Calvin Weir-Fields (played by Paul Dano) is potentially America’s next great literary wonder. He had the fortune (or misfortune depending on your perspective) of writing a beloved book with his first effort out of the gate at 19 years old. Now, several years later, he’s stuck with a seemingly endless case of writer’s block while […]

I’m just back from several weekends in Ocean City and finally caught a movie I’ve wanted to see for a while at the local Rave movie theater. The film is the independent documentary called The Queen of Versailles. The movie tells the story of the Siegel family; David, Jackie and their seven kids, dogs, assorted […]

The other film of the week is Woody Allen‘s latest endeavor—To Rome with Love. Here we get a tale that involves us in the story lines of several groups of people all centered around Rome. First there’s Hayley and her new Italian boyfriend Michelangelo (Alison Pill and Flavio Parenti) and her parents, Jerry and Phyllis (Woody Allen and Judy Davis) […]

Mark Wahlberg plays the straight man to his highly inappropriate, permanently immature childhood teddy bear in the CGI buddy film, Ted. Ted is the big-screen effort from small-screen impresario Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame (among others). That’s actually a good piece of information to know going into this film as Ted will feel extremely familiar […]

has some wonderful moments — but there’s just not enough meat in the middle.

Here’s a film we didn’t plan to see. My party and I were there to catch another film (Brave) when one of the people in the group suggested we see the new Woody Allen movie first and then see the other film making it a double-header. So, we went about getting tickets and found our […]

I love when you find a film entirely by surprise. I happened to be out taking a long walk around Philadelphia and needed a nice respite. That’s when we walked into one of the most popular art house theaters in town and decided to give this little known film a shot. The film is Your Sister’s […]

A magazine tracks down the mysterious poster of a strange advertisement regarding time travel in Safety Not Guaranteed. This is one of those surprising “can do” types of films that doesn’t seem like it has a chance only to keep snuggling up to your emotions and catching you by surprise time and again. Much about […]

I managed to catch the highly-anticipated Prometheus from Ridley Scott. This is, essentially, the prequel to his smash hit Alien. Scott has been a challenge for me. Much of his biggest films I’ve found lacking heavily—most often with regard to entirely silly plot points that flat-out make no sense. Thus, I tend to wait to see his films. Friends […]

I had another good weekend for movie-going catching two. First up was Headhunters, a Norwegian film that caught me entirely by surprise. Roger Brown is a player of the highest order. He’s clearly one of Norway’s top vocational headhunters finding talent for only the largest and most successful companies. He has a stunningly beautiful live-in girlfriend […]

It’s been a long time since we’ve last encountered the team from the Men in Black series. For the record, I marginally enjoyed the first entry and thought the second one was just awful. Obviously that doesn’t exactly set me up as a huge fan for the third offering in the franchise. That’s how I […]

Last weekend I managed to catch Jack Black‘s latest film, Bernie. It’s the story of a locally-beloved mortician from Carthage, Texas named Bernie Tiede who befriends a local and very rich widow, Marjorie Nugent (played by Shirley MacLaine). Nugent is known throughout the town as a tyrant of the highest order and she’s despised by virtually […]