Monthly Archives: June 2014

“Earth to Echo” is an engagingly unassuming “E.T.” knockoff, a kids’ movie that serves up a similar alien-with-kids story in “Blair Witch/Paranormal” shaky cam package. It’s been over 30 years since “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” so why not? Disney produced it, … Continue reading →

There’s a lovely sentiment that the late movie critic Roger Ebert expressed when describing what movies were to him and why this medium that he spent his life covering still mattered.“The movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” A … Continue reading →

Antonio is a balding, 40ish English teacher in 1960s Spain. Franco and his fascists are still in power, and the burden of that oppressive rule is felt throughout the culture — nuns quick to slap students at his school, quicker … Continue reading →

You may feel you’re a better person, just for having watched “Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon.” Gordon, personal manager to musicians, celebrity chefs and film royalty such as Michael Douglas and Sylvester Stallone, and friend to everybody, especially the … Continue reading →

Documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger is no stranger to the subject of crime. The film that launched his career, “Brother’s Keeper” (1992, co-directed with Bruce Sinofsky), was about a semi-literate New York farmer railroaded into jail for murder. The “Paradise Lost” … Continue reading →

The special effects are sharper, less blurred, and the robots far more defined in “Transformers: The Age of Extinction.” Four films into this series and the giant thinking, wise-cracking, lecturing alien robots have a look that finally suggests weight and … Continue reading →

Revered sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick’s posthumously-published “Radio Free Albemuth” earns a somewhat straightforward and updated screen adaptation from committed Dick fan John Alan Simon.And therein lies the problem. Simon gives us a film that, unlike other Dick adaptations (“Blade … Continue reading →

Writer-director John Carney re-plays his greatest hit with “Begin Again,” a semi-successful attempt to recreate the magic of the Oscar-winning musical “Once” in New York with a big name cast.Get past the wildly improbable “music biz” moments and impromptu performances … Continue reading →

Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd are such reliably funny actors that you’d be safe betting they could perform an instruction manual and still be amusing doing it. Which is kind of what “They Came Together” is, a How-to-Make-a-Romantic-Comedy primer. Think … Continue reading →