Chris Evans in Snowpiercer. Joon-ho Bong’s Snowpiercer is the sort of film in which the director asks you to buy into his premise and trust that the trip he’s taking you on will be worthy of your time. To be sure, it’s the sort of movie that can be picked apart if everyday logic was […]
Movies
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Earth an echo of other better films
A scene from Earth to Echo. When does a film, obviously inspired by another, segue from being a homage to a blatant rip-off? If a story has a similar plot but some narrative changes, is it considered a variation on a theme or is it really the work of someone with little imagination? I think […]
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Too not everyone’s cup of tea
Romany Malco, Michael Ealy, Gary Owen and Kevin Hart. Film critic Gene Siskel once put forth the notion that reviewing comedies was a useless exercise. He felt that comedy was a subjective genre and that while he might think something was funny, others might not be amused at all and vice versa. I think there’s […]
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Two guys make a movie
Cast and crew of Seriously Trippin’ from left: Martin Miller, Kammy Robinson, Gabe Owusu, Tanesha Morrison, Ozland Banks, Talina Spencer, Shawn Williams, Mario Taylor, Fontaine Krushall, Eik Williams, Daton Vaughn, Bian Parga, Rodney Haley. PHOTO BY PATRICK YEAGLE Springfield resident Ozland Banks has been independently shooting videos and doing graphic design work for years but […]
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22 Jump Street
Jonah Hill as Schmidt and Channing Tatum as Jenko in 22 Jump Street. PHOTO COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES Mismatched partners, police officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) have been handed a ridiculous assignment – they’re to enroll as college students in order to track down the source of a fatal drug that’s sweeping the […]
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Tomorrow stumbles
Tom Cruise as Major William Cage There’s no question that Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow is a solid one hour and 40 minute movie. Too bad it runs one hour and 53 minutes. Smart, funny, exciting and thought provoking, like all good science fiction should, the film delivers everything you could want and more from […]
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Blended a familiar concoction
Drew Barrymore as Lauren Reynolds and Adam Sandler as Jim Friedman in Blended PHOTO COURTESY WARNER BROS. PICTURES As funny as it sounds, I held out a modicum of hope for Blended. After all, two of Adam Sandler’s more successful films, The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates, also co-starred Drew Barrymore and there’s no […]
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Manic Spider-Man 2 nothing but a blur
One gets the impression that director Marc Webb knew he was going to have a hard time squeezing in everything that was in the script for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. After all, there must be some reason why the film starts with an action sequence, progresses directly to another and proceeds to pile one breathless […]
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Pace and plotting nearly undo The Other Woman
Kate Upton, Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann in The Other Woman. Photo courtesy 20th Century Fox I understand the appeal of films like The Other Woman. They are to women what action flicks are to men – overwrought fantasies meant to provide a cathartic release for the audience. Then again they might exist as a […]
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Transcendence wastes its vast potential
Some films go out of their way to have their plots act as a metaphor for the action on screen. Case in point, the recent horror film Oculus, about an evil spirit that lives in a mirror, sports a story that puts together scenes from the past and present in such a way that they […]
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Pace undercuts Heaven
Greg Kinnear and Connor Corum in Heaven is for Real. “Pillar of the community” and “salt of the earth” are the kinds of things you’d use to describe Todd Burpo. He belongs to his town’s volunteer fire department, is a loving father and faithful husband and has no problem practicing what he preaches, which is […]
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Oculus a clever exercise in low-budget horror
Following the maxim, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Blumhouse Productions continues to adhere to the formula that’s made it one of the fastest growing, small production arms in Hollywood. Sticking to budgets of $5 million or less, offering profit participation to lure the occasional name actor and aggressively promoting their modest horror films, […]
