Category: Monday Morning Movie Reviewer

Another movie that opened around the time ParaNorman did and one that’s done even less business. I’ll make it quick, but the movie is a solid-B, and deserved a little better than to be dumped in theaters and forgotten a month later. And, just in case you don’t know, the movie stars Joseph Gordon Levitt…

I know, I know, this movie opened a month ago and nobody really cares about it anymore, but they’ll be reviews of new movies (End of Watch, Trouble with the Curve, Dredd 3D) later today too. For now, I’ll just make this quick… What Works: The old school claymation has an entirely different look and…

Any new Paul Thomas Anderson movie (Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood) is an event in certain circles, the film critic equivalent of a new Marvel Comics movie. His latest follows a troubled WWII veteran (Joaquin Phoenix, sensationally animalistic yet nuanced) who feels adrift when he returns home, but…

Speaking of negative movie portrayals of interracial couples (as per my Hit and Run review), now we get a “documentary” about Obama’s doomed childhood, heavily influenced by his white mother and African father’s tumultuous marriage, and his father’s belief system. This “documentary” (and, from what I understand, documentaries are supposed to be non-fiction films) is made…

This is a movie that not many have seen (it tanked at the box office) and probably not many have even heard of it either. It stars Dax Shepard as a former getaway driver for bank robberies (a great “movie job” that may not exist in real life as most bank robbers would do their…

One of the movies I was looking the most forward to this summer (and now that summer is officially over, I’ll probably repost that list later today) was “Lawless.” I thought “Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Shia Lebouf, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, and Guy Pearce working off a script from the guy who wrote The Proposition…

I may be a bit late in reviewing this film (which is representative of my enthusiasm for seeing it) since most of the people that are going to watch it have already forked over their money by now. Well, I’m sorry for you…I’d give you a refund but I’m also going to guess that the…

The exact opposite of Killer Joe (a daring surface movie with a somewhat cheap center), Hope Springs is a comfortable, feel-good movie that actually contains a quiet, deep knowledge of relationships. There is more truth and perceptiveness in this film than in the last twenty big studio romances I’ve seen. Much like Ruby Sparks, it starts…

I have never actually seen an NC-17 rated movie during its theatrical run until this film. Now I can say I’ve lived. It was drastically different than most films shown at big screen multiplexes. First I had to show ID when I bought a ticket, even though only the most obtuse theater cashier would think…

“Red Hook Summer” is the new film from Spike Lee and one that quite a lot of people might be looking forward to since it returns the filmmaker to his Brooklyn roots and even has a cameo by Spike himself, playing his old Do the Right Thing character and still delivering pizzas. Those that might…

Ruby Sparks is the indie romance of the summer that stars Paul Dano—–an actor you either don’t like or have never heard of—–as a writer and Zoe Kazan as the title-character, a woman he literally creates. The central plot involves Dano’s writer trying to cure his block with a writing exercise describing the girl he…

This movie opened a mere three weeks ago, but has more or less vanished since. I’ll keep the review short, and put about as much time into it as all involved put into making this movie. What Works: To say this movie has no laughs would be wrong. It has four…spaced out over nearly 100…

I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend it for just about anyone, which is the film’s double-sided magic. People that already know about politics will laugh at the broad satirical parodies and enjoy the on-target belly laughs at our super-PAC age. People that don’t already know about politics will laugh at the dick jokes but be…