Let’s have a little quiz to get this party started. First question: Four Navy SEALs (Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch) start out on a mission in Afghanistan. How many return? (Hint: see […]
Category: In Theaters
review – saving mr. banks
If you were to ask those who know movies to make a list of the most enjoyable musical films, with the most loved songs, ever, “Mary Poppins” — with music and lyrics by Richard and […]
review – american hustle
What we have here are two small-time dreamers trying to reinvent themselves. Because everybody hustles. She’s Sydney Prosser (Adams) from New Mexico; he’s Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) from the Bronx; they meet at a pool party, […]
Review – Frozen
This Disney film comes not from Pixar, but from Walt Disney Animation Studios and in style, story, and sensibility, this looks like classic Disney moviemaking. Somehow, for reasons I can’t define, it just feels different […]
review – philomena
As a director, Stephen Frears knows how to find the heart, the humanity, and the humor in situations and create movies that tell small stories in wonderfully intelligent ways. He did it in “Dirty Pretty […]
Review – Nebraska
So what we have here is a beautifully-photographed movie – in black and white – with a wonderfully-underwritten performance at its center – telling a story of ordinary days filled with ordinary people who do […]
Review – The Book Thief
This movie was shot by Florian Ballhaus (he also shot “The Devil Wears Prada”) and his work here is so perfect and polished, it’s initially distracting. It’s 1939 in Germany, a time of dark desperation, […]
Review – The Counselor
Halfway through this almost two-hour movie, the Counselor (Fassbender) asks Westray (Pitt): “What happens next?” A better question would have been: “What’s happened so far?” The answer to both: “It’s difficult to determine.” If you’ve […]
Review – All Is Lost
In some ways, this is a perfect title. Here is what will be “lost” if you decide to see this movie: your time, the price of admission, the cost of transportation to get there, any […]
Review – The Fifth Estate
“Man is least himself when he talks as his own person,” Julian Assange (Cumberbatch) says early in this film. “But if you give him a mask, he will tell you the truth. …if we could […]
Review – 12 Years A Slave
This is such a difficult story to watch. It’s violent, sadistic, unspeakably cruel. There is such an all-pervasive sense of hate surrounded by an unmitigated feeling of helplessness. It may be an educational film; it […]
‘Gravity’ 3D Puts 35+ Demo In Theater Seats
Warner’s ‘Gravity’ keeps its hot streak alive as more and more revenue comes in from 3D ticket sales. It’s interesting to note that the Warner exec in the Variety article attributed the rise in box […]
‘Gravity’ Crushes With Record Open
Warner’s latest popcorn muncher opened with a huge $55 Million dollar take on its debut weekend. 3D versions of the film were helping to drive a lot of the numbers with premium ticket prices, but […]
‘Runner Runner’ Flops
This hardly seems remarkable or even noteworthy, save for the continuing inability of the executive class to distinguish between correlation and causation. Here, we’ve got the ‘star-power’ of Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck seemingly unable […]
review – ‘don jon’
Joseph Gordon Levitt is arguably one of the best actors of his generation. Scarlett Johansson started out at a very young age displaying huge talent. Now he and she are together in a movie with […]
‘Prisoners’ Vigilante Pic Explores Violence
The Oscar nominated cast and director of Warner’s latest vigilante pic suggest that the predictably graphic violence contained within is somehow an artistic necessity. I’d buy into the storyline if it wasn’t one that gets […]
review – ‘enough said’
This is an old-fashioned love story for grown-ups. It’s a story about second chances jeopardized by second guesses, about ordinary days changed by an extraordinary coincidence, about two people who were not attracted to each […]
Salinger Doc Opens Strong Limited
The Weinstein Company opened ‘Salinger’ (dir. Shane Solerno) in a couple of markets after a strong premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. It will be interesting to see what kind of legs the doc can […]
‘Riddick’ Debut Continues Diesel’s Win Streak
Modern day Sylvester Stallone style mush mouth actor Vin Diesel continues his box office win streak with a decent debut for ‘Riddick’ at just shy of $19 million. The previous installment saw a large box […]
review – ‘closed circuit’
Red herrings are one thing. But this murder mystery seems filled with partially fileted fish of all kinds in the hands of a chef who can’t decide on a recipe. This is a dark and […]
review – ‘the butler’
This is a kind of ‘Forrest Gump’ with a focus on the Civil Rights Movement. It’s the story of segregation slowly, if incompletely, becoming integration – told through the story of one remarkable man – […]
Wolverine Disappoints In US, Told You So…Sort Of
Last week, we opined that ‘Wolverine’ would open much lower than expectations, predicting a $45 million dollar nod, while the larger industry predicted in the $65-$75 million range. Turns out the Hugh Jackman led film […]
reveiw – ‘grown ups 2’
Picture this: it’s a summer morning back in the days of your youth, nothing much going on, nothing planned. One by one, your friends – they all live in the neighborhood, as they did back […]
review – ‘deliver us from evil’
Somehow, these exorcism flicks still manage to get produced. I’m only surprised because of the lack of potential variety in the premise. Since “The Exorcist”, we’ve seen quite a lot of exorcisms in cinema. I’ve […]
‘The Heat’ Notches Another Solid Box Office Showing For McCarthy
It seems Ms. McCarthy has a knack for making pictures people actually want to watch. This is rather unlike the latest big budget bomb in ‘White House Down’, which was squarely trounced by ‘The Heat’, […]
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 