The Movie Guy

Despite an interesting premise looking to condemn the dangers of advancing technology and social media, “The Circle” is an unthrilling thriller that lumbers along like a blind, toothless tiger: it’s unable to be scare or appear dangerous and doesn’t have the sight needed to capitalize on its credo of ‘knowledge is power,’ thus becoming a powerless parable. Continue reading →

With the exception of having three old men named Joe, Al and Willie rob a bank, Zach Braff’s “Going In Style” bears no resemblance to Martin Brest’s 1979 film- it also has none of the original’s darkly comedic tones and poignancy, turning this ‘style’ into a breezy and forgettable fad. Continue reading →

“Life” is a creature-feature that’s entirely watchable, thanks to effective CGI effects and a script that follows a foolproof recipe. While the film may have all the depth of a long “Twilight Zone” episode and thumb its nose at conventional science, it does serve its primary purpose: introduce a cool-looking monster and watch it systematically kill off people to survive. Continue reading →

At 84 years old, did King Kong really need to be resuscitated? Of course he did, it’s a cinematic tradition- classic movie monsters are immortal.

Given their signature film entrances, all the classic monsters wind up dying, only to be brought back to fight each other or cause more mayhem in a new time period. Ask any of the Universal monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein or the Wolf Man who, in their debut films were respectively staked, burned and shot only to be resurrected in future films because any supernatural being can find his way around a DNR if movie audiences want them back badly enough. And so it is with Kong, whose bullet-ridden body and fall from the Empire State Building in 1933 would only lead to his fighting fellow mutant monsters like Godzilla and the robot MechaKong in Japan in the 1960’s. Continue reading →

What Wes Craven’s “Scream” did for slasher movies, Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” does for the psychological thriller/horror movie genre. Putting a clever spin the conventional, Peele crafts clichés and camp into a thrill ride that’s enjoyable from start to finish. Continue reading →

With the Oscars being presented on Sunday, Feb. 26^th, I like to focus on the films and performances that I found the most memorable. In keeping with the tradition of the late Siskel & Ebert’s “If we picked the Oscars,” here are my standouts for 2016 using the nominees in the main Academy Award categories. While others may try to second-guess Oscar politics with who ‘should win’ or ‘will win,’ I like to keep it simple. In case you missed any of them, these are the films and performances that I’ll remember most- simply put, these are the ones: Continue reading →

Fans of 2014’s breezy 100-minute bullet ballet that was “John Wick” can rest assured, the boldly-titled “John Wick: Chapter 2” lives up to solidifying its bid at a franchise: it’s consistent with what made the original film unique and doles out a plausible storyline for us to continue watching Wick wander through his gratuitously violent, implausibly compelling world (besides, “Wick 2’s” tagline is ‘Never stab the devil in the back’- how cool is that). Continue reading →

Despite any reservations you may have about movie musicals (like me), “La La Land” wins you over with star power and style to spare.

I’m not a musical guy per se- too much pep, characters who break into song to express some self-important emotion- and “La La Land” does start off that way: an opening dance number on a Los Angeles freeway that’s designed as a “meet cute” for its leads Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), an aspiring jazz pianist, and Mia (Emma Stone), an aspiring actress, to first see each other- while well-choreographed, it has all the pep and posturing of a Pepsi commercial. Then, in a subsequent musical number, Mia is coaxed by her roommates to go out with them for the evening through an equally peppy song-and-dance number. But all that peppy tone starts to change and we get into the traditional story of the star-crossed showbiz types we’ve been accustomed to seeing in movie musicals like “A Star is Born” and “New York, New York” and that’s where “La La Land” begins to shine. Continue reading →

With “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Godzilla” director Gareth Edwards has crafted a love letter to fans of George Lucas’ 1977 film “Star Wars.”

In the almost 40 years since the original “Star Wars,” we’ve been treated to seven Star Wars films and know Lucas’ Skywalker storyline by rote, so “Rogue One” comes as a fresh stand-alone sidebar to the saga by giving us a separate storyline during the timeframe in which our love for the series first began. Continue reading →