A bright young Ivy Leaguer, in desperate need of tuition, turns to online gambling to raise the money but gets more than he bargained for in Runner Runner. Justin Timberlake plays Richie Furst, a Princeton student who’s as bright as they come but who doesn’t have most of the money to finish out the semester. […]
A protective father takes matters into his own hands when he comes to the realization that the police aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to help recover his missing daughter in Prisoners. Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and his wife Grace (Maria Bello) live a typical western Pennsylvania suburban lifestyle. They’re religious, conservative types who enjoy […]
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 […]
Two recently assigned London attorneys try to defend their client, accused of terrorism, and realize that all is not as it seems in the tense thriller Closed Circuit. An alleged terrorist is arrested and accused of being the mastermind behind a brutal bombing that killed more than 120 in the heart of London. Martin Rose […]
Eggs and soldiers is a British breakfast treat in which boiled eggs have the tops lopped off so that toast sticks (the “soldiers”) can be dipped in the runny yellow part. I never heard about this method of serving eggs until I saw it in a movie. Although it’s unusual to us Yanks, I would […]
New York’s crime-fighting high schoolers return with a vengeance in Kick-Ass 2. Three years after the original story, the heroes and chief villain have all had some time to grow up and evolve — for better or worse. Their efforts have paid off by empowering new would-be crime fighters to take up the cause and […]
I guess it’s a reflection on our society today that the original Kick-Ass had characters obscuring the large logo on the poster to not offend anyone, whereas there’s no attempt to cover up the movie name now. Also, there were numerous complaints about Chloë Grace Moretz’s age because of the language and violence of her […]
There have been a lot of disappointing movies in the summer of 2013 — especially comedies that ranged from awful to mildly hilarious. The standout comedy for me in recent memory is This Is The End. We’re the Millers entertained me almost as much as that romp. The sign of a great comedy is that you […]
A young, troubled father, struggling to finally put his life back together, is tragically killed by transit police in the true story of Fruitvale Station. Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) was returning from a night out with friends, enjoying San Francisco’s New Year’s Eve festivities for 2009. A fight broke out on the train that […]
The conflict between Jews and Arabs has been going on for so long that problems are just expected and dealt with on a daily basis in Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East. Such friction is made even worse when a trusted citizen becomes the target of hatred and prejudice after events that implicate him in […]
I was a big fan of Bridesmaids, and one of the main reasons was the out-of-control, wacky performance of Melissa McCarthy. When she’s on, she’s hilarious. When she’s off, you get something like Identity Thief. It’s strange that I’ve now discovered a movie where McCarthy fires on all cylinders and the movie still comes out […]
Sandra Bullock as an FBI agent and Melissa McCarthy as a Boston cop begrudgingly work together on a case that pushes them to turn up The Heat. Bullock plays FBI agent Sarah Ashburn — an agent with a personality as subtle as a brick and an ego to match. When a big promotion looms, she’s told […]