THE FILM:

Compelling biopics usually have interesting or significant subjects whose lives and deeds are compelling enough to dramatize for an audience. Elizabeth Taylor is certainly an important part of Hollywood's history, but Liz & Dick, which originally aired on the Lifetime network, is almost exclusively about her two marriages to actor Richard Burton. Liz & Dick, with Lindsay Lohan and Grant Bowler as the squabbling celebrity couple, succeeds at very little but did a great job making me hate its subjects. Burton and Taylor, especially, are painted as shrill and childish, with little to do but prance about town drinking and g...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

I lamented the aging of steadfast movie hero Clint Eastwood in my review for Trouble with the Curve, and have similar feelings about Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin in Stand Up Guys. I guess it's time to accept that my acting heroes are not getting any younger, and, particularly in Pacino's case, it's nice to see them in a decent movie. Underneath all the old-man jokes about Viagra and high blood pre...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Steven Soderbergh claims he is retiring from directing this year. I hope that is not true. The workhorse filmmaker deserves a nice vacation, but American cinema will have to find someone else to direct intelligent, original thrillers if Soderbergh really does bow out of Hollywood. Side Effects finds Soderbergh in fine form, and is a thriller that both entertains and queries its audience about their beliefs in modern medicine and criminal justice. The marketing never quite nailed the film's t...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

I was not expecting much from Crush after reading the synopsis on the back of the case that makes it sound like yet another Fatal Attraction rip-off for teens. Since Swimfan kind of sucked, I assumed Crush wouldn't be much better. Then I watched the movie and damn if this tricky thriller didn't entertain me. All-American high school athl...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

If you listen to the cast and crew of Texas Chainsaw 3D talk about making the film, it's clear the group set out to make something that respects the fans and legacy of Tobe Hooper's 1974 cult classic. Diehard fans sharpened their knives immediately upon hearing that Texas Chainsaw was to bill itself as a direct sequel to Hooper's film. Shot in native 3D, Texas Chainsaw opens ...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

John Sturges' The Great Escape is regarded as one of the most exciting dramas ever filmed. The movie is a favorite of critics and casual fans alike for good reason, as it remains a thrilling, intelligent retelling of the prison break at Germany's Stalag Luft III in March 1944. Nearly fifty years after its original theatrical release, The Great Escape makes it high-definition debut for modern audiences. The film's three hours fly by thanks to the gripping screenplay by James Clavell and...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Parker, the ruthless career criminal from Donald E. Westlake's long-running series of novels, is more complex and a fair bit less approachable than his big-screen representation in Director Taylor Hackford's Parker, which pulls from Westlake's 19th novel "Flashfire." Shot without much humor but with plenty of excess blood, Parker feels incredibly generic despite the decent pairing of Statham and Jennifer Lopez as a frustrated Palm Beach realtor who agrees to help Parker take out the men ...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Watching Broken City is a lot like popping the hood of a hybrid car. Once you get past the shiny exterior you realize there isn't much there. Trim and efficient, Broken City nonetheless becomes less compelling as its secrets are revealed and the audience realizes there was hardly a mystery at all. Mark Wahlberg is former NYPD detective Billy Taggart, who was fired after killing the man who raped and murdered his sister-in-law. Taggart avoids jail thanks to New York City Major Nicholas...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Scream Factory resurrects Charles B. Pierce's low-budget thriller The Town That Dreaded Sundown for a Blu-ray release, and this creaky dramatization of several real-life Texarkana murders proves an interesting mix of terror, oddball humor and crime documentary. Several months after World War II ended, a hooded murderer known as the "Phantom Killer" sent this peaceful community on the Texas/Arkansas border into a tailspin. Five people lost their lives before the killer crept back into the woods...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, known professionally as Neveldine/Taylor, have a number of frenetic actioners on their collective resume, including Crank and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, but none is as flash-edited crazy as Gamer. Gerard Butler headlines as John "Keble" Tillman, a convict turned avatar in deadly game "Slayers"...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Matt Damon reteams with Good Will Hunting director Gus Van Sant for anti-fracking drama Promised Land. Written by Damon and John Krasinski, Promised Land is less preachy than I feared it might be, but the film still straddles the thorny line between entertainment and social commentary. Damon plays an agent of Global Crosspower Solutions tasked with securing drilling rights from families...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

In the chilling opening of Jack Reacher, a man drives to a parking deck overlooking the Allegheny River in downtown Pittsburgh, loads a sniper rifle with handmade bullets, and shoots dead five people walking on the riverbank. Drawing from the pages of Lee Child's "One Shot," the ninth book in the Jack Reacher series, Director Christopher McQuarrie crafts a sly crime thriller with intensity and suspense atypical in recent genre films. Tom Cruise plays former U.S. Army Military Police Corps offi...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Despite its all-star cast, shoot-'em-up action, and Hollywood noir trappings, Gangster Squad is a largely forgettable - if entertaining - motion picture. Set in Los Angeles right after World War II, Gangster Squad follows the lawmen who dared to fight organized crime, led by gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, acting up raging storm), and keep the mob out of L.A. Josh Brolin leads the Gangster Squad as Sgt. John O'Mara and is joined by Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) and officers played...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Over a decade in the making, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is a meticulous, accomplished dramatization of the Great Emancipator's push to enact the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution before the end of the Civil War. Daniel Day-Lewis again totally transforms into his role, this time adopting the surprisingly modest voice of the sixteenth president. Lincoln is Spielberg's best film in some time; dense, expertly staged, historically accurate and rarely dull. The screenpla...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Marlon Wayans built his career on irreverent spoof comedies, with performances in Scary Movie and its sequel, both of which Wayans' brother, Keenen Ivory Wayans, directed. His latest send-up, A Haunted House, lampoons the Paranormal Activity franchise, and, inexplicably, the maligned and forgotten Read the entire review

THE FILM:

After a violent confrontation with his wife's lover, Paris attorney Paul Exben becomes a chameleon, slinking through the lives of others while calculating his future. This French thriller, directed by Eric Lartigau, is less suspenseful than haunting, and Romain Duris gives Exben a wide-eyed alertness seemingly incongruent with his unkempt appearance. The original French title translates to "The Man Who Wanted to Live His Life," which is slightly stronger than the American title, "The Big Picture." D...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

A sequel to the 2009 slasher The Collector wasn't exactly a given, though that film tripled its $3 million budget at the box office. Marcus Dunstan returns to direct The Collection, which picks up soon after the events of the original. Survivor Arkin (Josh Stewart) is recruited to lead a team into the lair of the vicious serial killer that tortured him to retrieve a young woman. The Collection is as bloody as you'...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Let me set the scene for you: It's late December 2012, and movie theaters are packed with families trying to kill time before the kids go back to school. Peter Jackson's film is sold out, the big-budget musical is too long and dry for the brood, and Judd Apatow's characters curse too much. The only thing left to see is that fungible family comedy released the same time each year to suck the dimes out of your Christmas-starved pockets. This year's cast is better than normal - Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Marisa Tomei - which makes Parental Guidance all the more disappointing. Unfunny, interminable and consistently lazy, Parental Guidance is less a film than 105 minutes of punishment for forgetting to pre-order tickets to som...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Nate & Margaret is a small movie. In a good way. It's focused and intimate, and follows the oddball friendship of 19-year-old film student Nate (Tyler Ross) and 52-year-old spinster Margaret (Natalie West). The pair lives in the same apartment building, and is practically inseparable until Nate meets his first boyfriend and distances himself from Margaret. Director Nathan Adloff's film is sweet and believable, with a positive attitude in a cynical world. The similarities to Harold and Maude are cursory, and Nate & Margaret is its own exploration of ageless friendship.

Eyes quickly turn to the semi-old lady in the room when Margaret accomp...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Hyde Park on Hudson is like custard. The historical drama is lightweight, attractively presented, and perfectly pleasant but not particularly memorable. Bill Murray steals the show with a jolly rendition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who hosts King George VI and Queen Elizabeth for a weekend at his country estate in Hyde Park, New York. Also present are Eleanor Roosevelt and the President's dueling mistresses, Daisy Suckley and Missy LeHand, and Hyde Park on Hudson is part tawdry melod...Read the entire review

Whoever saves one life saves the world entire. - Talmud (paraphrase)

THE SERIES:

The BBC's crackling historical drama Ripper Street picks up six months after Jack the Ripper, arguably history's most infamous serial killer, murdered at least five prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district. When a body is found with marks of the Ripper, members of the Metropolitan Police's H Division re-open the cold case. Matthew Macfadyen, of BBC series Spooks, leads the charge as Detective Inspector E...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Catherine Hardwicke is a polarizing director, and her projects are all over the map. There's the teens-gone-wild drama Thirteen and gritty skateboarding odyssey Lords of Dogtown. Her biggest job? A little film called Twilight. She wasn't invited back to direct it...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Meta horror came back hard last year thanks to the release of long-delayed The Cabin in the Woods, which turned out to be a successful, wink-wink genre-baiting thrill ride. Self-aware horror films are nothing new. There is Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which ushered in a genre renaissance on the back of Read the entire review

THE FILM:

It is hard to believe nearly 25 years have passed since the theatrical release of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Director Robert Zemeckis' irreverent, thoroughly entertaining mashup of traditional animation and classic Hollywood noir. At once a celebration and a satire of the Hollywood studio system, Who Framed Roger Rabbit floats on the imagination and talent of Zemeckis and producers Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. Then CEO of Disney Michael Eisner passed the film to ...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

This one snuck under the radar. Actress Victoria Mahoney's independent directorial debut, Yelling to the Sky, was financed by the Sundance Institute, and features a confident leading performance by Zo Kravitz, daughter of rocker Lenny Kravitz. Jason Clarke, Tim Blake Nelson and Gabourney Sidibe also star, but Yelling to the Sky received little mainstream attention. Mahoney serves up a memorable if slightly undercooked slice of urban life, where Kravitz's Sweetness O'Hara is tempted by...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

French import Little White Lies works better as a travelogue than a drama, and I found myself checking Expedia for tickets to beautiful Cap Ferret in southwest France. Like an afternoon on a sun-drenched beach, Little White Lies is warm, relaxing and a bit boozy. The cast is stocked with France's best actors, and Guillaume Canet directs with similar skill but less urgency than he did with Tell No One. A group of adu...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Thunderstruck at first glance seems to have all the pieces necessary to make a successful family film. Down-and-out boy acquires mad basketball skills from NBA baller Kevin Durant. Boy gets the girl, gets cocky, loses the girl, and finds redemption. And what the hell is Jim Belushi doing in this? It's too bad Thunderstruck is so damn boring. Sure, it's completely innocuous and might teach your kids the value of humility and hard work, but there's not a bit of edge or excitement to be found. To say that Durant is the "star" is also a joke, as his performance is little more than an extended cameo. At a scant 94 minutes, Thunderstruck is slow going.

Sixteen-year-old Brian (Taylor Gray) is stuck being the ball boy s...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

During the opening scenes of So Undercover, in which a borderline obnoxious Miley Cyrus scales rooftops during a private-eye gig, I assumed the worst. Cyrus, with her two-packs-a-day smoker's voice and penchant for sass, was going to make these 94 minutes into a movie reviewer's hell. But then, So Undercover sticks Cyrus in a New Orleans sorority, and turns into something resembling passable, Disney Channel entertainment. Cyrus is Molly Morris but pretends to be sorority girl Brooke Stonebridge, which really does sound like a WASPY neighborhood, after the FBI asks her to guard the daughter of a high-priority asset. By no means is So Undercover a great movie, but its target audience - adolescent girls - should eat it up. ...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

The core conflict in Allegiance involves a member of the Army National Guard going AWOL on the eve of his unit's deployment to Iraq. Another lieutenant, recently transferred to a non-deploying unit thanks to his daddy's connections, weighs helping his friend or upholding his duty to the guard. Allegiance has an uphill climb with its unlikeable characters and dishonorable behavior, but makes efforts to portray the raw emotions surrounding a military deployment. Things are a little too black and white during much of the film, and guard leaders are painted as unthinking military drones instead of real people. The core conflict also rides on shaky ground, but Allegiance is convincing enough in the trenches to warrant a renta...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

I have previously expressed how much I appreciate the wide variety of films I've been exposed to while writing for DVD Talk. Some of my favorite reviews to write have been for films I was not expecting to be great. I have come to realize that art means different things to different people. What entertains or repulses a viewer is subjective, and films impact people based on their backgrounds and moods. It was with great interest that I popped in the Blu-ray for Pig/1334 from Cult Epics. I knew nothing about either film before beginning this review, but recognized from the snake, skull and swastika-adorned cover that I was in for something intense. Both short films are by Dutch director Nico B., who founded Cult Epics, and Pig is a collaboration with late musician Rozz Williams. Both are confounding, horrific and experimental, and intentionally provok...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

The best nature documentaries combine compelling footage with informative narration or commentary and use the visuals to tell a story. IMAX, the BBC and Discovery Channel spoil audiences with a steady stream of great nature programming, so it's almost inevitable that Fascination Coral Reef 3D doesn't cut it. Compared to Planet Earth it's amateurish; a collection of uninteresting underwater shots set to dismal narration. The water is murky, the subjects fleeting, and the entire affair is tedious.

Fascination Coral Reef 3D is one part of a German nature series. This piece concerns coral reefs and the surrounding ecosystem, which is full ...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

The opening minutes of Rites of Passage promise gonzo fun. Christian Slater talks to a stuffed monkey. Wes Bentley gets wacked out on herbal tea and kidnaps someone. A woman in a bikini and tribal paint runs for her life in a greenhouse full of marijuana. But Rites of Passage is too crazy too early, and runs out of steam quickly. This odd, genre-hopping film from Director W. Peter Iliff is part backwoods horror and part stoner comedy. Several University of California, Santa Barbara students accompany a classmate to his family's estate, located on a sacred Chumash burial ground, to participate in a coming-of-age ritual, and find their weekend less a vacation than a fight for life. Rites of Passage tries hard - perhaps ...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

A group of Big Tobacco executives known colloquially as the "Seven Dwarves" testified before Congress in 1994 that nicotine is not addictive. Soon after, former Brown & Williamson tobacco company scientist Jeffrey Wigand told 60 Minutes that not only did the tobacco chiefs know nicotine was addictive but that the company intentionally increased the nicotine content in cigarettes to raise profits. Director Michael Mann brings this drama to the screen in tense, tightly crafted The Insider...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

Most science fiction fans already know the mess that is Highlander II: The Quickening. Russell Mulcahy returned to direct this follow-up to the 1986 original, and a lot of things went wrong: The Argentinian production was a disaster, the film completely ignores the mythology of its predecessor, and the actors treat the movie like an SNL parody sketch. Four years after the film's initial release, Mulcahy pieced together a director's cut known a...Read the entire review

THE FILM:

I hate to throw a horror film that actually tries under the bus, but Smiley never shakes its designation as an ambitious failure. College freshman Ashley (Caitlin Gerard) comes to campus with raw emotions after the death of her mother, and bunks with laidback hipster Proxy (Melanie Papalia). The girls learn about Internet urban legend Smiley, who comes to kill unsuspecting online chatters after one party types "I did it for the lulz" three times. The movie grumbles along at a glacial pace before pulling the rug out from under the audience with an ending that is both ridiculous and strangely affecting. The resolution alone, which provides unexpected commentary on Internet behavior, almost makes Smiley worth watching, but the end...Read the entire review