Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a smashing comeback to the silver screen in the action-packed thriller, “The Last Stand.” Like many of his earlier roles—take the futuristic “Terminator” film series for example—this B-feature can be summed up by its title. Audiences can expect lots of gunfire, revved engines and clichéd one-liners that are dropped in at the end of violent scenes.
After...
In the aftermath of the tragic shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, Warner Bros. Pictures pulled “Gangster Squad” from a pre-Oscar release in September and shelved it; the then-controversial scene involving a theater shootout was cut and replaced in preparation for a low-profile release in January. Director Ruben Fleischer, after the breakout success of “Zombieland” in 2009, missed...
Director Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy) has brought us yet another epic with J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” Set 60 years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings,” it follows the story of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) and 13 dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard...
Let me make it simple for you and state now that the opening credits montage was without a doubt the best part of “Texas Chainsaw 3D.” This is largely due to the fact that the clips used in the montage were from the original “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” The hour and half or so of asinine monkeyshines that...
Anyone who has seen the first 10 minutes of “Inglourious Basterds” knows how talented Academy Award-winning actor Christoph Waltz is. The film’s success was not only owed to Waltz’s performance, but also to Quentin Tarantino’s legendary, stylistic filmmaking. Lucky for audiences, the two have teamed up once again, showcasing their talents in “Django Unchained.” This picture revolves around Dr....
Director Tom Hooper’s (“The King’s Speech”) adaptation of “Les Miserables,” starring Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, blows most other films of 2012 right out of the water in a display of incredible acting and risk-taking cinematography, topped off with a beautiful music score.
Based on the stage musical and Victor Hugo novel of the same name, the film...
I had very high expectations for director/screenwriter Andrew Dominik’s new film “Killing Them Softly” (based on the 1974 novel “Cogan’s Trade” by George V. Higgins). Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini and Richard Jenkins are but some of the few stars that shot my hopes for the picture to a skyscraping level. But in spite of Dominik’s résumé (“The...
It’s no secret that the Wolverine battle cry was muffled seemingly indefinitely when MGM Studios took a financial blow, crippling the “Red Dawn” remake’s theatrical release. The relatively unknown actors (or at least they were at the time) moved on to better things, and thank heavens we got to see Chris Hemsworth in “Marvel’s The Avengers” and “The Cabin...
Alfred Hitchcock was an iconic film director who transcended his own era of cinema, so it seems only right to make a movie about his career in the industry. “Hitchcock,” directed by Saicha Gervasi, is a well-crafted biopic based on Stephen Rebello’s book, “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho.” Academy-award winning actor Anthony Hopkins portrays Alfred Hitchcock, as...
It’s not often a historical film can make an old political figure seem vibrant and engaging in a modern sense. Though at times hindered by its pacing, director Steven Spielberg’s most recent film, “Lincoln,” captures the former president in a light that brings an urgent sense of immediacy to the issue of slavery in the 1800s.
The film begins in...