Bullitt (1968)
[6] Steve McQueen stars as a San Francisco cop charged with protecting a mobster who is about to squeal for a US senator. When the witness is killed, McQueen works around the clock to discern the identity of the killers before the…
50/50 (2011)
[6] The title of this movie refers to the chances of survival for its main character, Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Adam's life and all his relationships are turned upside down when he learns he has cancer. I'm glad the movie is more about…
The Dance of Reality (2014)
[5] The Dance of Reality is the first film in decades from well-loved cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, The Holy Mountain). The film is a quasi-autobiography from the filmmaker, covering his childhood in a Chilean coastal town. Jodorowsky is played by…
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 to bring…
Abandon (2002)
[4] SPOILER REVIEW Within the first half-hour of Abandon, a police detective (Benjamin Bratt) asks an ambitious college student (Katie Holmes) about her missing boyfriend. The college student doesn't seem to care that her boyfriend is missing, so I immediately thought, hmmm...…
Decoys (2004)
[3] While trying to lose their virginity, two college guys discover some of the girls on campus are actually terrifying creatures from outer space. You're either going to like that summary or you're not. Decoys is a low-budget flick with respectable ambitions,…
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 them with…
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 Beast), she's…
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 is married…
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 attempt to…