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(27) The Wolverine
As many times as I’ve opened a review with “I’m not a …,” I can’t do that here. I was s huge X-Men fan as a teenager, and my favorite character was Wolverine. He was tough, complex, tortured. He was...
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(28) Fruitvale Station
Reality is a messy thing. Rarely does anything in life play out in the same black-and-white terms that we see in movies. And when the movies attempt to deal with real-life events, they have a tendency...
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(29) Red 2
A movie has to be comfortable with what it is. Some movies are meant to push you to think, others to make you laugh and others merely to entertain. At its best, Red 2 goes for the third. How can it...
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(30) Elysium
The theme of Elysium has already been laid out by those who basically knew it before they entered the theater: This is a movie about income inequality that is meant to make a statement that is...
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(31) Paranoia
So much of what we think about movies when we see them has to do with perception. And based on the reviews I had seen about Paranoia, I expected very little of the movie by the time I went to see it....
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(32) Closed Circuit
One of my favorite movies from my days before I regularly watched movies was Enemy of the State. It was one of those movies that both entertained you and made you think, focusing attention on the...
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(33) Lee Daniels’ The Butler
I’ve never been a huge fan of biopics. There are some that are great, but most of them are too episodic and unfocused for me. There are parts of The Butler that fall under that criticism, and parts...
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(34) In a World …
When I look back at my own old writing samples, I sometimes wince. Sure, there are some times when I’m happy with a phrase I turned or a particular way I said something, but there are just as many...
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(35) Austenland
The unexpected treats are often the best ones. And so when I realized that there weren’t any movies out right now that I wanted to see and hadn’t, I took a chance on a quirky romantic comedy called...
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(36) Gravity
It’s hard to give much of a summation of Gravity, particularly not without ruining the relatively straightforward (but still gripping) plot. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney play a pair of astronauts...
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(37) Captain Phillips
When it comes to adaptations of real-life events, it might even more tempting to make a movie too much of one thing or another. A movie like Captain Phillips, in particular, could have gone in so many...
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(53) Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
If there’s a reliable franchise that was in desperate need of a reboot, it was Jack Ryan. Harrison Ford, who was the perfect Ryan, is getting too old to ride a motorcycle, there will sadly be no new...
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(54) Mitt
There really wasn’t a movie in the theaters I wanted to see this week, but there was one on Netflix, the future of movies, or so we’re told. (For the record, I hope the futurists are wrong on that...
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(55) Labor Day
Sometimes, a movie is a lot better if you just don’t think about it too much. Accept the premise, go with the flow, and laugh about the completely implausible later. That’s the case with Labor Day....
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(56) The LEGO Movie
A few days ago, I wondered on Twitter whether it was normal for me as an adult to be looking forward to The LEGO Movie. I needn’t have worried. It’s not that LEGO isn’t on some level a children’s...
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(57) The Monuments Men
When this movie got delayed from last year, George Clooney suggested that leaving the vaunted Oscar window — something that shouldn’t exist to begin with — was not a concern. In fact, he said, the...
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(58) RoboCop
Of all the movies that you would think “need” to be remade, RoboCop probably falls pretty low on the list. Which is ironic, given that many of the issues highlighted in the new version of the film —...
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(59) Pompeii
I’ve always had a fascination with Pompeii since I had to do a skit on it when I was in school. The scale of the damage from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, the sudden and apocalyptic nature of the event...
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Who Should Win the Oscars This Year
A few thoughts before we get started. First of all, I’m not supporting any films by Woody Allen. I’ve never really been a fan of the man’s movies, and the allegations he’s faced recently only further...
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(60) Non-Stop
Thrillers aren’t terribly complicated. You can complicate them, adding depth or a theme or some sort of social commentary. But all you need for a solid thriller are a tough actor (or actress) for the...
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