> Tonight at 43 real Imax theatres (the ones with the huge squarish screens), Warner Bros debuted an extended trailer for next summer’s THE DARK KNIGHT RISES shot in the full Imax format, consisting of the opening sequence and an extra minute or so of quick clips from the rest of the movie.  Apart from […]

  PROJECT X:  Not Even For Free – Don’t RSVP   How is it that no one has yet produced a 3D found-footage movie?  You’d think the combination of the most (usually) mind-numbing gimmicks of the past decade would be a commercially sure bet, but so far it’s an untapped market. Meanwhile we have PROJECT […]

  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 […]

  JACK REACHER:  Watch It At Home – Next on TNT:  Tom Cruise If Tom Cruise’s career ever takes him to do a TV pilot, it would be a lot like JACK REACHER.  And not a classy, sophisticated pilot for AMC or HBO or Showtime or FX–no, this would be a standard basic cable procedural, or a […]

  OBLIVION:  Worth A Ticket – Dramatically Uneven, But Visually Spectacular OBLIVION is amazing to look at.  Even though it takes place in the same post-apocalyptic landscape where movie and TV audiences seem to spend most of their time these days, the director Joseph Kosinski and his cinematographer Claudio Miranda (he just won the Oscar […]

  SHORT TERM 12:  Run To the Multiplex – Powerful and Moving Indie Drama How can I make you want to see SHORT TERM 12?  It’s one of the year’s best pictures, but I feel as though describing the plot and setting will make it sound like a collection of the preachiest kind of pat […]

  THAT AWKWARD MOMENT:  Watch It At Home – Low-Impact Rom-Com If you heard that a new indie movie featured the stars of the past 2 years’ back-to-back Sundance sensations, Michael B. Jordan from 2013’s Fruitvale Station and Miles Teller from this year’s Whiplash, would you be intrigued? What if Zac Efron was the other […]

  INTERSTELLAR:  Worth A Ticket – Christopher Nolan’s Imperfect Odyssey Remember A.I.: Artificial Intelligence?  It was the deeply odd sci-fi/fairy tale quasi-collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg, originated by Kubrick but rewritten and filmed by Spielberg (at Kubrick’s request) after Kubrick’s death.  Spielberg clearly meant it as a tribute to a great filmmaker and friend, but […]