks at the box office. And then there are the ones like A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR 3-D CHRISTMAS. The wisps of smoke coming off those funny cigarettes so dear to the title characters hearts become prehensile as they float off… Read More »