Search for 2015

It's surprising that Warner Brothers has elected to release such a bad movie in the midst of the hottest box office season - flotsam of this nature is normally unceremoniously dumped in February or September. There's hardly an area in which H...

Another so-called YA (Young Adult) motion picture property has reached its cinematic conclusion. Billed as “the next big thing” 3 1/2 years ago with the release of the first Hunger Games movie, the series has lived up to its hype. The mov...

If you go to see Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea, you will get two movies for the price of one.  The first is a rousing deep sea adventure about a ship venturing into rarely-traveled waters in search of one of the era’s most val...

No American animated studio has been as successful developing films that work on multiple levels as Disney/Pixar. From the beginning, they have been interested in telling stories that equally engage children and adults. Consider Toy Story 3, for exam...

They say the third time's the charm.  Not with the Insidious series, it isn't.  Admittedly, installment #3 is an improvement over #2, but it fails to reach the highs of the chilling-but-uneven original. Instead of using the stinger ...

In my review of Divergent, the opening installment of the four-movie series of which Insurgent is the second part, I wrote the following: "As an entry point into a new world, Divergent provides a worthwhile portal. This is the kind of reality an...

If The Intern had confined itself to the unlikely relationship that develops between thirtysomething entrepreneur Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) and seventy-year old retiree Ben Whittaker (Robert DeNiro), it might have worked. Unfortunately, writer/dire...

Director David O. Russell doesn’t believe in resting on his laurels. Despite bringing back cast members Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert DeNiro, Joy isn’t an attempt to remake Silver Linings Playbook. In fact, the two films a...

One of the key aspects of any science fiction or fantasy saga is world (or universe) building. This process refers to the creation and development of the reality in which the story transpires. More than mere background, it informs plot development, c...

It has been 22 years since Jurassic Park ushered in the modern age of computer generated imagery, becoming the first motion picture to use the then-cutting edge special effects technology to astound and amaze us. Director Steven Spielberg allowed us ...