Film serves up humor for audiences young and old


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In a city that has perfect weather, sometimes you just want it to rain. But when it does, it is not typically in the same fashion as in the animated film Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. The action-packed film, based on the children’s book of the same name, tells the story of a weather […]

Film evens out melodrama before it all goes Bad


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It takes a confused director to make a film like I Can Do Bad All By Myself. Tyler Perry, who is the world’s most bankable drag queen as the legendary and legendarily crass old woman Madea, seems to be just that type of person. Perry, the famous filmmaker whose review-proof films are consistent hits within […]

Doc uncovers man behind Mickey Mouse empire


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We live in a time when Walt Disney’s name is linked to everything from theme parks to mouse ears. But people often forget that the name belonged to a true artist and a man who worked hard — and imagined even harder — to lay the building blocks of what has now become a magnificent […]

Performances shine despite lackluster direction


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A seemingly happy marriage of more than 20 years ends with an adulterous wife who disappears, leaving her loving husband to discover the identity of her lover and travel across the country to befriend the man in order to gain justice. The plot itself sounds like either a gut-wrenching, anti-love story or a psychologically jarring […]

Foreign film highlights true brutalities of war


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Forget Tarantino and his Basterds — the real ruthless Nazi killers of World War II can be found in the Danish import Flame & Citron. Based on the actual story of two Danish resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Denmark who come to be known as Flame and Citron, the film chronicles the efforts and accomplishments in […]

New comedy fails to reach its potential


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These days, comedy’s best friend is your average Joe. Writer-producer-director Mike Judge taps into this phenomenon with his own quirky rendition of ordinary people living their ordinary lives. Judge’s latest film, Extract, is being promoted as the unofficial sequel to his box-office-flop-turned-cult-classic Office Space, harnessing the same “stick-it-to-the-man” attitude. The emphasis here, however, isn’t on […]

Foreign film depicts an honest, intimate portrait of family life


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F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously said, “Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.” Still Walking, the new film by the modern Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda, is about just that kind of wound, the sort that […]

Rob Zombie revitalizes gore of Halloweens past


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Writer-director Rob Zombie possesses a lot of ambition that has yet to be perfected. His new film, Halloween 2, which itself is a sequel to his 2007 remake of John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher classic Halloween, clearly illustrates that while Zombie has a long way to go, he is certainly heading in the right direction. Zombie’s […]

‘Woodstock’ captures spirit of era, but lacks energy


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In the bathroom of the Arclight Cinema in Hollywood, two women with graying hair and beaded scarves draped over their shoulders chatted excitedly 15 minutes prior to the screening of Taking Woodstock. “Where were you during Woodstock?” one asked the other, to which she replied with a detailed description of a weekend 40 years past. […]