We’re now in the midst of a glut of movies based on Marvel superheroes and other characters, and there’s no sign of it letting up. For comic book fanboys, this is great; for the rest of moviegoers, it may not be so exciting. I’ll cross my fingers that things don’t decline to the point that there’s […]
A young boy is chosen to be a top military strategist in a battle to save the future of Earth from the onslaught of an alien race in Ender’s Game. Orson Scott Card‘s beloved sci-fi best seller is brought to the big screen for the first time. It’s the story of young Ender Wiggin (Asa […]
A senior yachtsman, sailing solo across an unforgiving ocean, comes face to face with his own mortality when trouble strikes his lonely boat in All Is Lost. Robert Redford plays an unnamed solo seafarer who pilots a 39-foot yacht across the Indian Ocean. He awakens one morning to find the ship damaged by a collision […]
A high-tech prison break professional takes on his latest client only to find out that, this time, it’s not just another job in Escape Plan. Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is a dour security expert who literally wrote the book on breaking out of prisons. His company gets him set up with an alias fit for […]
When I first heard about Gravity, I joked about it and thought that it could never work. An entire movie of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney floating around in space?! No way! Would it be a disaster or a triumph? As I always do, I withhold judgment until I actually see a movie — no matter how […]
A space shuttle crew effecting repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope is bombarded by space debris, leaving them helpless in the vacuum of space in Gravity. It’s the most hostile environment known to mankind. Without extensive protection, humans wouldn’t be able to survive in it for even a few seconds. That harsh environment we call space […]
Two radically different race car drivers clash on and off the track during the 1976 Formula One World Championship season in the new Ron Howard film Rush. Race car drivers are a unique breed. That was never more evident than the 1970s when the top speed of race cars advanced more quickly than the drivers, teams […]
Race car drivers are often overlooked as athletes because many people think that they merely drive around in circles for hours. They don’t realize that racers endure incredible discomfort from the heat and track conditions, experience injuries as a result from strongly holding a jerky steering wheel for hours and deal with the occasional crash. […]
Vin Diesel first entered the consciousness of moviegoers with Pitch Black (2000) and The Fast and the Furious a year later even though he had small roles in Saving Private Ryan and Boiler Room. Diesel knows how to give back to his fans and doesn’t snub his nose at the movies that propelled him to […]
A washed-up race car driver is forced to drive haphazardly around Bulgaria in order to help save the life of his kidnapped wife in the action film Getaway. Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke), living abroad in Bulgaria, returns home one day to find his apartment in shambles and his wife missing. Suddenly, his cell phone rings […]
A group of childhood friends reunites to complete an unfinished epic bar crawl from their youths only to find their path blocked by alien robots in The World’s End. Gary King (Simon Pegg) hasn’t ever been able to come to grips with getting older. Once the charismatic leader of his group of friends, it’s now […]
Pub crawls are a rite of passage for many young adults as they turn the legal drinking age or otherwise want to mark a special occasion. I went on two such crawls in my senior year of college at Villanova University right before graduation. We did an impromptu private crawl in which there were no […]