It would be easy enough to fill a Worst 10 list with low-budget “found footage” horror movies, and sadly not that much more difficult to fill one with earnest, badly-executed indies, but where’s the fun in that?  No, if we’re going to throw stones, let’s throw them through some expensive windows. WORST BIG BUDGET […]

  As a movie year, 2013 was awfully slow in getting started.  Hardly anything worth remembering opened all winter and spring–only 1 movie in the Top 10 below opened in theatres before late May.  Summer brought some relief, and then the film festival season that began at the end of August opened the doors wide […]

  THE WOLF OF WALL STREET:  Buy A Ticket – Scorsese’s Boisterous Epic of Bottomless Greed The key sequence in Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET arrives about 2 hours into its 3-hour length.  (No meaningful spoilers here.)  The resoundingly crooked financier Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his equally bent sidekick Donnie Azoff (Jonah […]

  ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES:  Watch It At Home – Fun But Overextended Silliness ANCHORMAN 2:  THE LEGEND CONTINUES runs 119 minutes, which is rather too much of a not-bad thing (the original Anchorman, in 2004, was a brisk 94 minutes), but it pales in comparison to the accumulated length of the marketing campaign […]

  AMERICAN HUSTLE:  Buy A Ticket – David O. Russell’s Epic Romp Is a Party That Goes On Till Dawn Even though it’s concerned with con men, low-lifes and deluded losers, AMERICAN HUSTLE is the happiest movie in town.  The co-writer/director David O. Russell seems intoxicated with life’s utter craziness and the joy of moviemaking; […]

  OUT OF THE FURNACE:  Watch It At Home – Dark Thriller Is Less Weighty Than It Thinks A great deal of heart and effort has gone into OUT OF THE FURNACE, and it’s disappointing to see the film resolve itself into little more than a fairly routine revenge melodrama, even though director Scott Cooper […]

  As I was saying… THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG:  Worth A Ticket – The Long Road Continues, But This Time On A Better Path Jumping at once to the most pressing matter–which is more than its trilogy often does–Peter Jackson’s THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG is considerably more enjoyable than last year’s […]

  NOTE TO READERS: Warner Bros has an embargo in place that delays reviews of THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG until Sunday morning.  While I viewed the film as a member of the general public, and hadn’t obtained my ticket subject to that embargo, I have agreed with Warners to abide by its terms, […]