Tag: John Nolte

Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea a “Poltergeist” remake was coming. So it was just a coincidence that after a number of years, I popped the 1982 original into the DVD player. Obviously, the hope was for

It kind of takes your breath away to look back on just how much the world has changed since director Michael Wadleigh’s procedural-horror film “Wolfen” arrived in the summer of 1981. There was no streaming, no home computers, no mainstream

“Pitch Perfect,” a moderately successful sleeper released in 2012, is now looking like a full-blown franchise. The sequel was expected to do well this weekend and still managed to blow away expectations with a projected (per Deadline) $62 – $65

Mad Max (Tom Hardy) has truly gone mad. Groomed like a caveman, and seemingly able to communicate only in grunts; figuratively, our Road Warrior has become the Feral Kid. He eats two-headed desert lizards alive and drives through an endless

With 37 reviews in, director George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” sits at an impressive 97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Many of the reviews are outright raves and make clear that after four decades as a filmmaker, Miller went old

There were more than a few weak Burt Reynolds’ films salvaged by end-credit outtakes and bloopers, which were always hilarious. You never wanted them to end. The effect was manipulative and brilliant.  Instead of exiting the theater with the bad

Faced with the daunting task of a follow-up to his critically-lauded 2012 box office sensation “The Avengers,” writer/director Joss Whedon faced a lift as heavy as Thor’s hammer. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans),

Interestingly enough, the biggest problem with the tender, old-fashioned, and surprisingly engaging “Age of Adaline” is not a preposterous concept. The idea of a woman who stopped aging at age 29 some 75 years ago is handled quite beautifully. What

“Unfriended” takes place in real time over 82 minutes, and all of that time is filled using one continuous shot. The camera never moves. There is not a single edit. I’ve read this was all done with a budget of

Six years after 2009’s “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” shocked everyone by grossing $146 million, star and co-writer Kevin James returns as the bumbling title character in a tired sequel that has fewer laughs than most horror films. Bless his heart,

Pop culture matters … a lot. In fact, pop culture is everything. Movies, of course, are the ultimate in pop culture — a combination of almost every known art form turned into a powerful fury of sound and image that

One of the four-thousand trailers that ran prior to my “Furious 7” screening Thursday night was for the upcoming James Bond entry “Spectre.” And what a bummer those 96 seconds are.  In Daniel Craig’s fourth go-round, the world is still

Last night’s reaction to “Fifty Shades of Grey” from the female, college-aged crowd I sat through this preordained S&M blockbuster with, makes for a better review than anything a middle-aged male fuddy-duddy like myself could conjure. This particular packed house loved the first 40 minutes (which are pretty good). They giggled and “hell yessss’d” the wish fulfillment that comes with a “Pretty Woman-style romance that sees a mousey nobody whisked into the fairytale world of the super rich by an impossibly-handsome Prince Charming.

It is obvious director Matthew Vaughn’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service” is going to be different when things open with a flashback involving the necessarily rough interrogation of a barbaric Islamic terrorist. The scene sets the rest of the plot in

Director Ava DuVarney’s third feature film is impressive on many levels. Yet, given its potent subject matter, other than a few scenes, “Selma” is emotionally flat and uninspiring. This is especially surprising in the wake of the George Zimmerman and