LAWLESS:  Watch It At Home – A Moonshine War To Make You Long for “Boardwalk Empire” Director John Hillcoat specializes in stark, emotionally distanced pulp, and if that sounds like a contradiction in terms, often it is.  His Australian western The Proposition, about a man murderously stalking his own brother, had a gnarled power, […]

  THE EXPENDABLES 2:  Watch It At Home – Grumpy Old Mercenaries The first reel of THE EXPENDABLES 2 is just about all the numbskull fun you could ever wish for.  Our intrepid team of Barney (Sylvester Stallone), Christmas (Jason Statham), Yang (Jet Li), Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and Toll Road (Randy […]

  THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN:  Not At Any Price – Should Have Been Pruned   When Disney decided to make THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN, it probably shouldn’t have put the word “odd” in the title.  Although I suppose it’s preferable to “weird” or “mildly creepy.” Timothy Green is the story of […]

  THE BOURNE LEGACY:  Watch It At Home – Not Up To the Real Bournes THE BOURNE LEGACY has been concocted with a combination of ingenuity and desperation.  It exists because Universal–a studio dangerously light on action and fantasy movie franchises in an era where those are at the dead center of the business–couldn’t afford […]

  THE CAMPAIGN:  Not At Any Price – Abstain THE CAMPAIGN, like many a politician before it, tries to be all things to all people, and winds up delivering almost nothing. There was reason to be hopeful about The Campaign, mostly because its director, Jay Roach, seemed to embody exactly the mix the movie was […]

  TOTAL RECALL:  Watch It At Home – Unmemorable TOTAL RECALL isn’t the worst picture of the summer, and probably won’t be the biggest flop, but it may be the most unnecessary waste of everyone’s time.  Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, while no masterpiece, had lots of Verhoeven’s oddball streak of pulp surrealism and […]

THE WATCH:  Not At Any Price – Do the Stars a Favor:  Don’t Watch Some terrible movies surprise and disappoint, but you could see THE WATCH coming for weeks.  The increasingly desperate marketing campaign told the story–it’s a buddy comedy!  it’s a sci-fi comedy!  it’s a buddy comedy and a sci-fi comedy!–as did the panicky […]

  Warning:  this piece will discuss details of the storyline of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES as well as the other Batman films.  GIANT SPOILERS WILL ABOUND; proceed at your own risk. Christopher Nolan is remarkable among the great directors of action films–Steven Spielberg, David Lean, James Cameron, John Ford, certainly Michael Bay–in that while working […]