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In post-studio Hollywood, any number of leading men have seen their career trajectory go south after a series of bad choices — and those choices almost always involved picking projects that paid well but were utter drivel.
“The movie was so raw. It was an absolute delight to see Michael so full of life and energy. As a grieving fan, I found the experience to be healing. The film reminds me that the incalculable loss we’ve experienced is somehow counter-balanced by the knowledge that his amazing spirit will live forever!” —
In an era when most mainstream films seem to have originated as TV shows, old movies or even action figures and board games, it’s no surprise that beloved children’s books are considered ripe for big-screen adaptations.
The cleaned-up remake is shinier, prettier and watches its language. No one even dances on top of a car...
The “Jennifer’s Body” star gets compared to Angelina Jolie but hasn't yet proved that she has Jolie’s level of talent.
Don’t be ashamed if you saw “Transformers 2.” And if you saw the new “Harry Potter” film it means you're a loyal friend.
Here’s a little, mostly spoiler-free, nowhere-near-complete primer for non-movie geeks to the many cinematic references in Quentin Tarantino's “Inglourious Basterds.”
“Mamma Mia!” did big business at the box office. Here's hoping that means we'll go back to a time when movies such as “Xanadu” filled the multiplexes.
The legendary actress isn't afraid to get silly, to throw something into her films for younger viewers and she doesn't shy away from high concept films.
I cracked somewhere around “50 First Dates,” that Drew Barrymore/Adam Sandler romantic comedy about how she’s got a weird specific love amnesia and can’t remember anything that happens the day after it goes down. It’s great news for him, of course, because he can use the same tired shtick over and over and she’ll think it’s awesome every single time. For the audience, it’s a reminder of what we already knew: Adam Sandler is never not Adam Sandler in any movie he’s in.
Johnny Depp has remained a box-office superstar (without losing his cosmopolitan-eccentric credentials) for so long now that we forget he once had to fight typecasting after beginning his career as a Tiger Beat pin-up. Remember? “21 Jump Street”? The pouting and the bangs and sassy-boy attitude that helped put the Fox network on the map back in the late ’80s?
First in “Borat” and now with “Bruno,” Sacha Baron Cohen has created his own genre. It’s a zany and outrageous hybrid of scripted and improvisational humor that could be called “Imposterisational Comedy.” In the formula, the lead actor purports to be someone else, a real-life filmmaker and visitor from another land who recruits unsuspecting folks to play along.
I just saw the remake of “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.” It’s mostly generic and tired, a standard-issue hostage thriller with two alpha leads yakking at each other nonstop in big close-up shots. Denzel Washington is the troubled hero who has to negotiate with manic subway hijacker John Travolta, each of them trying to get under the other’s skin.
There’s a theory of editing that goes back to silent cinema that says that the same expression on an actor’s face will be perceived differently by audiences depending on how it’s edited; when a movie cuts from the face to a plate of food, you’ll interpret it differently than if it the next cut was a dead body in a coffin. Same face, different context, different perception.
“Drag Me to Hell” defies all expectations and current practice in the almost-always disappointing world of the PG-13 horror film. That risible concept, the scary movie as family-friendly outing, gets a nose-thumbing from this new entry by “Evil Dead” guy Sam Raimi.
It’s not just the glasses they hand you in the lobby that give a three-dimensional quality to Carl Fredricksen, the curmudgeonly lead character of the new animated film “Up.” The film provides a wonderful flashback of his life, introducing us to a man who’s had a decades-long appetite for adventure although, like most of us, he sacrificed his dreams of globe-trotting for the day-to-day realities of career and family.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger made his ascent into elected office, many no doubt assumed that his retirement from show business meant the end of the “Terminator” series with which he will be forever associated.
It will come as something of a shock to persons of a certain age that this year marks the 25th anniversary of Tom Hanks’ ascension to screen stardom in “Splash” and, to a lesser but still important extent, “Bachelor Party.” And yes, I know, he appeared in the 1980 slasher flick “He Knows You’re Alone,” too, but it was only in retrospect that anyone noticed.
There’s a well-known curse in the “Star Trek” universe that simply promises every other movie comes up a winner. Even-numbered films are heralded as action-packed fan favorites, while odd-numbered efforts go down as cringe-worthy failures.
Behold the era of the retro reboot, where nothing is sacred. There’s no beloved film or television series that can’t be polished and repackaged for a big screen do-over. There’s a new “Robocop” in the works, a fresh-faced “Karate Kid” on the way, and of course, this Friday, a reimagined version of the original “Star Trek” crew beams into theaters.
A conflicted antihero, virtually indestructible thanks to a skeleton generously coated in an adamantium metal, is the main attraction in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” and the stuff of badass comic book-to-big screen legend. Wolverine fights for the good guys while wrestling his inner demons and making mincemeat of anyone who stands in his way.
For one day last year I got to be “17 Again,” like the main character in the movie of that title. OK, I didn’t really go back in time, but I did unexpectedly spend around 24 hours in the mindset I had at that age.
Statistics tell us that there are 0.2 malls for every 1,000 people in the United States; that’s equivalent to the per-capita numbers for restaurants, which must mean that shopping has become as vital as eating to Americans.
It’s unlikely that Philip Seymour Hoffman could put you in a sleeper-hold. Judi Dench is probably not very good at lifting opponents into the air, helicopter-spinning them around and bodyslamming them to the ground.
In “I Love You, Man,” Paul Rudd plays a newly engaged guy who has no male friends for his half of the wedding party. The solution involves a series of “man-dates” that end in mixed messages, gay misunderstandings, awkwardness and public brawls.
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