[6] Liam James stars as a shy fourteen-year-old forced to suffer summer vacation with his freshly-divorced mother (Toni Collette) and her nasty boyfriend (Steve Carell). While he waits for his mother to grow a pair and throw the bum out, the boy finds solace at a nearby water park where the bohemian manager (Sam Rockwell) gives him the confidence to come out of his shell. …
[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 of charisma and personality by Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, and Moises Arias. The film vacillates between awkward comedy and semi-drippy melodrama — a bit of …
[6] Michael Fassbender stars as a lawyer who reaps the whirlwind when he tangles with drug lords in this Ridley Scott film penned by author Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy’s screenplay will test the patience of many. It contains an abundance of two-person dialogue scenes — one after the other for the entire first half of the film. All the action, tension, and dramatic high points are …
[6] Taking a cue from the staged reality antics of Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Bruno), Spike Jonze, Johnny Knoxville, and director Jeff Tremaine team up for a slightly more scripted endeavor than their usual daredevil showcases. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa features Knoxville under old age makeup, playing a horny old widower suddenly charged with the care of his young grandson. The two hit the road …
[7] A police cadet (Hanno Koffler) nervously begins an affair with a fellow officer-in-training (Max Riemelt), throwing his marriage into disarray and inviting scorn from both his family and the police force. Gay dramas tend to be didactic and end in tragedy, and while this offering from Germany doesn’t fully avoid those pitfalls, it turns out to be better than most others of its kind. …
[8] Two con artists (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) get roped by an FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) into a scheme to bring down an earnest mayor (Jeremy Renner) and as many congressmen as possible. But when the mafia (headed by Robert DeNiro) get embroiled in the ruse, allegiances get dicey. American Hustle is from one of my favorite writer/directors, David O. Russell (Three Kings, Silver …
[6] While this is definitely a better movie than the first one, my attempt to enjoy it is still hampered by constant annoyance. First, the bad: This shit is still way too long. Dragging this story out into three movies is looking more and more like a fatal error. Then there’s the computer-generated imagery. I know I sound like Old Mister Wilson telling Dennis to …
[8] Disney’s Frozen borrows ideas from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen and follows closely in the footsteps of Tangled before it, but it’s also a bit more. For one thing, there’s an interesting sister dynamic at play here. One royal daughter, Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell), is the care-free sort, while the older daughter Elsa (Wicked‘s Idina Menzel) is born with a curse – …
[5] They were re-writing the script for Jack the Giant Slayer while they shot the movie, and it shows. It’s a bit of a hot mess. I’m a fan of director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) and I’m down to watch Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy, Warm Bodies) carry a film, but the film never hooked me. The only character who musters any emotional …
[3] Movies like this bring out the valley girl in me. So, like, I just don’t give a shit about Thor, okay? Watching a bunch of thee-and-thou types running around in nightgowns and armor is just silly, you know? And what is Anthony Hopkins’ problem in these movies? He’s like, Thor’s dad and the king and everything, but then he turns around and he’s all …
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