Monthly Archives: May 2016

  Another video game turned into a movie? I thought they’d all but given up that pitch? But no, Hollywood “branding uber alles” and such. Ubisoft is a big reason I never got addicted to video games. Glitchy titles in … Continue reading →

Director Jodie Foster’s “Money Monster” aims high, an attempt to be a riotous, righteous Jeremiad about our “rigged” financial system and the TV hustlers who try to pass off hype as “business news.” It never quite gets there, never quite … Continue reading →

Harry Hawkes is loud, boorish and overbearing, a real life of the party because he insists on being just that. To state the obvious. Never was a man so intent on making a splash, or in his case, “A Bigger … Continue reading →

Addiction and overcoming it is the most traumatic thing most people who endure it will ever experience. Harrowing, dangerous, destroying your health and relationships and taking lives all around you, its very intensity must convince you that nobody has ever … Continue reading →

The best of this year’s admittedly weak selection of Mother’s Day movies, the one getting a wider release AFTER the Hallmark holiday, is “The Meddler,” a broad and uneven comedy that coasts by on the charms of Susan Sarandon and … Continue reading →

It has eye-popping special effects and a true larger-than-life villain. “X-Men: Apocalypse,” is actually about something, with the intramural/intra-mutant quarrel built on a reality that the shoe-horned in fight in the blockbuster “Captain America: Civil War”lacks. The violence has consequences. … Continue reading →

The actual opening number, from Deadline.com’s reported studio estimates early Sat. am, is around $180 million. That’s better than “Iron Man 3” but still not as good as four other popcorn picture opening weekends. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,”  “Jurassic … Continue reading →

Tina Fey never gave Katrina Bowden much to say or do on her TV show, “30 Rock.” All Cerie, her character, had to do was waltz on screen in some tight, revealing outfit, and Bowden’s work was done. Jaws dropped … Continue reading →

The reviews of “Captain America: Civil War,” have been overwhelmingly positive. Many are raves. Just like the reviews of “Barbershop: The Next Cut,” or “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” I’ve been in that tiny minority, on all three occasions, shouting … Continue reading →

There’s a “for fans only” feel to the latest “Avengers” movie, “Captain America: Civil War.” A talky, often ponderous exercise in comic book movie elephantiasis, it overdoses on characters, old and new, sometimes not even bothering to name them. The … Continue reading →