Movie Reviews
(This review was originally published on January 22, 2012 at The Rogers Revue) It’s nice to see an action film that doesn’t complicate things just for the sake of looking smart. As much as I enjoyed most of the spy films from 2011, we saw almost every variation and mind-boggling complexity that the genre had […]
Read More
(This article was originally published on January 18, 2012 at The Rogers Revue) It’s that dreary season between The Golden Globes and The Oscars when we commiserate about another crappy year of football, fight our annual urge to move south and pick at the remnants of last year’s cinematic bounty.
Read More
(Originally published at Reel Film News on December 30, 2011.) The Mission: Impossible film series has been a curiously odd set of films. The first, directed by Brian DePalma, focused more on intrigue and the various, oft-confusing collection of double-crosses within the Impossible Missions Force. The second, directed by famed Hong Kong director John Woo, […]
Read More
(This review was originally published on December 25, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) The collaboration of director J.J. Abrams and Tom Cruise in 2006′s “Mission:Impossible III” marked a vast improvement over John Woo’s awkwardly trendy, over-stylized sequel six years prior. Also referred to as ‘Me:Too’, Woo’s crossover effort seemed self-indulgent for Cruise and unnaturally trigger-happy for the series, […]
Read More
(This review was originally published on December 16, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) Anyone who has read much John le Carré is probably well acquainted with George Smiley, the quintessential British spy character of the Cold War era (no, it’s not James Bond). In “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”, which is the first book in the ‘Karla’ trilogy (released later […]
Read More
(This review was originally published onDecember 9, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) If you enjoyed “Pineapple Express”, then you might appreciate my elaboration on why “The Sitter” barely cleared my D rating. Either way, there seems to be (yet another) new wave of comedy that threatens to challenge our creative existence like a planet-ending meteor.
Read More
(This review was originally published on November 23, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) Has anyone ever really gotten the Marilyn Monroe biopic thing right? Not in my opinion. But even Mira Sorvino’s depiction of the platinum blonde bombshell opposite Ashley Judd’s innocent but tragically scarred alter ego in the 1996 HBO movie “Norma Jean and […]
Read More
(This review was originally published on November 18, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) Alexander Payne has an affinity for bringing complex literary characters to life in situations of conflict, compromise and absurdity. This was best exemplified in 2004′s “Sideways”, a snarky little gem that effectively walked the line between comedy and tragedy. His first film in […]
Read More
(This review was originally published on November 5, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) It’s good to have Eddie Murphy back in the realm of comedy, and a relief to know that characters like Reggie Hammond and Billy Ray Valentine still have a place amongst the Norbits and Pluto Nashes that have weighed down his bag of […]
Read More
(This review was originally published on November 5, 2011 at The Rogers Revue) In the midst of celebrating the blood and gore at this year’s Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival in Washington, DC, two relatively introverted head scratchers emerged that ended up in my top picks, “Pig” and “Skew” (see also my reviews of “The Watermen”, “The Millennium […]
Read More