A struggling 14 year-old finds solace and support at a local water park in the coming-of-age film The Way, Way Back. In the 1979 film Meatballs, Bill Murray‘s character (a camp counselor) says to a new arrival, “You must be the short depressed kid we ordered.” That film was another coming-of-age story involving another disconnected […]
Gru and family return for a sequel to the 2010 smash-hit original in Despicable Me 2. In the new installment, Gru has given up his evildoing aspirations in order to focus on being the best father he can be for his three girls — Margo, Edith and Agnes. Unfortunately, his evil past means he’s also the best […]
Many moons ago, kemosabe, Will Smith was the talk of the trail as he dominated the Fourth of July movies with Independence Day and then Men in Black. Greedy producers thought that they could produce the same magic once again, and they pushed their luck with a Western called Wild Wild West. Similarly, the folks […]
William Shakespeare‘s classic comedic play is reimagined by Joss Whedon in the latest version of Much Ado About Nothing. This famous tale has been the inspiration for countless romantic comedies over the years while the main play itself was adapted for the screen in 1993 by Kenneth Branagh. This time around, Joss Whedon of Buffy […]
The conflict between Jews and Arabs has been going on for so long that problems are just expected and dealt with on a daily basis in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East. Such friction is made even worse when a trusted citizen becomes the target of hatred and prejudice after events that implicate him in […]
I was a big fan of Bridesmaids, and one of the main reasons was the out-of-control, wacky performance of Melissa McCarthy. When she’s on, she’s hilarious. When she’s off, you get something like Identity Thief. It’s strange that I’ve now discovered a movie where McCarthy fires on all cylinders and the movie still comes out […]
Sandra Bullock as an FBI agent and Melissa McCarthy as a Boston cop begrudgingly work together on a case that pushes them to turn up The Heat. Bullock plays FBI agent Sarah Ashburn — an agent with a personality as subtle as a brick and an ego to match. When a big promotion looms, she’s told […]
Backup singers are often overlooked in rock music. You’ve heard their work on records or live, but unless they get to vocalize a little more than normal in a song, they blend into the background. Because of the early influence of Motown and the blues in rock music, many of these background singers were black […]
Channing Tatum as a would-be Secret Service agent and Jamie Foxx as the President in need of protection star in the new action film White House Down. This action thriller starts off a bit story-heavy by introducing us to John Cale (Tatum), a U.S. Capitol cop trying to make the leap over to the Secret […]
Brad Pitt looks to save his family and, reluctantly, the rest of humanity from a new pathogen that turns the infected into bloodthirsty zombies in World War Z. Speaking of reluctance, I’ve never been a big fan of zombie films. I’ve generally found them to be as mindless as the zombies themselves. There have been […]
A popular classic rock song’s lyrics rhetorically ask, “War. What is it good for?” It answers that by stating, “Absolutely nothing.” Well, one thing it seems to help is the documentary film industry. That’s certainly the case with Dirty Wars — a film from The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill. Scahill is no stranger to war or […]
The unoriginal plot meandered its way along like a stoned senior looking for a snack.