Back in the 1980s when director John Badham was working steadily, his projects were usually credited as “A John Badham Movie,” with the more casual “movie” replacing the more formal (and common) “film.” This Means War is exactly that same type […]
Continue reading »Category: Recent Releases
Big Miracle (2012) ✰ ✰ ✰
If you’ve seen the preview for Big Miracle, you know what to expect: an earnest, tear-jerking, heart-warming story of people coming together to save a trio of gray whales stranded in the Arctic. The movie delivers that much, and a […]
Continue reading »Red Tails (2012) ✰ ✰ ½
This fictionalization of the history and legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen is a very controversial movie, it seems. Red Tails joins the Airmen as a unit stationed in Italy, bypassed for important missions and on the verge of being canceled. Need […]
Continue reading »Chronicle (2012) ✰ ✰ ✰ ½
I suspect that, whether they would admit or not, most people over the age of, say, twelve, are sick of superhero movies. There have been too many over the last fifteen years, and way too many of them have been […]
Continue reading »Man on a Ledge (2012) ✰ ✰ ½
A lightweight heist movie, Man on a Ledge almost works well enough to unashamedly recommend, but not quite. Its final act brings to an abrupt end all the loose threads of its intriguing characters and stories, resulting in a tapestry that, […]
Continue reading »The Grey (2012) ✰ ✰ ✰
I’m not sure I would ever want to see it again, or at least any time soon, but I think Joe Carnahan’s outdoor survival saga, The Grey, is pretty good. It is appropriately rugged, and bloody, and downbeat. It is […]
Continue reading »Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
When I wrote my book about Korean War movies, I grew to accept the dictum that Hollywood, generally, is about five years behind the times, that it takes about five years to gain the proper perspective to make movies about […]
Continue reading »One for the Money (2012) ✰ ✰ ½
I enjoyed the book more, yet the film version of the initial Stephanie Plum adventure is not bad. Katherine Heigl quickly becomes comfortable in the role and isn’t hesitant to allow Plum to act foolishly or talk too much. Plum […]
Continue reading »Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
I have liked many of John le Carré’s espionage novels, which chronicle in exhaustive detail the intricacies of how international spycraft is truly manifested. Le Carré’s books are long, and somewhat difficult to initially penetrate, because they are so filled […]
Continue reading »The Iron Lady (2011) ✰ ✰
Other than the performance of Meryl Streep as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” of the title, and a superb makeup job in getting Streep to look gentrified, this apologetic look at Thatcher’s rise to power in […]
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