STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

(PG-13) 

Not quite boldly going where no sequel has gone before

After screening STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS I promptly went home and watched an episode of the original 1960’s TV series.  It was called “The Apple” and concerned the Enterprise crew visiting a strange alien planet where its denizens – primitive people with orange-tinged skin and little antennae protruding from their necks – worship an advanced machine that they believe to be a deity...

UPSTREAM COLOR (no MPAA rating) 

An unexplainable, indecipherable, and masterfully helmed sci-fi drama 

To write a review simply describing what occurs during the course of Shane Carruth’s UPSTREAM COLOR – his long awaited follow-up to his 2004 indie time travel film, PRIMER – is perhaps a supreme exercise in utter futility.  Maybe because, quite frankly, I did not quite fully understand what indeed was happening throughout it.  Carruth’s sophomore directorial effort is not a film that mechanically traverses from narrative point a to b and then to c,...

TRANCE (R) 

The enemy of my enemy is my...wait...I can't remember

Danny Boyle’s new psychological thriller TRANCE deserves worthy comparisons to INCEPTION for how it both teases and titillates us with its reality bending narrative.  Although not nearly as conceptually brilliant or grandly staged as Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film, TRANCE nonetheless scores huge points for being a stylish, sexy, well performed, and highly energetic crime caper that keeps you involved and guessing, even when it perhaps engages in one too many plot twists for its own good....

THE GREAT GATSBY  (PG-13) 1/2

Make that the decidedly so-so Gatsby

I can definitely see director Baz Luhrmann’s unending passion for the underlining material of THE GREAT GATSBY, which, of course, is based on the iconic 1925 novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  The novel – adapted to the screen far too many times to keep track – is considered one of the great American literary works about Jazz Age-centric wanton decadence and materialism while providing a cautionary message about the nature of achieving the American Dream via the unruliness of youthful ambition run amok...

MAMA  (PG-13) 1/2

IRON MAN 3  (PG-13) 

"You know, it's moments like these when I realize how much of a superhero I am."

When we last saw Stark - the former billionaire weapons profiteer turned metal clad super hero - he was flying in and out of an inter-dimensional wormhole with a nuclear bomb, thus saving all of New York from total annihilation from a hostile alien invasion in THE AVENGERS.  He made it out of that deadly encounter alive and just as arrogant and slyly motormouthed as ever, but now the engineering genius and filthy rich playboy has serious bouts with post-traumatic stress...

PAIN AND GAIN  (R) 1/2

A Michael Bay effort that leans a bit more towards pain and less towards gain

PAIN AND GAIN represents – at least as much as he would assure you – an attempt by director Michael Bay to work outside of his comfort window of massive destruction, wanton excess, extraterrestrial robots and screaming Shia Labeoufs.  Even though the film’s fact-based storyline and its theme of the madness of achieving the American Dream by any stupid means necessary are perversely engaging...

THE BIG WEDDING  (R) 1/2

You'll be thankful that you're not invited

At one point in THE BIG WEDDING Robert De Niro – in response to a thorny question – emphatically replies, “I’d rather gouge out my eyes with hot spoons.”  That rather blunt retort sums up what I'd rather do than see this film ever again.  Enduring THE BIG WEDDING is an awful lot like being forced against your will to attend the nuptials of people you loathe...

UPSIDE DOWN (PG-13) 1/2

A literally topsy-turvy fantasy of wondrous spectacle

There are so very few films these days that have a sort of audaciousness of spirit and a sense of limitless ambition.  UPSIDE DOWN is just one of those efforts.  Here’s a film that fuses together an ageless tale of forbidden romance, thanklessly strong visual effects, and a remarkably novel premise that certainly is unlike anything that I’ve seen before.  It would be very easy to pick apart the science at the heart of UPSIDE DOWN...

42 (PG-13) 1/2

A legendary baseball player gets a less-than-legendary film treatment

In 1946 there were 400 players in Major League Baseball.  All of them were white.  In 1947, that number was reduced to 399 because of the landmark appearance of Jackie Robinson, who became the first African American to play in the big leagues since 1884.  It’s impossible to overstate the historical significance of Robinson joining the Brooklyn Dodgers when he did, because it started a slow, but inevitable chain reaction in professional sports where more black players were able to cross color lines...

JURASSIC PARK 3D

(PG-13) 

The T-rex is now much closer than he appears 

I fondly remember my senior year in high school picking up a soft cover copy of Michael Crichton’s sci-fi novel JURASSIC PARK without having any idea what it was about, other than it involved dinosaurs in some capacity.  I devoured it in days, partially because I needed to for a Biology class presentation, but mostly because it was conceptually unlike anything I’ve ever read...

THE HOST (PG-13) 1/2

I'm a schizophrenic teenage alien from outer space...and so am I

If the intentions of the makers of THE HOST were to make an uproarious comedy, then the resulting film is a spectacular success.  However, I sincerely doubt that this was their prime goal.  The film comes from the literary mind of Stephenie Meyer (who penned the mega popular TWILIGHT novels, which in turn became an ultra popular film series) and was adapted to the big screen by the competent hand of writer/director Andrew Niccol...

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES

(R) 

STOKER (R) 1/2

Even Dr. Phil couldn't save this doomed family unit

STOKER is not your usual horror film in the sense that it places far more emphasis on being a cerebral experience by honing in on psychological dread.  Its whole macabre and deeply unsettling atmosphere is what sets itself far apart from other splattergorium efforts that mindlessly flail blood and gore at the screen.  It showcases a sad and dysfunctional family unit...

QUARTET (PG-13) 

An enjoyably lightweight dramedy that strikes predictable notes

QUARTET is a film of some odd and nagging contradictions.  It’s sweet natured, but slight.  It’s enjoyable, but disposable.  Its setting is unique, but has an aura of overt familiarity to it.  It’s resoundingly well performed, but by actors whom have all done considerably better.  Yet, there’s no denying that the film – which marks the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman, who has made an iconic name for himself as an actor for nearly five decades – has its inherent whimsical charms...

GI JOE: RETALIATION

(PG-13) 1/2

A near-two hour Hasbro commercial

Of all of the films that I’ve seen based on a very famous and much cherished Hasbro-made militaristic toy line from my childhood, G.I. JOE: RETALIATION is by far the worst.  It’s highly fitting, then, that this film is as lifeless as the original 3 and ¾ inch scale action figures of my innocent youth.  As a sequel to the slightly better and a bit more tolerable G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA from 2009, this film comes off even more this time as a mass marketed entity to shamelessly sell a product and familiar brand...

SPRING BREAKERS (R) 1/2

Girls gone wild...really, really wild

Judging by the film’s trailer and most of its advance advertising, SPRING BREAKERS looked like it was going to be yet another in a long list of beach party films where young swimsuit-clad people causally throw all of their inhibitions to the wind and engage in all sorts of unsavory behavior.  To be fair, the opening sections of writer/director Harmony Korine’s film does appear to offer just that: cheap and sensationalistic titillation...

ADMISSION (PG-13) 1/2

A romcom in need of an Ivy League script re-write

On paper, ADMISSION should have been a relatively home run.  After all, it stars two immensely likeable leads in Tiny Fey and Paul Rudd and was directed Paul Weitz, the same man that gave us the underrated IN GOOD COMPANY.  ADMISSION also contains an unendingly good premise that’s ripe for comedic exploration (the intensely competitive dog-eat-dog world of the top-tier college admissions process).  Unfortunately, all of the good will and great on-screen chemistry generated by the film’s stars is all for naught...

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (R) R) 1/2

John McClane would approve

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is one of the best DIE HARD films that does not have the words die hard in its title that I’ve ever seen.  To say that the film has a fleeting resemblance to the classic 1988 action thriller that has spawned countless inferior imitators would be a gross understatement.  Yet, the job of the film critic is to tell you (a) what the film is trying to do and (b) whether or not it succeeds at that.  OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is most certainly a DIE HARD clone, but it’s a copycat that’s done with a slick and consummate hand...

THE CALL (R) 1/2

Hello 911...I'd like to report a ludicrously plotted serial killer thriller

When THE CALL delves into the insular and stressful world of 911 call center operators, it’s a semi-involving and fascinating film.  When it glumly devolves into an ever-increasingly lame-brained and unintentionally funny serial killer/police procedural thriller, then it becomes a very hard pill to swallow...

PHIL SPECTOR

(No MPAA rating) 

A portrait of man who was definitely guilty of loving his own image too much

So very few in the entertainment business have attained so much in life only to fall so resoundingly far as much as Phil Spector did.  He was, for the uninitiated, a revered American record producer and sound designer that made many pioneering efforts in the latter that revolutionized the industry.  As a producer, there’s almost no one that he did not work with: he collaborated with everyone from Ike and Tina Turner to the Ramones to the Beatles (he produced “Let It Be”)...