Marvel Comics’ action figure all-stars come to life on the big screen (above: Jeremy Renner, Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson) in Joss Whedon’s production of Marvel’s The Avengers. (Disney Pictures) It seems like a fine idea to put Joss Whedon in charge of Marvel’s The Avengers. Given his knack for wisecracking-ensemble revitalizations of chancy entertainment properties […]
After years in the making, Marley, the documentary of Rastafarian reggae legend Bob Marley was released on 4/20. (Magnolia Pictures) At first glance, I gleaned from an e-mail subject line only that it was a movie and that it was called Marley. I drew a breath, made a face. One more treacle bomb from the […]
Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s The Kid With A Bike stars Thomas Doret and Cécile De France in search of a heartful home. (Sundance Selects) Sibling Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne bring their customary immediacy and unsentimental compassion to this naturalistic fable of an innocently furious at-risk kid (Thomas Doret) who finds himself […]
Lauded as the best sushi chef on the planet, Jiro Ono (left) defines the secrets of success in David Gelb’s documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. (Magnolia Pictures) One reason it’s so hard to get a table at Sukiyabashi Jiro, the unprepossessing sushi restaurant wedged beneath an office building just next to a Tokyo subway station, […]
It’s a little unnerving how the American Pie movies are starting to add up to some kind of national sociology. With the latest, American Reunion, exuding a relaxed sense of duty, the whole franchise seems like the adolescent sex-farce equivalent of Michael Apted’s Up series
Relive the tragic magic of Titanic, re-released in 3D to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking. (20th Century Fox) 1. It was kind of a thing once, and that was only in 2D! Exactly how did an adolescent love story set in 1912 on a famously ill-fated luxury ocean liner become the biggest […]
Jennifer Lawrence stars in the post-apocalyptic death match drama, The Hunger Games, based on the best-selling novel by Suzanne Collins. (Lionsgate Films) Odds are, by the time you read this, you’ll already have seen it. Possibly more than once. So let’s discuss. How about those Hunger Games, huh?! Speaking of odds, let’s speak of odds, […]
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill go back to school as undercover cops in Sony Pictures big screen remake of 21 Jump Street. (Sony Pictures) As Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in Superbad reminded us, Hollywood has a long, goofy tradition of hiring post-teenaged actors to portray teenaged characters. Hill and Channing Tatum together in 21 […]
Time-traveling superhero John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) trades one civil war for another in a swords-and-sandals flick based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp character. (Disney Studios) John Carter is from Virginia but he was in Arizona when he wound up on Mars. That was in 1868, but our tale, as unfurled in a 2012 film based […]
Iran’s first Oscar-winning film, A Separation, looks at the domestic strife and break up of a middle-class Iranian family. (Sony Pictures Classics) In a spirit of emancipation from hostility between their respective governments, the Oscar for A Separation becomes a goodwill gesture from citizens of America to citizens of Iran. As such it is well deserved. […]