The Movie:

It is pretty much a proven formula for the entertainment industry at this point: write or adapt something primarily geared towards women, make it a romance, toss in a vampire, werewolf, wizard or some/all of the aforementioned, and you are bound to make a respectable amount of coin for it. Stephanie Meyer paved the way, y'all! And when Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl co-wrote the novel which would become Beautiful Creatures, little did they know of the popularity that would come their way, writing several other novels under the "Caster Chronicles" series, and Warner Brothers came calling to make a big-screen adaptation of their first.

Richard LaGravenese (Freedom Writers) adapted the novel into a screenplay under his direction. Ethan (Alden Ehrenrich, Read the entire review

The Movie:

A lot of folks (this guy included) are looking forward to the upcoming episodes of Arrested Development when they appear online, because at times the in-between period of movie appearances for television stars have traditionally been slightly painful. Jason Bateman has treaded those waters adequately, and the most recent film of his pairs him with one of the more popular female comic actresses of the moment in Identity Thief.

Written by Craig Mazin (The Hangover Part II) and directed by Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), Bateman plays Sandy Patterson, a loyal husband, father and employee for a business in Denver. He receives a call about a potential f...Read the entire review

The Movie:

The following conversation happened before I went to sleep last night:

My wife: "Don't dream about Matthew McConaughey while you sleep."

Me: "Why would I?"

My wife: "I don't know, I just feel like everyone dreams about Matthew McConaughey when they sleep."

I remain curious as to what would spur a mini-discussion like this on. Maybe she thinks Matthew McConaughey is a guy that men want to be like and women want to be with, or perhaps McConaughey has been recently doing a good job in selecting roles which are different stretches of his ability, with a box office smash perhaps sprinkled in for good measure. His latest film Mud is another intriguing choice of roles for the actor.

The film is written and directed by Jeff Nichols, his follow-up to a breakout work of sorts from Read the entire review

The Movie:

One could easily be confused that when someone sees the title for a film called The Oranges, it could be a documentary based on the rampant tanning parlor growth within the United States, or perhaps more provincially a biopic on former Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser and his family. Yet upon a quicker examination The Oranges is not only a somewhat independent film, but a comedy starring some accomplished actors within television and film, many of which people will recognize. Huh, who knew? Let's give it a spin, shall we?

Written by Ian Helfer and Jay Reiss (Wet Hot American Summer) and directed by Julian Farino (Entourage), the film is centered on two tightly-knit New Jersey families. On...Read the entire review

The Movie:

One of the movies that comes to mind for me as I started writing the review of Cloud Atlas was the underrated Darren Aronofsky film The Fountain. Both films covered characters over multiple time periods, both films had characters played by the same actors, and both films cover broad concepts of live, love, and/or the whole ball of wax. While The Fountain may have come and gone with a whimper, Warner Brothers stirred buzz on Cloud Atlas months in advance with a six-minute trailer full of breathtaking visuals and soul-stirring music. Now that the film is on video, can we truly judge if its head was as big as its heart?

The film is based on the novel by David Mitch...Read the entire review

The Movie:

I like Norm MacDonald. I love his stand-up work, his occasional appearances on Celebrity Roasts, his work as a Saturday Night Live news anchor, and I imagine he has fascinating stories that could go on for days. Hell, even when he appears in supporting roles on such dreck as Grown Ups I can go with the flow. He has done more voiceover work in children's films in recent years, and in playing the titular role in Vampire Dog, one would imagine this was the role he was meant to play in some macabre manner.

The film is written by Tracy McMenemy and directed by Geoff Anderson, both of whom are first timers in their respective roles. MacDonald lends his voice to Fang, an otherworldly dog that has a proclivity for red jelly and an aversion to sunlight. The latter is self-explanatory in vampire mythology, b...Read the entire review

The Movie:

So much of what occurred during the 2004 earthquake in the Indian Ocean and the subsequent tsunami that followed was both breathtaking and staggering to witness for those of us who saw the news footage. To see those that survived the disaster, one cannot begin to comprehend the type of ordeal that they had to go through, and those who managed to reunite with loved ones are even luckier still. One of those stories is retold in The Impossible, which garnered critical acclaim for some of its performers.

The film is based on the story of Mar a Bel n and her family, who relayed their experiences to Sergio S nchez and Juan Antonio Bayona (both of whom created the 2008 film (The Orphanage). S nchez wrote the screenplay and Bayona directed Mar a (Naomi Watts, Read the entire review

The Movie:

The members of the vaunted HBO show The Sopranos have tackled post-show projects to varying degrees of success. Yet for an odd reason while watching Down The Shore I felt at the time as if this were an oddly eclectic sequel for one of the characters. Once I got past it, I was pleasantly surprised.

Written by Sandra Jennings (her first feature film screenplay) and directed by Harold Guskin in his directing debut, the main character in this film is Bailey (James Gandolfini, Killing Them Softly). Bailey runs a small amusement park on the New Jersey shore. He lives next door to Mary (Famke Janssen, X2) whom he has known since they were both kids an...Read the entire review

The Movie:

When one takes a cops vs. gangsters genre film and sets it in the post-World War II era, it seems that the resulting list of those films which have succeeded with viewers and critics are remarkably short. There's L.A. Confidential and...that's it? Other films have borne out to be more fascinated with the dialogue and the clothes than an actual story, and almost all of the films have included a talented if not supremely recognizable ensemble no matter the circumstance. With Gangster Squad, Warner Brothers gives us the latest attempt into this hallowed ground.

Will Beall Castle wrote a screenplay based on the Paul Lieberman book, and Ruben Fleischer 30...Read the entire review

The Movie:

When I reviewed the San Francisco Giants' Collector's Edition of Blu-ray discs that commemorated their 2012 World Series win, I bemoaned the fact that the set was as complete as could be, minus the addition of a season in review film, or even one covering the Giants' move through the postseason. Lo and behold, it turns out MLB Video (in coordination with A&E) actually did product a World Series film, and its video release is a standalone joint.

The film runs a tad under 90 minutes and is narrated by Benjamin Bratt of Law and Order fame. I will admit to possessing a bit of cognitive dissonance when it comes to watching the film for the first time because I expected more of an angle where the Giants' entire year was recapped. Coincidentally like my review of the Collector's Ed...Read the entire review

The Show:

While I was peripherally familiar with the TNT show Men of a Certain Age, I (and most everyone else) was familiar with the work of its three stars. The dramatic work featured Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Street) and in a twist, Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) as the aforementioned men. The show's first season was aired to rave reviews and award nominations, yet its rapid decline in viewership led to its 2011 cancellation days after its second s...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Marriages, boyfriends and girlfriends may come and go, but at least when it comes to The Rolling Stones, band mates appear to be forever. Singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards are arguably the best creative duo in rock history and have known each other for six decades now. Sometimes they have gotten along swimmingly. And other times less so, particularly when Richards' past of drug abuse and Jagger's aspirations of a solo career increased tension among the two. The Jagger-Richards history is explored in the appropriately titled Mick vs. Keith: The Strange Case of Jagger & Richards, an unauthorized look at their respective histories.

NOTE: It is at this point that I will note that this package is not a multi-disc set that focu...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Not many people may recognize the name Takashi Shimizu in American households these days, but to reacquaint those who may remember the name, he was one of the names at the front of the Japanese (or J) Horror film genre in the early 2000s with his Ju-On films in Japan. He remade the films for American audiences, used Sarah Michelle Gellar as the star and used the alternate title of The Grudge, which met decent popular success here. He has returned to Japan to make films for that more recognizable audience, with the latest being the 3D film Tormented, the second film he has shot in such a format (the first being Shock Labyrinth).

Shimizu not only directed, but...Read the entire review

The Movie:

I decided to review Chasing Mavericks for the simple fact that its star (Gerard Butler) was in another recently released video in Playing For Keeps that just left me in a bad mood afterwards. I think the guy seems decent and wanted to give him another chance. So why not see him on the West Coast of California playing a Scottish Mr. Miyagi, right?

Kario Salem (The Score) wrote the screenplay that Michael Apted (56 Up) and Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) co-directed. The film is based on the life of Jay Moriarity, a teenager who became famous for his challenging of the vaunted big wave surfing s...Read the entire review

The Movie:

There exists a preference of those who write a film that may be semi-autobiographical to write a sequel to it, serving as a sort of refocusing of where we find the characters in their lives. It works in some areas, and doesn't in others. One could conceivably make the case that the main characters in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up were based on his experiences in having a child and their impact on those people. But the truer identities for Apatow and his wife were in Pete and Debbie, played by Paul Rudd (I Love You Man) and Apatow's wife Leslie Mann. Pete and Debbie return for a feature of their own in Apatow's own revisiting on where he is in life with his written and directed effort This Is 40.

Where the stars of Knocked Up were Seth R...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Like a few other people, I was introduced to the work of Jacques Audiard with his compelling recent film A Prophet, and in hearing he was directing whom I think are two very good lead performers in a story that would seem to be the polar opposite of the crime drama nature of A Prophet, it was intriguing to see what would come of it. And as it turned out, the end result is something that is moving and breathtaking in Rust and Bone.

Audiard (along with Thomas Bidegain) adapted the Craig Davidson story into a screenplay for Audiard's direction. Set in the South of France, Stephanie (Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose), works at a Marineland (think a Euro equivalent of SeaWorld) where she works with killer whales to daily audience...Read the entire review

The Show:

The supporting cast of Seinfeld have attempted to extend their respective careers post-show to varying degrees of entries and exits, but Julia Louis-Dreyfus appears to have been the one who has had the most success with it. The former Saturday Night Live cast member seemed to be the only one who could manage to keep a show afloat for more than one season with the CBS show The New Adventures of Old Christine. But with Veep, there is the very good chance she may have hit the mother lode.

The show was created by Armando Iannucci, whose Oscar-nominated film In The Loop seems to bear some resemblance to this se...Read the entire review

The Movie:

I think it there may be little denying the fact that the mid-1990s served as a boom for the professional wrestling sports entertainment industry. Both Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation and Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling had been around for years (the former being longer lasting), though it was that time when both organizations decided to turn their thoughts towards one another, and it made for some memorable moments for wrestling as a whole. The cresting moment of this battle was unquestionably the turn of longtime fan favorite Hulk Hogan to a group of heels (bad guys) known as the New World Order.

The group started as an interesting idea, with former WWF castoffs Kevin Nash (known then to many as Diesel or Vic Vegas, depending on your level of familiarity) and Scott Hall (Razor Ramon) eschewed their previous persona and came out as real people, cutting...Read the entire review

The Movie:

I first remember seeing Harland Williams in the (I think) underrated comedy ensemble film Down Periscope, but he has also gotten a few lines to chew on in Farrelly Brothers movies like Dumb And Dumber. I was remotely aware of his knack for impersonations and his stand-up comedy, and when I heard he had a new special that was available to view, I figured I would roll the dice and take a chance on it.

The special, titled A Force Of Nature, is a change of pace from the normal stand-up comedy specials filmed in either a small comedy club or a slightly larger, more production-friendly theatre for the comic to show his wares. Williams decides to take the production out to the Mojave Desert, performing on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere as perhaps some attempt at comedy deconstruction. He...Read the entire review

The Movie:

There was some local interest among my friends regarding the film Playing for Keeps. This was primarily because of the occupation of the male lead. However, one of the things I have learned through the years is because someone may be doing something that you may like, that does not mean that they are going to be faithful to said occupation. But in this film's case, the fact that the film is simply horrid does not help it in any case whatsoever.

The film is written by Robbie Fox, his first story or screenplay credit since the 1994 Pauly Shore vehicle In the Army Now, and it is directed by Gabriel Muccino (Seven Pounds). Gerard Butler (Law Abiding Citizen) plays George, a former soccer star in Europe who eventually finished h...Read the entire review

The Concert:

I found it immediately hard to believe that Michael Schenker was still going strong and performing actively at various concert halls in Europe. The German-born Schenker was an original member of the heavy metal band Scorpions (with his brother Rudolf), and the Schenkers' propensity for using the Gibson "Flying V" guitar has become their signature tool in their performance, even after Schenker left the band and went on to be part of the bands UFO and McCauley Schenker Group (or MSG). He also has been close to being attached to other bands since his Scorpions departure, with legend being he auditioned separately for the guitarist spots in the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith, but he has continued on as a solo act, with various musicians coming in and out of Schenker's circle to comprise a group.

Schenker (with fellow former Scorpions in bassist Francis Buchholz and drummer (an...Read the entire review

The Movie:

In playing the game of retrospect, I was looking forward to seeing what kind of critical reception would await The Sessions, and that the leads of the film would surely see waves upon waves of critical praise heaped upon them like so many blankets on a bed. The film came and went and received some of the acclaim, though perhaps not as much as I expected. So for me at least, the next question to ask about The Sessions is "Wha Happened?"

The film is directed by Ben Lewin, who adapted a screenplay based on a Mark O'Brien newspaper article titled "On Seeing A Sex Surrogate." O'Brien graduated from Berkeley and was a poet along with being a journalist. In addition and more importantly, O'Brien (in his mid-thirties at the time of the article) had contracted polio when he was six years old, and was living in an iron lung, which rendered him without the ability to mo...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Like many people, I really enjoyed the first few seasons of Weeds, though as the seasons kept mounting, their welcome became more and more overstayed. My wife hung in for the show a little longer than most (something that she has a trait for, perhaps as some loyalty or faith in the characters), but even she threw up her hands around the show's sixth season. Maybe the show's creator Jenji Kohan was running with some blinders on, or maybe she felt the show had more to say, but once the show got one last production order for its eighth (and final season), my wife and I decided to come back to the show, along with various others that have come in and out of the show through the years, and give Weeds its proper sendoff.

The show's premise is simple. Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker, Red) is a Mom and widow wh...Read the entire review

The Movie:

As of this writing, while my area has yet to experience a really good snowfall this winter, the Northeast is bracing itself to get absolutely slammed by a storm that threatens to dump almost three feet of snow on it, to be complemented by high winds and low visibility. Such storms are given silly nicknames, like "Snowpocalypse," "Thundersnow" or "Nemo." And since I could not bring a truckload of snow to my area, with the SyFy TV movie Snowmageddon, at least I could try to do it artificially.

The film is written by Rudy Thauberger, who continued to scratch the 'winter disaster' itch later with a movie called The 12 Disasters of Christmas. It is directed by Sheldon Wilson, who has directed several other similar movies for the network. Set in Alaska, we have Beth (Laura Harris, ...Read the entire review

The Movie:

The funny thing about the timing of seeing Undefeated for the first time for me was that it was in the middle of me experiencing the show Friday Night Lights for the first time, specifically the show's fourth season, which gives us the show's star, a football coach who takes over a barren high school and tries to take a barebones group of kids and shapes them to be football players. So to a degree I was prepared for Undefeated, but I had no earthly idea what would come from this.

The film is directed by Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin, who last worked together on a documentary chronicling a World Series of Beer Pong (which both intrigues me and makes me envious). Lindsay and Martin use Manassas High School in North Memphis, Tennessee, as their setting. The school h...Read the entire review

The Movie:

When I see performers that are primarily known for a different genre of entertainment try to do something different, I would like to think that I am open-minded to enough to go with the experiment, to see how things work out. Having said that, I was admittedly surprised to see Chris Rock tackle a low-budget comedy. However, his playing opposite a paragon of sorts for independent cinema does help matters when we see him without many of his jokes in 2 Days in New York.

The film is co-written by Julie Delpy (of Before Sunset lore), and Alexia Landreau (Marie Antoinette), with Delpy directing, and starring as Marion, a mother and artist who lives with Rock, who plays a radio talk-show host named Mingus. Mingus and Marion live in New York...Read the entire review

The Movie:

I think of the ramifications for many of the studios have been remaking horror movies and thrillers for so long, it tends to stifle original attempts at doing something with the genre, and possibly neutering them. Perhaps in the collective disgust of the latter, that means people will want more of the former, but with the film Love Me, there is little to suggest that anything else may be going on.

Written by Kat Candler (Jumping Off Bridges) and directed by Rick Bota (Hellraiser: Hellworld), the film's setting is at an apparent private school straight out of a Gilmore Girls episode. The first scenes of the film show a girl walking home from school, rebuffing the attempts of the anonymous driver of a muscle car, before we get the quick close-up to her screaming/disappearance. Flash...Read the entire review

The Movie:

The filmography of Stephen Dorff has been a curious one to me. Ever since he was Cliff Spab in 1994's S.F.W., it seemed to me like he was being groomed for a larger spot in the acting landscape, though he never broke the way I was expecting him to. And now he is apparently in commercials for electronic cigarettes? OK. But when he does a movie, he does manage to bring in some familiar faces to a production, if his latest vehicle Officer Down is any indication.

Written by John Chase and directed by Brian Miller (House of the Rising Sun), Dorff plays David Callahan, a Bridgeport, Connecticut police detective. He is married to Alexandra (Elisabeth Rohm, Angel) and has a teenaged daughter, but he also ...Read the entire review

The Show:

The journeys of lowly Manchester native and radio producer Karl Pilkington have been well chronicled by his de facto sponsor of these journeys, comedian Ricky Gervais. The former worked on several podcasts of the latter and Gervais decided to fly Karl to visit the Seven Wonders of the World, titling the show (to Karl's obliviousness) as An Idiot Abroad. The show was a hilarious mix of Ricky pranking Karl from afar while serving as a travelogue of sorts to Karl's experiences. It went so well that someone thought a second series would be good, which brings us to where we are.

The series' subtitle this time around is 'The Bucket List,' and judging from that subtitle one could seem to assume that Karl would be in for torture that is more psychological. In the first season, Ricky's desire to p...Read the entire review

The Movie:

David Ayer has made a living for himself writing films that examine the law enforcement and crime families in Los Angeles, with those two families sometimes interwoven with one another. And to his credit those films have ranged in quality from the decent (Training Day) to the underrated (Harsh Times. With his newest film End of Watch, a film he wrote and directed, he may have his best effort yet, if the critical reception is any indication.

Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal, Love & Other Drugs) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena, Eastbound & Down) are street cops, and as part of a...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Before Bill Cunningham New York some people may not have been aware of his work in the New York Times where he took pictures of people walking through the streets in their unique clothes. He may have been just an old guy on a bicycle, riding through the streets and taking pictures of those he felt looked interesting. As Cunningham says in the film, it is all about the clothes. However, through the years, designers have valued his work both locally and internationally, and now into his eighties, Bill Cunningham New York helps shed a light into the man and his work.

As the film unwinds, we begin to realize that looking at Cunningham's life was something that was not a several weeks or months at a glance. We see Cunningham being honored by the French Ministry of Culture several years before and his appearance at a socialite's 100th birthday several years before ...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Many people are aware of the relationship that Ike and Tina Turner had through the excellent film What's Love Got To Do With It, based on Tina's memoir and recounted their relationship and Ike's years of physical and emotional abuse of Tina and her eventual career resurgence. And while this may be the prism that most people identified, not many knew or were aware of the dynamic between the two behind those scenes. And with Ike & Tina On The Road, the attempt to shed some light on this lesser known dynamic is made.

The film is home video footage that was shot by Bob Gruen, a longtime rock photographer (whose picture of John Lennon in a New York City t-shirt remains an iconic photo) and Gruen's wife Nadya. The couple was brought into the fold after Ike had seen some of Gruen's photos and asked that he film the pair and the rest of the band as they toured No...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Shawn Michaels has been entertaining World Wrestling Entertainment crowds now for almost a quarter century since his entrance into the organization (with Marty Jannetty) as part of the high-flying tag team The Rockers. After the dissolution of the duo, Michaels evolved into a singles wrestler and the results have been marvelous, to say the least. While Michaels does travel and does house shows domestically and abroad from time to time, his matches, normally hard-fought bouts running upwards of 20 and 30 minutes, are fewer and further between, partly to rest a back that has had its share of troubles for the last 15 years. However, the WWE has added three recent matches to Michaels' already large video library and placed them into their current "Superstar Collection" series.

As far as the matches go, while they are scant compared to other Michaels discs, they include the fol...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Looking back at the San Francisco Giants' World Series win in 2010, what struck me is some of the change that occurred in the roster within that time. This is not to say the Giants experienced wholesale change between then and now, but many of the field players that played a part in their 2010 success have departed for fresher faces in 2012, with the results being the same.

The Giants were somewhat slow starters in the 2012 season, but regained their footing in August and cruised ahead to the National League West title by winning almost two-thirds of their games in the final three months of the season. Using fantastic hitting performances by catcher Buster Posey (.336 batting average, 24 home runs, 103 runs batted in) and left fielder Melky Cabrera, who was hitting at a .346 clip. Unfo...Read the entire review

The Movie:

With the last couple of years in America serving for some as a way to number classes, whether it is the 47%, the 99% or what have you, it was only a matter of time before films used these mechanisms as a means of either launching or telling a story. The latest entry into this subgenre of films is Arbitrage, which has some familiar names in its cast, being directed by a not so familiar one.

The film is written and directed by Nicholas Jarecki in his feature film debut. The focus of the film is Robert Miller (Richard Gere, The Jackal), the manager of a wealthy hedge fund in New York. He has been married to a devoted woman in Ellen (Susan Sarandon, The Lovely Bones) for years, his daughter Brooke (Brit Marling, Read the entire review