Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

Mea Culpa: This is really more of a partial review as I actually had a…well, a difficult time staying “fully conscious” during this movie. Part of that is my fault, but I will say that the thirty minutes or so of this movie that I missed really didn’t make me want to go back and re-watch it either….

Critical acclaim is a funny thing. Last year’s mega-flop “Transcendent” dealt Johnny Depp his 40th consecutive misfire and was uniformly dismissed by critics. But it also dealt with the question of artificial intelligence or “the singularity” in a way that felt—to this reviewer—interesting and at least somewhat unique. It showed that A.I. may not be something to…

Two terrific documentaries to add to your list… Kids for Cash: This doc exposes a “tough on crime” judge for what he really is: perhaps a fraud, and definitely a destroyer of kid’s lives. At the same time he gained a reputation for being notoriously hard on juvenile offenders—sentencing them to juvenile detention centers and maximum…

Not a lot of interesting movies have opened lately, so this Monday is as good a time as any to review some of the very last of last year’s crop. And why not kick things off with three low-key indie crime thrillers that are all worth a watch…to varying degrees… Blood Ties…This 70’s-set crime drama has an…

Did the first “Exotic Marigold Hotel” really need a sequel? Of course not, but a movie hasn’t needed a sequel since Francis Ford Coppola made “The Godfather II” so I’m not going to hold Hollywood’s sequelitis against a well-made, uplifting film. In fact, I think this new trend of indie or modest film sequels (like the great…

“Red Army” is a documentary—-no, no, no, don’t lose interest just yet since this one actually has a great story and compelling characters who just so happen to be real—-about the infamous Russian hockey team that won them medal after medal at the Olympics during the 80’s, but it’s about so much more than that……

A sweet but disposable movie that you will probably forget you watched before you walk fully out of the theater. What Works: “Home”‘s strong suit isn’t the jokes so much as the sentimentality. There are some really affecting moments towards the end, particularly involving the continuation of a rival alien species. The “villains” in this story…

A programmer of a different sort, but just as “The Gunman” goes through the motions except for some alive performances, the same can (kind-of) be said of “Insurgent” and really the whole “Divergent” series which is struggling to distinguish itself in the young adult adaptations department. It’s lively enough that you won’t fall asleep, but…

Most reasonable people can agree on the truly great movies (think “The Godfather”) and the truly terrible movies (pretty much anything about Hercules) but most movies are somewhere in the mediocre zone and that’s where the disagreements start. Why does “Chappie” get a 30 percent on Rotten Tomates while “Focus” gets 55 percent and why…

This is a tough film to review as I wasn’t really sure if I was enjoying it or not even as I was watching it, and then couldn’t remember much about it the next day. I know that it’s not very good, but I did find myself wanting to like it more than I did….

I’m pretty sure everybody that wants to watch this movie in theaters may have already—I don’t always rush out to review films about animated bears—so I’ll keep this brief and get to more current reviews later in the day… What Works: “Paddington” the movie is a lot like the title character: warm, affectionate, and appealing old-fashioned…

I can’t say I’ve had the privilege of reading the “50 Shades” books, but I honestly did go into the movie with an open mind. That being said, you can tell that an X-rated book has been turned into an R-rated movie, and even though most people have said the movie is better written than…

Only six weeks into the new year, and 2014 has its first better-than-good mainstream movie. Kingsman is well-acted, excellently cast, staged with cunning action sequences, and may be the most genuine fun I’ve had at a movie in months. Don’t let me oversell it though, the film’s not perfect… What Works: I’m only a sporadic Colin…