It is interesting to note that the commercials currently running for ROBOTS fail to take advantage of the best features of the film. Sure, we hear the celebrity voices and see the characters they voice to their schtick, with Robin Williams, in point of fact, its pretty much all schtick, but we dont get a… Read More »
STAR WARS EPISODE III — REVENGE OF THE SITH
STAR WARS EPISODE III — REVENGE OF THE SITH is marginally better than its two predecessors. But to put that in the proper perspective, that’s like saying that typhoid fever is marginally better than the ebola virus. It is a difference without a meaningful distinction. The point of EPISODE III is to explore the specifics… Read More »
THE ISLAND
We don’t turn to Michael Bay (PEARL HARBOR) for subtlety. Like Renny Harlin, he enjoys blowing things up real good and usually after he’s sent them careening along city streets at breakneck paces calculated to inflict the most bodily and property damage as possible en route. And so it was with some curiosity that I… Read More »
VALIANT
It is a fact that during World War II animals took part in the war effort and that some of them, just like their human counterparts, won medals for their deeds, dogs, one cat, and even pigeons were involved. Disney’s animated film, VALIANT, is not one of those stories. It’s also not a film that… Read More »
STAY
The failing of most very bad movies is that there was very little in the way of thinking that went into them. That is not the case with STAY. This overbearingly pretentious piffle has been overthought so much in its attempt to be clever and deep that rather than being engaging or mysterious or even… Read More »
CASSANDRA’S DREAM
The funny thing, in the sense of odd rather than comedic, about CASSANDRA’S DREAM is that even though it is filmed in color, it is remembered in black and white. In Woody Allen’s lastest film, he returns to his consideration of morality, this time through the lens of classical Greek tragedy. Two brothers, Ian (Ewan… Read More »
JACK THE GIANT SLAYER
It is an age when fairy tales are retold with a modern spin, and spun out of control in an effort to be hip. Not so with JACK THE GIANT SLAYER, a retelling of that beanstalk tale that is pure perfection. It embraces the pure spirit of adventure to be found in a story with… Read More »