Jungle Cruise presents both adventure and constant danger at a level much higher and more engaging than the work of even the best Disney skippers.

They were as synonymous with America as apple pie and baseball. No band in American history has had more songs on the music charts than The Beach Boys. Their upbeat melodies and distinct vocal harmonizing would often mark the dawn of summer for an entire nation. For all of their success, their history had almost […]

Disaster movies are an entirely different breed. In most cases, they are over-the-top special effects showcases where the goal is to see how much destruction they can cram into the running time. Unfortunately, special effects are getting cheaper and more prevalent, so today’s disaster movies show no restraint. San Andreas is such a movie. It […]

A determined L.A. fireman struggles to save his endangered family in the earthquake thriller San Andreas. Just below California’s beautiful coastal cities lies a restless sleeping giant capable of reducing its towering skylines to a hulking mass of twisted wreckage with one fatal blow. Should the giant awake, in the form of a long-overdue earthquake, […]

Marvel‘s venerable web-slinger returns to protect the city from Electro, the Green Goblin and OsCorp in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I grew up with what’s called “Retro Spider-Man” — an animated series that originally ran from 1967 to 1970. Even with its occasionally outrageous plots and rather low-quality animation, every kid in the neighborhood was a huge […]

Iconic studio head Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) needs all the magic he can muster to win the screen rights to Mary Poppins in Saving Mr. Banks. The classic tale of the magical title character comes from a series of best-selling stories by English author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson). Mrs. Travers (as she insisted on being called) […]

Slavery has been addressed by so many movies and television shows over the years. Many of those stories have their origin in books, as in Roots, while others are entirely fictional and original, as in the recent Django Unchained. It’s rare for a seemingly new story to be unearthed and adapted into a movie. Such […]

A free black man from New York is kidnapped and sold into slavery in 12 Years a Slave. Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an avid violinist, is living with his wife and young children in 1841 when he’s offered a compelling musical opportunity in Washington, DC. Eager for any chance to better their position in life, […]

One of the worst three-day periods in the history of our country is recounted when a local hospital gets the unbelievable call to treat a mortally wounded president in Parkland. A part of our country died along with a fallen president in November of 1963. It left an indelible mark on our history and anyone […]

The term “The Ides of March” refers, in modern parlance, to an impending doom. It’s most common use is in the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar who recounts a seer warning Caesar in advance of his assassination to “beware the Ides of March.” In that case it was simply a reference to the middle of […]