Tag Archives: movie

When Hank (Jeremy Gardner) isn’t looking around with an anxious glare, always in hunting mode, he’s daydreaming about his girlfriend Abby (Brea Grant). Hank’s memories, bright and sunny, present Abby as a loving, funny partner—all the more harrowing given that she’s currently missing. With just a note, she has disappeared from the family home that they’ve shared over the course …

Not knowing in advance that “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” begins with a few minutes of hardcore pornography, I made the mistake of starting it on a big television in a home containing teenagers. This is not advisable, as it could yield a scene similar to the one that transpired in my own house, with yours truly scrambling to …

The thing about The Grateful Dead is, if you tell some stranger that there’s a new four-hour documentary about the band, he or she is likely to respond, “Of course there is.” The legendary band is legendary in part for its devotion to duration. Long concerts, long jams on songs, a long time on the road. This documentary’s title, “Long …

For John Carney, “Once” apparently is not enough. The Irish writer/director who serenaded the world with that wee Dublin fairy-tale sensation from 2006 is back again to tease audiences with another song-filled variation on his signature brand of platonic lust in “Begin Again.” With its cast of extremely likable performers, the perfect summer-in-the-city backdrop—in this case, New York—and a soundtrack …

Spain’s “Chico & Rita” scored one of the biggest surprises of the 2012 Oscars by winning a nomination for best animated feature. That meant this indie production placed ahead of such big-time entries as Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin.” The reason for that is the story and the music, I suspect, not the animation. The film Teambuilding Online Subtitrat depicts …

“What do you see when you turn out the light,” John Lennon and Paul McCartney ask their creation Billy Shears (incarnated by Ringo Starr) in the song “A Little Help With My Friends.” “I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine,” Shears/Starr responds. The title of a new film from Georgia, “What Do We See When We Look At …

In gearing up to make “The Adventures of Tintin,” I suspect Steven Spielberg reached down into that place inside that fueled his “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Here again is an intrepid hero involved in a nonstop series of exploits involving exotic locations, grandiose villains, planes, trains, automobiles, motorcycles, helicopters and ships at sea. It evokes Saturday afternoon serials in …

Haunted house movies awaken within us the 5-year-old afraid to go down the stairs with the basement lights off. Sure, there’s a light switch down at the bottom, but you never know. “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” begins with an extraordinary house that should be haunted, even if it isn’t. This is a mansion in Australia, I learn, much …

For years, Pixar focused on original films, ignoring the sequel trend so prevalent in children’s entertainment. Sure, there were two sequels to “Toy Story,” but that was the exception. Now, the company regularly alternates original projects like “Inside Out” with sequels to “Cars,” “Monsters Inc.,” and “Finding Nemo.” But even as critics bemoaned the sequelitis that inflicted the company, there …

Muscleheads and muscle car fanatics deserve their own “Star Wars” or “Star Trek,” I guess, and the Fast and the Furious movies seem to fit the bill. Just like those perennial sci-fi geekouts, this saga about super-heroic street racers is essentially about friendship. All the fancy nomenclature and delirious spectacle are just to help render the essential stuff in ways …