Cinemascoping

 “There’s this guy…” It’s been my experience that any time someone uses that phrase, trouble is in the offing.  That’s certainly the case in Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel that begins with a young lady in distress telling her ex about that guy, leading him down a sordid rabbit hole […]

All that trouble for this… I’m sure I’m not the only one who was hoping that Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogan’s The Interview would be, if not a groundbreaking classic, at the very least a film that took chances. Surely the movie would justify the international turmoil it had generated.  Alas, maybe there’s some irony […]

James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything is a noble endeavor, an effort to portray theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking’s refusal to be completely silenced by the debilitating neuromuscular disease that has ravaged his body while examining the unique relationship between him and his wife Jane.   Trailers for the film give the impression that it will follow […]

It comes as no surprise that Dumb and Dumber To was the number one movie at the box office during its opening weekend.  Fans have been clamoring to see more of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne’s antics for years and they proved their devotion as the film took in over $36 million during its first […]

So here we have it, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -Part 1, the final chapter in the saga of Katniss Everdeen, Suzanne Collin’s dynamic archer-turned-rebel who’s become a symbol of power for ‘tween girls across the country and an object of desire, if not a bit of fear, for adolescent boys everywhere. It’s so good to […]

I’m not sure who’s going to conquer the world first – Disney or Apple.  (If they ever merge and begin calling themselves Skynet then we’re all doomed.)  The Mouse House’s latest attempt to be all things to all viewers is Big Hero 6, an animated film based on a Marvel Comic that has a Pixar […]

 I’ve often wondered why directors attempt to follow in the steps of Alfred Hitchcock.  Having nearly singlehandedly created the paranoid thriller, modern filmmakers unwisely invite comparisons to the master’s work and they usually come out on the losing end, unable to build the sort of suspense or use the kind of intelligence found in such […]

Having lost 30 pounds before filming Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhaal has a reptilian appearance in the film.  It suits his character well as Lou Bloom is as coldblooded as they come.  A product of the alienating factors that are part-and-parcel of big cities, he’s fallen victim to his own worse qualities, becoming a sociopath, […]

If Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is nothing else, it is ambitious – ambitious with a capital “A” – to the tune of $165 million, a gamble so large that despite the director’s proven success at the international box office, his home studio Warner Brothers brought in Paramount Pictures as a partner to help shoulder the financial […]

David Dobkin’s The Judge is a movie that has one thing and one thing only on its mind – to make its star Robert Downey Jr. look good.  This should come as no surprise as this is the first film from the actor’s own production company.  Obviously the directive was “Make the boss shine and […]

Other than Sherlock Holmes, Dracula has graced the silver screen more than any other fictional character.  With that being the case, do we really need another movie featuring the cursed count from Transylvania?  Probably not, but seeing as how movie studios love going back to proven properties in order to see just how much more […]

We’ve all had them, those days when, not only do things go badly, but circumstances occur that are so outlandish, so catastrophic that we can’t possibly understand how they came to be.  These are the days where you not only wish you’d never gotten out of bed but when you start thinking back on past […]