Oblivion
No, it’s not the movie version of the hit video game. That would be awesome. Instead, Oblivion is Joseph Kosinski‘s follow up to 2010′s Tron: Legacy, this time featuring Tom Cruise as one of the last survivors…
Trance
The crime film is a tricky beast; there are no two ways about it. On the one hand, the plot needs to be appropriately twisty, surprising the audience at every bend. On the other, even past masters like Raymond Chandler have discovered the ease of disappearing…
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Oh, G.I. Joe, will you never get the respect that Transformers does? Will you always be in their shadow, no matter how much slightly, marginally better your movies are? The answer is “yes,” when marginally better is compared to…
Jack the Giant Slayer
Once upon a time there was a talented director known for taking what could just be pop fantasy, looking it over with a mature eye, and producing entertaining films that didn’t insult anyone to get to a mass audience. Then his popular acclaim started to wane, and he faded…
Django Unchained
The time: two years before the Civil War. The place: the deep south. The person: Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave being slow-walked across to auction in Texas. Or at least, he was, until his band is stopped…
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
It doesn’t seem like it’s been nine years since Peter Jackson and company delivered the last of the Lord of the Rings films, but after making forays off into other films for a time, they are back to deliver…
Help Make a Movie: The Hunchback of Mexico Trailer Release & Fundraising Party, Tonight
Cool, cool, cool. I hate to admit it, but I never got to see Honky Tonk Blood, the quasi-tongue-in-cheek B-grade (and intentionally so) comedy/horror flick by Hank Schyma of the {Southern Backtones}…
Written on December 4, 2012 | Posted in Posts
Houston Film Critics Present Hitchcock-Fest
Film afficionados with some time to spare this Saturday (November 17th) should think about making the trek out to Katy, where the Houston Film Critics Society and Fox Searchlight…
Written on November 16, 2012 | Posted in Posts
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2
Okay, I’ll keep it brief: unsatisfying. Not just The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2, mind you, but The Twilight Saga in general. Depending on your relationship to the franchise, that may mean something…
Written on November 16, 2012 | Posted in Reviews
Lincoln
A lot has been written about Abraham Lincoln in the nearly 150 years since his death, to the point where you have to wonder if there is anything that hasn’t already been said. After nearly a decade of trying, Steven Spielberg‘s…
Flight
Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) may not be much — not much of a husband, not much of a father, probably not much of a friend — but he’s a great pilot. When he’s forced to prove it by landing a crippled jumbo jet…
Creeperfest 2012 Takes Over North Downtown, Today/Tonight
Meant to post about this last night, but sleep got the better of me… Today/tonight marks this year’s incarnation of Creeperfest, a cool, cool, fun-sounding mini-festival thrown by the gang of oddballs & scenesters who hang out/live at the Houston House of Creeps…
Written on November 10, 2012 | Posted in Posts
Skyfall
Until just six short years ago, Bond films were familiar and comfortable like an old chair, as each iteration tried to out-Goldfinger the previous one. There would be a couple of Bond Girls with ridiculous names; a briefing with Q…
Tonight: Shadow of the Bat-Man Screening at Discovery Green, with Two Star Symphony
Yeah, there’s a crap-ton of cool stuff happening tonight — and I’ll get to that, don’t worry — but I wanted to call this one out in particular, because it’s extra-special awesome-cool. See, like the title says, this evening (Friday, October 19th) up at Discovery Green…
Written on October 19, 2012 | Posted in Posts
Sinister
Why is it so hard to make an effective horror movie? Shouldn’t we know what it is that scares people? What scares us? Actually, we know exactly what scares us, or what will easily scare us. The problem is…
The Amazing Spider-Man
Normally, a ground-up reboot would be seen as a mixed bag. It means that your series has gotten off-track somewhere and needs to be brought back to its roots. Or that the filmmakers have completely run out of ideas and instead have chosen to go back…
Magic Mike
If the only role Channing Tatum is capable of bringing anything like charisma, humanism, and likeability to is that of an aging male stripper, we still get a good movie out of it with Magic Mike, and that’s almost worth all…
Prometheus
[SPOILER WARNING: Reader beware, there are some fairly serious plot twists mentioned in the following review...] Some people never learn, and some people only have one trick up their sleeves. It’s hard to tell which you’re dealing with sometimes, and Prometheus is a perfect example of that
Jeff, Who Lives at Home
Jeff (Jason Segel) lives at home, although that probably goes without saying. In an effort to get him to do something, anything besides smoking pot in the basement, his mother (Susan Sarandon) sends him out to get some glue…
John Carter
Everybody, whether they’re interested in him or not, recognizes the name of Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ signature creation: Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. But except for a few hardcore fans, the public at large is less well-acquainted with his other great creation…
The Grey
According to Q, if you break down a narrative you will find at its heart seven essential conflicts: man against man; man against nature; man against himself; man against God; man against Society; man and woman; and man caught in the middle. Any one of these is more than enough grist for a storyteller’s mill…
Pina
First, we set the stage. Pina Bausch was one of the giants of, not just German dance, but modern dance as a whole, helping to usher in the wave of dance theater — Tanztheater — into the modern dance oeuvre since the 1970s. Combining acting with intricate set design, score, and other hallmarks…
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
It should go without saying that no adaptation is going to please everyone; it’s impossible to encompass all the nuances of one medium across the transition to another. Which makes comparisons not exactly a waste of time but certainly counterproductive…
KARP Documentary Screening, Tonight at Domy
Y’know, I’ll be up-front about it: back in the days of my post-college almost-youth, I wasn’t big into KARP. Didn’t hate ‘em or anything, mind you, but I wasn’t a big fan; my tastes back then only sporadically ran that far to the “noisy” end of the punk spectrum…
Written on November 22, 2011 | Posted in Posts
Cinema Arts Festival Houston Starts Today
While music is mostly what I tend to pay attention to, yeah, I’m also a sucker for movies of all sorts. Which is why I get all excited & happy every time a film festival rolls through our fair city (even though I rarely get the opportunity to actual go to ‘em, these days…)
Written on November 9, 2011 | Posted in Posts
Page One: Inside the New York Times
The fact that you’re reading this on a Website rather than in a newspaper or book somewhere should tell you, whether you realize it or not, the current state of flux in media. The newspaper, and the news business as we have known it, is dying…
The Debt
It’s not a surprise to say that Hollywood — and audiences in general — loves a good revenge thriller. Watching a hero blow things up and kill villains is fun, and with bad guy who has it coming, it’s even more fun…
A Better Life
Years ago, Carlos Galindo (Demián Bichir) crossed the border from Mexico to America. Since then he’s bounced from job to job, had a son (José Julián), and gotten a divorce…
The Help
Mississippi consisted of two worlds in the 1960s (and, many would say, still today): the free-to-do-as-they-please whites, be they rich, poor, or in-between, and blacks struggling against centuries of bigotry…
Written on August 18, 2011 | Posted in Reviews
Michael Biehn Gets Bloody at the River Oaks Theatre, Tonight
Late notice, I know, but movie fans should sit up & take notice of a cool event going on tonight (Wednesday, August 17th) up at the River Oaks Theatre…
Written on August 17, 2011 | Posted in Posts
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Will Rodman (James Franco) has an understandable obsession: his father (John Lithgow) is slowly following apart from Alzheimer’s, and his boss (David Oyelowo) won’t get behind the unconventional genetic cure…
Another Earth
The Greek philosopher Philolaus once theorized there was a mirror Earth orbiting the Sun opposite us, an Earth exactly like us, filled with people exactly the same as us, living our lives. That’s a pretty esoteric subject for a drama about life and death…
Captain America: The First Avenger
During the height of World War II, a crazed madman digging up secret treasures all over Europe has discovered a way to bring the entire world under his control, and the embattled forces of the Allies might not be able to stop him. Their only hope is to fight fire with some mad-science fire…
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
The length of the cast alone should tell you just how long this has been coming; after 10 years, the Harry Potter series finally comes to a close with an extended bang. Mainly because that’s pretty much all it has left. It should come as no surprise…
Kung Fu Panda 2
Filmmakers and story-tellers, especially the ones specifically targeting adolescent and pre-adolescent boys, love telling coming-of-age stories. They speak to self-belief and hidden power, making them potent vehicles for hanging personal power fantasy off of…
Written on July 13, 2011 | Posted in Reviews
Submarine
Everybody comes of age some time or another, and if you haven’t learned that from personal experience yet, movies will take the burden off you, because every director makes a coming-of-age film at some time or another, too…
The Hangover: Part II
After getting drunk, getting drugged, and stealing a tiger, a police car, and a small Asian man — and misplacing their best friend in the process — you would think Phil, Stu, and Alan would have learned…
X-Men: First Class
The short version is X-Men: First Class is an excellent return to form after several missteps, capturing everything that made the series great and jettisoning must of the unnecessary stuff. That’s all you really need to know, but if you need more, keep going…
The Tree of Life
Cormac McCarthy once said the only thing he could ever imagine writing about was life and death, because nothing else would ever be important enough to waste time and words on. I imagine if someone were to ask Terrence Malick that question…
There Be Dragons
The life of Saint Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of the Opus Dei movement, seems ripe for dramatization, regardless of what you may think of his accomplishments. Founded during the Spanish Civil War, Escrivá’s order…
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