With age, Angelina Jolie has acquired a certain attributable nuance and sophistication that until recently would have been thought impossible from such an archetypal anti-feminist signature of adolescent male fantasy. Excepting her performance in 1999′s “Girl, Interrupted” this mysterious icon of sexuality has made a career of adding the superficial sexual sparks to action films targeted [...]
Rumor has it that three follow up films, a sequel and two crossovers with the “Alien” franchise, to John McTiernan’s 1987 sci-fi thriller, “Predator,” exist somewhere out there in the ether. I’m convinced this is nothing more than a legend, an old wives’ tale. I don’t believe it. There is only one sequel to that [...]
Tentatively perpetuating his volatile relationship with Universal Pictures after disagreements over a possible fourth installment in the Matt Damon-as-super-spy “Bourne” franchise, director Paul Greengrass, with the studio’s blessing, has decided take his ball and go home — er, I mean to Iraq. After scoring massive hits with the second and third “Bourne” installments, “The Bourne [...]
Martin Scorsese, often cited as our greatest living director, is having something of a late-career crisis. He stormed onto the New Hollywood scene in the late 60s equipped with a singular vision, an intimate knowledge of crippling guilt and human nuance and the god-given talent to turn it all into truth-bearing films on par with [...]
“Remake” has become a dirty word thanks to Hollywood’s ever-increasing disregard for creativity and originality. Reactionary studio big-wigs no longer even sniff at projects that aren’t in some way associated with a comic book, toy, or some other established film property. The result has been an ocean of refuse amassed through the hiring of cheap [...]
Biting social commentary, breathtaking imagery, an innovative take on centuries-old mythology and a respectable entry into the painfully saturated vampire genre. Well, 1½ out of 4 ain’t bad. “Daybreakers,” the second featured film (2003′s “Undead” being the first) from the twin brothers from Down Under, Michael and Peter Spierig, certainly aspires to turn the vast [...]
Lenny isn’t your average incarcerated crook. He’s a young, good-looking guy with some serious connections on the outside. His father, Armando, is an extremely wealthy drug kingpin who wants nothing more than to see his son set free. The $2 million reward he offers to anyone who successfully breaks his kid out of prison [...]
Count on Roland Emmerich, the Master of Disaster, to base an entire film on the (false) pretense that the ancient Mayan calender predicts Earth’s demise in three years, and then scarcely mention the source of the ensuing pandemonium. Less than a handful of sentences are spent on the pop-culture rumor oft-repeated about the so-called predictions [...]
Manic depressive disorder, better known as bipolar disorder, is no laughing matter. Those who suffer from it, and other psychological and neurological disorders like it, live in a state of constant uncertainty punctuated by unpredictable episodes of mania or hypermania and severe depression. Some episodes can even lead to delusions and hallucinations. Likewise, corporate price-fixing, [...]
The objectified star of a million adolescent fantasies, Megan Fox has ascended the misogyny-fostering ranks of Hollywood’s considerable plastic actress sector faster than you can say “botox.” Funny thing is, she’s managed to become Tinseltown’s most sought after leading lady without ever being required to act. Director Karyn Kusama, best known for 2000′s “Girlfight,” aims [...]
