Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, May 31,2012

Intelligence and wit make a winning MIB 3

While Will Smith’s on-screen counterparts have defeated aliens, zombies, robots and drug dealers, the actor himself faces a far more threatening foe, that of irrelevance. Having graced the big s

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, May 24,2012

Expecting a big-screen sit-com

By Chuck Koplinski

The movies I hate most are those that play it safe, the ones that refuse to take any chances in their quest for laughs or tears. Boundary pushing is not for those who operate in this milquetoast terri

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, May 24,2012

Battleship

By Chuck Koplinski

One of the advantages of having low expectations is that you increase the possibility of being pleasantly surprised. Case in point, Peter Berg’s Battleship, a movie that upon seeing the trailer,

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, May 17,2012

Powerful message saves this Bully

By Chuck Koplinski

There’s plenty of blame and shame to go around in Lee Hirsch’s Bully, a flawed yet compelling documentary that puts our nation’s bullying epidemic under the microscope. Shot in 2010,

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, May 10,2012

Shadows too dim to see details

By Chuck Koplinski

I have some vague recollections of the Dark Shadows soap opera. I remember NOT being allowed to watch it, that whenever I did sneak a peak around the corner into the living room that there was always

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, May 3,2012

The Avengers, a rousing success

By Chuck Koplinski

Epic in scope and audacious in its execution, The Avengers is a product (make no mistake – it’s more product than film) that lives up to every promise Marvel Studios has made since they la

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, April 26,2012

Pearce wisecracks his way out of Lockout

By Chuck Koplinski

Though the credits in Lockout assure us that it is “based on an original idea by Luc Besson,” those with a rudimentary knowledge of genre filmmaking will immediately recognize its premise

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, April 26,2012

Lucky tripped up by Sparks

By Chuck Koplinski

I have a theory about adaptations of Nicholas Sparks’ novels. Give a script of any one of his novels to a budding filmmaker and if they can successfully make a movie from it, then that’s a

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, April 19,2012

Cabin turns horror genre inside out

By Chuck Koplinski

Since its release at this year’s SXSW festival, Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods has been steadily building buzz. The writer/director’s rabid fans have taken to the blogosphere t

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, April 12,2012

Tired Reunion a party to miss

By Chuck Koplinski

I want to state first that I am not a prude. I don’t mind a ribald joke or a filthy gag and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve laughed long and hard at the work of Mel Brooks, the Farr