Jodorowsky’s Dune (2014)

Jodorowsky’s Dune (2014)

[8] "For me, movies are an art. More than an industry. As essential to the human soul as painting, as literature, as poetry... Movies are that for me…" Like Lost in La Mancha, a chronicle of Terry Gilliam's ill-fated attempt…
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

[7] This sequel taps into two powerful currents of audience identification: the love between parents and children, and the love between people and animals. You can approach these with cloying calculation, as many family films do, or you can attack…
Maleficent (2014)

Maleficent (2014)

[7] Angelina Jolie headlines in this pleasantly surprising revisionist version of Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Jolie plays Maleficent, the dark fairy villain of the original fairytale. But in this new version of the story scripted by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the…
A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

[6] Seth MacFarlane (creator of The Family Guy) both directs and stars in this send-up of the American Western. MacFarlane is plenty charismatic to carry a movie and he has great chemistry with leading lady Charlize Theron. Even though her character…
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

[8] X-Men: Days of Future Past brings back most of the cast from the Bryan Singer films (X-Men and X2) and merges them with the cast of Matthew Vaughn's First Class for a storyline involving time-travel and the mutants' desperate…
Godzilla (2014)

Godzilla (2014)

[7] I'm always on the lookout for a good monster movie, and Godzilla is one of the most legendary monsters in movie history, right? But he's still not a sure thing. We all remember the Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich…
Neighbors (2014)

Neighbors (2014)

[6] A college fraternity moves in next door to a married couple with a new baby. Shenanigans ensue when the two households try everything they can think of to get the other party to move. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne…
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

[7] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was better than I was expecting. Unlike nearly all the Batman movies, the Spider-Man movies -- both the Sam Raimi ones and these new ones from Marc Webb -- succeed in keeping the hero upfront…
X-Men: First Class (2011)

X-Men: First Class (2011)

[8] I'm honestly pretty sick of superhero movies, but I still have a soft spot for the X-Men. Director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Layer Cake) reinvigorates things with First Class after a couple of less-than-stellar entries in franchise. The plot moves…
The Kings of Summer (2013)

The Kings of Summer (2013)

[7] Three teenaged boys run away from home and build a house in the woods where they live off the land, experiment with facial hair, and let a pretty young girl come between them. The boys are played with plenty…