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‘Nine Lives’ Review: How Does This Exist?

Philip Brown — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 19:00:55 +0000

I’ll bet you thought Hollywood stopped making movies about talking cats because… you know… no one likes them. Well, you’re wrong. Not only do talking cat movies still get made, now they star Kevin Spacey and Christopher Walken. Why the two Oscar-winning actors signed on to ‘Nine Lives’ is a mystery. Maybe it was a...

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‘The Family Fang’ Review: Freaky Family Dysfunction

Philip Brown — Fri, 06 May 2016 14:00:30 +0000

After proving that he could direct a gentle R-rated comedy (‘Bad Words‘) as well as anyone who ever hired him to headline a similar project, Jason Bateman gets a bit more ambitious in his sophomore effort. ‘The Family Fang’ is a delightfully cracked dysfunctional family comedy that should please anyone who enjoys a little misery...

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‘The Jungle Book’ (2016) Review: Unexpectedly Remarkable

Philip Brown — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 19:00:24 +0000

Disney’s recent trend of digging into its vaults and remaking its animated classics in live action has mostly been a frustrating endeavor. Movies like ‘Maleficent’ and ‘Cinderella’ felt forced and woefully inferior to their predecessors. The prospect of a live action ‘Jungle Book’ seemed particularly dire. Not only does the 1967 animated version hold up...

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‘Eddie the Eagle’ Review: Satisfying Sap

Philip Brown — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 20:00:48 +0000

Hollywood sure loves a sentimental sports bio-pic. You get the built-in drama of a sporting event and the crowd-pleasing fuzzies of a triumph-over-adversity story along with a celebrity protagonist that a famous actor can plug into and chase Oscar nominations. We get many of these movies. Too many even. Enough that they’ve gotten tediously predictable....

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TIFF Journal: ‘The Family Fang’

Philip Brown — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 19:00:45 +0000

A few years ago, Jason Bateman tried his hand at directing and did such a good job mounting the bad behavior comedy ‘Bad Words‘ that no one made fun of him for it. Now Bateman has returned with a far more ambitious dark comedy about the pain and value of having a dysfunctional family. It’s...

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‘Jersey Boys’ Review: Eastwood’s Musical Won’t Make Your Day

Philip Brown — Fri, 20 Jun 2014 13:00:30 +0000

There’s nostalgia and there’s being old-fashioned. One charmingly recreates outdated culture from the past, while the other feels like it’s been sitting on ice for decades and should have remained there. ‘Jersey Boys’ has one of these qualities, and not the good one. As a stage musical, ‘Jersey Boys’ is a worldwide hit of the...

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Weekend Movies: Bring out Your Dead

Luke Hickman — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 16:00:34 +0000

Welcome to February. This month’s releases are more promising than January’s, but not by much. Starting today, we get one decent movie, and a few other titles that might be good, but probably aren’t. After ‘28 Days Later‘, I became quite a fan of zombie flicks. (Yes, I know that ’28 Days Later’ isn’t technically...

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Now Playing: The Best Gangster Comedy Since ‘Snatch’

Luke Hickman — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:00:08 +0000

‘Seven Psychopaths’ is one of those brilliant crime movies that nobody will see… on the big screen, at least. Imagine ‘Snatch’ set in the U.S. with a huge array of batshit crazy characters. Just about everyone in the film is some sort of psychopath, and even those that aren’t can arguably be considered nuts for...

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The Trailer Park: Patriots and Con Artists

M. Enois Duarte — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:00:25 +0000

Two action comedies will hit cinemas fairly soon, but only one of them is intentionally funny. The other just looks laughably stupid. ‘Seven Psychopaths’ This trailer won me over when Christopher Walken refuses to put his hands up just because someone points a gun at him. That’s pretty damn funny. Then we have Colin Farrell...

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Full Metal Jackets: Eh, Fugetaboutit…

Tom Landy — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:00:52 +0000

UK distributor Arrow Video has announced its first Blu-ray SteelBook release: director Abel Ferrara’s cult crime drama ‘King of New York’. The 1990 film stars Christopher Walken as drug lord Frank White, who emerges from prison as a modern day Robin Hood with plans to violently eliminate his competition and distribute the proceeds of his...

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One from the Vault: ‘Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead’

Wayne Rowe — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:00:02 +0000

In the wake of ‘Pulp Fiction’ comes this 1995 pseudo-noir gangster flick directed by Gary Felder (‘Kiss the Girls’, ‘Runaway Jury’ and the occasional TV gig). The script was written by Scott Rosenberg, who, in my opinion, has had more misses (‘Kangaroo Jack’, ‘Con Air’, ‘Gone in Sixty Seconds’) than hits (‘High Fidelity’). However, ‘Things...

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