Three 15-year-olds spend their summer building a makeshift house in the woods and find themselves along the way in the coming-of-age tale The Kings of Summer. Back in 1979, my closest friends and I scoured the landscape to collect every type of building material we could get our hands on. The goal was to build […]

The new film Now You See Me starts off with a wonderful opening scene involving some great examples of the craft in a real-world setting. We meet four solo — but very talented — magicians who each use magic for their own personal gain until, one day, they’re compelled to come together for the biggest feat of […]

As a huge fan of magic, I couldn’t wait for Now You See Me after I saw the trailer. Here was an attempt to use magic in a heist film to pull off the robberies. If it worked, it would be brilliant. If it failed, it would fail brilliantly. Unfortunately, things are never quite as […]

When I was a kid, I loved magic and avidly studied any tricks and books that I could get my hands on. My only performances were for occasional, patient family members after dinner and my mother’s friend from down the street after church on Sundays. I’m not sure how he did it, but my father […]

Car chases and other stunts have always been one of the most exciting elements of motion pictures. From the moment that cars were available, filmmakers included them in their plots. This led to memorable scenes in films as varied as The French Connection, Back to the Future and Thelma & Louise. The series that began […]

Animated films seem to have fallen into a rut lately where they introduce characters only for the merchandise or otherwise forget that the film’s quality should come first. That’s not to say that they’re bad, but I expect more wonder and excitement from animated films because filmmakers can do so much in them that they […]

I’m annoyed when talented people destroy the essence of that which they created. You see it time and time again with books, films and computer/video games. I don’t just mean a sequel or new creation that doesn’t surpass the previous entry in a creative person’s resume. I mean such a product that strays too far […]

A heartless mob hit man plies his daily trade of death and dismemberment while also managing to keep his job a secret from his wife and two daughters in the true story of The Iceman. Richard Kuklinski was a monster the likes of which the world has rarely produced. Here was an individual who, due […]

Unfortunately, history almost always loses out to creativity when money’s on the line. That appears to be the case here.

There’s a reason that fan fiction is so enjoyable. When someone who loves an entertainment property creates his own story to add to the canon, it’s likely that it’s as good as if not better than other entries. As a fan of Star Trek, director J.J. Abrams rebooted the series in 2009 and still managed […]

Immigration is one of the hottest topics in politics in America today, and it will only gain prominence as Congress does nothing to address it and we enter another presidential election cycle. People are divided about this issue along racial, political and economic lines; it’s as important to some people as abortion. A documentary about […]

The cause of Latino-based American immigration is the focus of a new documentary based on the book from award-winning journalist Juan González entitled Harvest of Empire. Harvest of Empire comes along at an incredibly opportune time just as the United States government wrestles with the latest round of immigration reform. This documentary examines the root causes […]