Dwayne Johnson is the star of Snitch, a new action/drama about a small business owner named John Matthews, who has to go to the extreme to get his son out of a very tight noose. When it comes to Johnson I have to continually wonder if I’ll ever see him in a film where I’m […]

Beautiful Creatures is a supernatural story involving two main characters—Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert) and Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich)—who are drawn to one another in more than the typical ways usually associated with love affairs. The supporting cast is top-notch including Jeremy Irons as Lena’s overprotective uncle, Emma Thompson as her mother, Viola Davis as the […]

The latest Nicholas Sparks novel to be filmed is Safe Haven. It’s another romance surrounded by elements that threaten an otherwise obvious love affair. I must admit that I’m a huge fan of The Notebook which has gotten me no shortage of curious looks from various friends but I still contend it’s a great love […]

On May 5th, 1993, three eight-year-old boys — Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers — were reported missing and later found hog-tied, naked and submerged in a local stream. Almost at once, the authorities knew this had all the telltale marks of a satanic ritual killing, and they arrested the most likely suspects — […]

A teenage girl in Nazi Germany is left to look after her younger siblings in the closing months of World War II in Lore. There are few subject matters that have been the focus of more films than the Holocaust. Countless films have covered the period from virtually every conceivable perspective to the point of […]

The first comedy of the new year is Identity Thief starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy. Bateman plays Sandy Bigelow Patterson, an every day kind of family guy from Denver who suddenly finds his world turned upside-down when “Diane” (McCarthy) steals his identity and starts exhausting his accounts and his sanity. It’s a recipe for a […]

Side Effects is the latest (and possibly final) film from director Steven Soderbergh. This effort brought me through a potpourri of feelings. I found it curious, compelling, dull, thought-provoking, thrilling, tense, sexual, smart and satisfying—in that order. This is not a film for anyone who has major issues with prescribed drugs as it starts off very […]

Christopher Walken, Al Pacino and Alan Arkin come together to star in Stand Up Guys. The story about a trio of old-time hoods revolves mainly around Doc (Walken) and Val (Pacino). Val’s been doing time for an accidental killing for the last 28 years and it’s his old friend and literal partner-in-crime Doc who greets […]

Zombie stories have been the same, more or less, from the dawn of their creation. We know zombies are dead humans infected by some apocalyptic virus leaving them in an undead state doomed to shuffle somewhat aimlessly around collapsing cities and towns forever on the lookout for one thing—brains. It’s mindless existence if it could be called […]

A retirement home for the musically gifted is the setting for a nearly-overlooked film that marks the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman (at a spry 75) in Quartet. The namesake group is played by Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly and Pauline Collins. The home is populated by some of the biggest names in musical […]

2012 has come and gone. The year, as seen from the vantage point of a theater seat, was a surprisingly remarkable one. I saw, in total, 54 films this year which is second only to the 58 I saw a few years ago. In fact, there were even a couple movies in there that I […]

When it comes to horror films I can be as stingy as ole’ Jack O’ Lantern. For me the best horror films need to go beyond the easy fright. They need to crawl beneath the skin and into the deep emotional psyche. That requires a solid, believable story line to go along with the creepy […]