Jack Reacher, the star of Lee Child’s generally excellent series of myster/thriller novels, is six-foot-five, 250 lbs, a hulking bruiser of a man. Tom Cruise, who plays Reacher in the appropriately titled “Jack Reacher,” an adaptation of Child’s novel “One
NBC’s “Grimm” is a show defined by two dichotomies: duality of genre and a fusion of story styles. It functions as both a police procedural and fantasy/sci-fi thriller, while the installments unfold as both self-contained case-of-the-week dramas mixed with series-long
“Red Tails” is an advertisement for the skill of black American pilots made about 40 years too late. There certainly was a time where a film like this could have been persuasive to some audiences and invigorating for others. Now,
“Shame,” like so many films slapped with an NC-17 warning by the atrocious MPAA, is perhaps as well known for the fuss around its rating and sexuality as it is for the work itself. In fact, “Shame” features a story
For years now, people wonder why the Oscar ceremony has been struggling with declining ratings. A glance at this year’s nominees should clear that up for all but the densest person (which leaves it a mystery to a lot of
Will Gluck is a filmmaker who’s only half clever who thinks he’s too clever by half. His characters are so prone to winking at the camera one could be forgiven for thinking that Morse Code is involved, and the constant
For years now, Christmas movies about Santa have veered in a different, more corporate direction. They’ve viewed the holiday as a combination of mysticism and technical know-how, with a Santa and elves that run the North Pole like an industry.
In “Drive,” Ryan Gosling plays an unnamed man with ice-water in his veins. There’s a tradition in cinema for hard, brutal heroes to go nameless, as if a name were a liability for a life of violence, a vestigial tool
Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 thriller “Straw Dogs” was an incendiary work in its time, a study on the nature of violence in man and manhood. It’s an excellent picture more appreciated than loved, a challenging film that’s nonetheless somewhat slow. For
Thor, perhaps the most Shakespearean of Marvel Comics heroes, is a refreshingly fun adaptation of another comic character destined for franchise glory. In an inspired piece of hiring, “Thor” is directed by Kenneth Branagh, famous for his numerous Shakespeare adaptations.
It must be the pro-military slant. There’s not a lot of other reasons I can think of why critics have been so eager to trash “Battle: Los Angeles,” a hybrid of “Black Hawk Down,” “District 9,” and “Independence Day” that
A disturbing trend in cinema is the inability of some filmmakers to distinguish the difference between pathetic and kind. Really, they’re not the same thing at all, but over the past few years there have been scores of wide-releases with
The Academy Awards have been a big deal to me for years. I throw a party replete with tons of booze and food and those Oscar pools we hear so much about. This has little to do with the nominees,
The rigors of performing are surprisingly underrepresented in film. Then again, maybe not; I suspect that people don’t become actors and dancers and comedians just so they can dwell inside themselves all day. They crave attention and approval, sure, but
I’d never felt compelled to comment on anything at The Huffington Post before, though they routinely posted items so vitriolic and egregiously idiotic as to tempt me. I’m more of a Corner (at NRO) or a Big Hollywood type of
I’d never felt compelled to comment on anything at The Huffington Post before, though they routinely posted items so vitriolic and egregiously idiotic as to tempt me. I’m more of a Corner (at NRO) or a Big Hollywood type of