ICE AGE:  CONTINENTAL DRIFT – Watch It At Home – The CSI of Family Franchises Does Its Thing   You know what the fabulous Peter Dinklage never gets to do on Game of Thrones?  Sing!  That’s remedied in the new 3D animated ICE AGE:  CONTINENTAL DRIFT, where as the voice of monkey pirate Captain […]

It’s unfortunately not saying very much to note that PASSION is the best eeffort Brian DePalma has managed to turn in lately.  DePalma’s Redacted was one of the worst films by a major American director in recent memory (even worse than Francis Coppola’s still-unreleased Twixt, seen at last year’s Toronto)—one had to be a major DePalmite to even find […]

  It just wouldn’t be a film festival without something from Michael Winterbottom.  Winterbottom isn’t at the very top of the film director pantheon, but he’s respected enough that his projects have been in near-constant festival demand for most of his two decade-long career, and one way or another they tend to be included in […]

  MAN OF STEEL:  Watch It At Home – Another Guy In a Cape “Kneel before Zod!” the villain of that name roared in what’s probably the best-remembered piece of dialogue from Superman 2.  That line isn’t in the new MAN OF STEEL, but its filmmakers seem at times to have incorporated it into their attitude toward […]

  The writer/producer/director John Wells made his reputation as the showrunner of ER, and he’s known as one of the most consistent, professional producers in the network business, with impeccable shows like The West Wing and Third Watch to his credit.  In recent years, though, he’s been spending a lot of his time in the more rambunctious world […]

  A surprisingly commercial concoction by Sundance standards, Gillian Robespierre’s OBVIOUS CHILD doesn’t feel very much unlike the pilot for a cable dramedy.  That’s not meant as any kind of dire criticism; TV could use more smart, funny female voices like Robespierre’s and star Jenny Slate’s (Slate is already featured in a multitude of high-class TV shows, […]

  EDGE OF TOMORROW:  Watch It At Home – Needed To Hit Reset One More Time There’s a lot of inventiveness in EDGE OF TOMORROW, which combines the premise of Groundhog Day with a War of the Worlds-like plot–certainly more than the usual for a mega-budgeted Hollywood summer action movie.  That keeps it compelling for […]

  It’s an unfortunate irony that TRUMBO, the story of one of Hollywood’s great blacklisted screenwriters, is undermined by an inadequate script.  It’s written by John McNamara, also the man behind NBC’s low-rated Aquarius, and viewers may find it difficult to figure out just what he and director Jay Roach had in mind, as they […]