Author: Alabama Liberal

A low-grade monster movie that tries (and fails) for a grasp at prestige since it’s subtitled and about a viking myth. Does the Scandinavian setting really lend it an air of respectability? No, but call me a sucker because I still felt a little bit of excitement when the painfully cheesy digital beast revealed itself….

Probably the best movie I’ve reviewed today, “Print the Legend” is an exciting doc about the innovations happening in the 3D printing world. The film mostly focuses on the (ego’s of the) men who are behind this sudden push in personal-use 3D printers, and as a psychological portrait of the tech titans—all of whom feel…

Like “At Middleton,” this is a gentle romance, but unlike that film the two leads here are a wildly inappropriate match as Guy Pearce’s music teacher develops an “interest” in the musical-virtuoso/British exchange student that’s come to live with him, his more extroverted teenage daughter (star on the rise Mackenzie Davis), and his wife (Amy Ryan). Felicity…

The parents (Andy Garcia and Vera Farminga) of two unconnected teenagers touring a college strike up a flirtatious romance. It’s not a great movie, but it is very watchable, mostly based off the script’s insistence on maturity and soulfulness from the two leading characters. Grade: B

An unusual documentary about life in the living hell that was Pol Pot’s Cambodia done up in claymation style. If you’ve ever wanted to see Schindler’s List crossed with The Lego Movie (all two people that have wanted that), this is the closest you’re likely to get. Grade: B

Documentarian Sebastian Junger made a you-are-there war doc called “Restrepo” that did more than just about any film ever made to plug you right into the mind of an Afghanistan War soldier. Unfortunately, he’s now made “Korengal” which sometimes feels like an outtake reel from Restrepo and talking head footage that wasn’t interesting enough to…

Not that long ago, the word “Teenager” didn’t exist, and this film shows the rise of the teenagers from WWII onward. It’s interesting to a point, but I do wish they’d spent a little less time in the 40’s and 50’s and a little more time connecting that to the youth of today. Grade: B-

A sub-standard animated film that’s barely worth talking about (especially during dinner time as there’s plenty of nasty rats in this film). You’re better off watching The Lego Movie a 10th time than this thing once. Grade: C-

The year’s most surprising 100 percent “fresh” on rotten tomatoes, and arguably the least deserving. It does a solid job of telling you exactly why Nas is important in hip hop, why his breakthrough album is a contemporary classic and why it’s a coming-of-age anthem for black youth, but for a movie that’s so short (barely 75…

It’s easy to see why Jason Bateman would be drawn to cutting loose in this film about an adult “jerk” (maybe he’s not?) who finds a loophole into competing in a children’s national spelling bee. Bateman has done an excellent job stealing scenes in thankless straight man roles to “wackier” ensembles (Identity Thief, This is…

24 reviews in 24 hours, let’s start things off with Big Eyes… What Works: This is a film based on a media frenzy that was a little bit before my time, but it details the outrageous true story behind those paintings of large-eyed children. Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz may be the year’s most unlikely…

A nickname I’m giving Angelina Jolie’s new torture-palooza “Unbroken” is The Passion of the Soldier because it is mostly about watching a young soldier get the snot knocked out of him and/or struggling to survive in various ways. Now we know from the outset that the real-life guy this story is based on (Louie Zamperini)…

I’d say roughly half my list of the year’s 20 best films will be made up of documentaries by the time the year is through—somewhat because this year’s studio crop hasn’t been strong, but mostly because documentaries like Rachel Boynton’s “Big Men” are making a case for what documentaries can do better than scripted films:…