Monthly Archives: June 2013

The big box office story of the weekend was not that another Pixar movie is a two weekend hit. “Monsters University” had a solid holdover on its second weekend, but its Saturday dropped it well below $50 million on its … Continue reading →

Sam Rockwell’s reliably scruffy, irreverent swagger is much in evidence in his latest film — “The Way Way Back.” It’s a serio-comic coming of age tale which has Rockwell playing Owen, the slacker manager of a water slide park who … Continue reading →

“The Heat” opened with a robust Friday that suggests it’ll do a whopping $40 million over this last weekend before July 4. Call that a win, right? The reviews weren’t bad, the teaming of Bullock and Melissa McCarthy works. “White … Continue reading →

The phrase “vintage Almodovar” doesn’t mean what is used to. The flamboyant Spanish filmmaker, whose early films were packed with every transgression and every bit of brio that was missing from Spain during the long Franco dictatorship, has seemed trapped … Continue reading →

Irony isn’t a recent invention. But a savvy popular culture watcher would have to notice that for the past 20 years or so, American culture has enjoyed — or endured — a sort Golden Age of Irony, as if the … Continue reading →

It’s Friday AM, almost time for me to chat with the crew at Open Mike on 740 The Game about movies. Brian Kravitz and I will talk up “White House Down,” parse the hidden meaning of “The Heat,” turn sports … Continue reading →

It was funny to watch the review ratings on “The Heat” and “White House Down” on Thursday. For much of the morning, “The Heat” was in free fall, and “White House Down” was close behind it, plunging down the tomatometer. … Continue reading →

Give it up for Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy. You’ll never see them work harder at a  comedy than in “The Heat,” a stumbling, aggressively loud and profane cop buddy picture where they struggle to wring “funny” out of a … Continue reading →