For a guy who’s made mostly conventional movies in his career, Jonah Hill finds himself in a very unusual career position these days. He’s built his reputation on being an offbeat yet obnoxious slob in such movies as “Superbad” and
Adam Sandler has his new movie “Jack and Jill” in theaters this weekend, and man, have the nation’s mainstream media film critics got their knives out for him on this one. With a stunning 0 percent so far on Rotten
Many people harbor dark secrets from their past, memories that eat at their souls and cause them to live in fear of ever being discovered. And in the terrific new film “The Son of No One,” a New York City
This weekend offered a more dramatic example than usual of how Hollywood is running out of ideas. There are actually two new remakes in theaters now – updates on ’80s favorites ‘Footloose’ and ‘The Thing.’ The main difference between the
Movie buffs freaked when word leaked that Paramount Pictures was remaking its 1984 youth classic ‘Footloose,’ as if the studio was tampering with a sacred text. Or remaking ‘The Ten Commandments,’ God forbid. (Oh, wait. ‘The Ten Commandments’ with Charlton
Think of Sarah Jessica Parker, and her performance as Carrie Bradshaw in the “Sex and the City” TV show and movies likely comes to mind. After all, she became a pop culture icon playing a high-living New York City single
It’s rare that a movie can come along and sweep away viewers into its world without the benefit of major stars and a whirlwind of hype. But this weekend I was blessed with the opportunity to see an absolutely mesmerizing
Vera Farmiga has lit up the screen in supporting roles for the past few years, first drawing viewers’ and critics’ attention by playing a police psychologist caught between Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio in 2006’s “The Departed” before landing an
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years about Hollywood, it’s that actors love being part of disaster movies. Whether it’s “The Towering Inferno” or “The Poseidon Adventure,” or any one of the insane “Airport” movies from the ’70s,
There were a few images from movies that left an indelible impression on my mind when I first saw them in childhood. One was laughing hysterically upon seeing Woody Allen getting his arm stuck in a gumball machine while running
Last weekend, your choices of new movies at the box office came down to watching apes try to act human in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and watching grown human men try to act like apes in “The
Think back to your summer vacations growing up. You probably took a few trips with your family, then moved on to a lame summer job working in a mall or flipping burgers. Some of those memories are probably preserved in
Man, has it been one rough summer for Tom Hanks. As the writer-director and star of the colossal flop “Larry Crowne,” he no doubt has found plenty of time to wonder why audiences stayed away in droves from his tale
Even in a world where most movie heroes have to take on superpowers before they can fight properly and often find themselves toeing the PC line while saving the world, it’s good to know that some movie concepts are just
In my position as writer about film, I sometimes get to interview filmmakers and performers about their work. One man I’ve interviewed twice is Errol Morris, an amazing documentarian who alternates between making films about oddballs and films about political
With eight “Harry Potter” movies, four “Pirates” films, three “Transformers” and two “Hangover” flicks clogging the Hollywood distribution pipeline over the last few years, and “reboots” of movies like “Spider-Man” that are less than a decade old, it might seem
There are some celebrities who manage to put up a wall of secrecy around their lives, and who make a clear distinction between their public and private personas. And then there are people like Steve Coogan, a major British comedy
Over the course of 53 films in just over a quarter-century, John C. Reilly has established himself as one of Hollywood’s greatest Everyman actors. Whether playing lovable shlubs in films like “Cyrus” and “Magnolia,” portraying wacky characters in “Talladega Nights”
Sometimes a movie comes along that is so tone-deaf and utterly incompetent that viewers can only sit back in wonder at just how things could have gone so wrong. “Bad Teacher,” a new alleged comedy starring Cameron Diaz as an
Morgan Spurlock exploded on the American pop culture scene as the star, writer, and director of the humorous documentary “Super Size Me” in 2003. In that film, he ingeniously shined a spotlight on the epidemic of obesity and the rampant
One of the greatest appeals of superhero movies lies in their ability to take ordinary humans and give them the ability to do extraordinary things, whether they’re a teenager flying through New York City by shooting webs in “Spider Man”
I’ll never cease to be amazed at which films manage to spawn a sequel, much less an entire series of followups. There have been a dozen versions of “Friday the 13th,” 10 versions of “Halloween,” three versions of “Porky’s” and
Phil Rosenthal is the co-creator of one of the most successful family sitcoms of all time – the nine-season ratings juggernaut “Everybody Loves Raymond.” The show won the Emmy for Best Comedy Series twice along the way, and is still
Morgan Spurlock exploded on the American pop culture scene as the star, writer and director of the humorous documentary “Super Size Me” in 2003. In that film, he ingeniously shined a spotlight on the epic of obesity and the rampant
Christopher Titus thought he had a lot to endure while growing up, with a severely alcoholic and emotionally abusive father and a mother who ultimately committed suicide. Yet instead of succumbing to despair himself and letting his hardships defeat him,
