2012 was, in the end, a very good year for movies–or a a good half-year, more accurately.  With the studios continuing to load their best efforts into the festival- and awards-heavy fall and winter part of the calendar, not a single one of the Top 10 below opened before July, and only 3 before […]

  Showbuzzdaily’s Top 10 Films of 2012 can be found here, and the Worst 10 are here.  But there were other movies this year worth remembering: HONORABLE MENTIONS CLOUD ATLAS (Warners – October – written and directed by Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer): An impossibly ambitious epic that was thrilling when it worked. […]

  PROMISED LAND:  Watch It At Home – Promise, But No Fulfillment There’s an original idea located somewhere near (but not at) the heart of PROMISED LAND:  start with what would normally be an obvious storyline about a good environmentalist (Dustin Noble, played by John Krasinski) vs. a heartless corporate tool (Steve Butler, in the […]

  NOT FADE AWAY:  Watch It At Home – The Tumultuous 1960s (Again) What do you do after you’ve created the seminal television drama of our time?  If you’re David Chase, it seems that you take a few years off to soak in your Sopranos adulation and awards (consistently refusing to discuss the controversial ending, […]

  The year-end movies are almost all out now (2012’s final limited release, PROMISED LAND, opens on Friday), so here’s a handy capsule guide to what’s worth seeing at the multiplex-and what isn’t.  Just click on the titles for our full reviews. RESERVE YOUR SEATS NOW ZERO DARK THIRTY: Kathryn Bigelow’s (and screenwriter Mark Boal’s) […]

  PARENTAL GUIDANCE – Not At Any Price – Stupefying “Family” Sitcom Too Little For the Big Screen This is said with all due respect to a pair of performers who have entertained millions for decades, but really, don’t celebrities ever look in the mirror?  If not, don’t they have people to look in the […]

  DJANGO UNCHAINED – Worth A Ticket – Pre-Civil War American History 101 With Professor Tarantino Quentin Tarantino is, when you think about it, the most successful avant-garde filmmaker in Hollywood.  His triumph is that although his films are as idiosyncratic and unique as, say, those of the Andersons Wes and Paul Thomas or of […]

  LES MISERABLES – Worth A Ticket – One Day More Finally Arrives In light of some of the early reactions, perhaps the most important thing to note about LES MISERABLES the film is that it is, in fact, the film of Les Miserables–and so, yes, bombastic voices raised in song and unfettered melodrama are the order of the day. […]