DREDD, which kicked off the merrily disreputable Midnight Madness program at the Toronto Film Festival last night, isn’t much, but no one can say the director Pete Travis wasted his 3D budget. Things are constantly hovering, fluttering or–often–splattering in the foreground of the frame, and the images do a better job of suggesting visual depth […]

  The Toronto International Film Festival is, of the major North American festivals, by far the most pleasant to attend.  Its line-up of films and clout are matched only by Sundance’s, and it substitutes balmy 70 degree weather and large, well-appointed theaters for that festival’s snowy winds and converted high school auditoriums and hotel ballrooms.  […]

  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 […]