I first saw A Small Circle of Friends (1980) while I was in college, and as it is about a trio of friends whose lives change dramatically when they attend college, the film really resonates with me. Although critics disparage […]
Continue reading »Author: admin
Black Sunday (1977) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
Before author Thomas Harris imagined his signature character Hannibal Lecter, he wrote a novel about an act of terrorism occurring at the one of the biggest spectacles in America, the Super Bowl. The resulting movie of the same name is […]
Continue reading »Battleship (2012) ☆ ☆
I’ll admit that I’ve not been a fan of bringing board games to cinematic life, but I was actually looking forward to seeing how Hasbro’s game “Battleship” would morph into an alien invasion movie. Sadly, the board game is still […]
Continue reading »The Lucky One (2012) ☆ ☆ 1/2
It isn’t easy to make a realistic movie about relationships that ventures from the battlefields of Iraq to the bayou country of Louisiana, tells a romantic story with powerful sexual tension and yet is only rated PG-13. The Lucky One suffers […]
Continue reading »Marvel’s The Avengers (2012) ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2
Not to be confused with the classic British television series, or the abominable American movie re-imagining of the classic British television series, Marvel’s The Avengers is intended to be the greatest superhero movie of all, chiefly because it brings together no less […]
Continue reading »Monsieur Lazhar (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰
This perceptive, engaging French Canadian film explores the ways in which a school tragedy affects its students and teachers (but not, interestingly, the parents). After a popular teacher hangs herself in an empty classroom, a small Montreal public school is […]
Continue reading »The Raven (2012) ✰ ✰
The premise for The Raven — that a madman utilizes the works of Edgar Allan Poe as inspiration to unleash a wave of murder in Baltimore, ultimately pulling Poe himself into the investigation — is clever and intriguing, especially for Poeists. […]
Continue reading »The Descendants (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
A wealthy Hawaiian lawyer, Matt King (George Clooney), is about to sell his family’s huge tract of untouched land when his wife suffers a marine accident and ends up in a coma. While he struggles to manage his daughters (Shailene […]
Continue reading »The Lookout (2007) ✰ ✰ ½
A high school student driving at night (Joseph Gordon Levitt) gets into a serious accident that kills two of his friends, maims his girlfriend, and leaves him with a serious traumatic brain injury. A few years later, we find that […]
Continue reading »Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) ✰ ✰ ½
Michael Myers arrives years after his first rampage at the house of the nurse (Nancy Stephens) who helped Dr. Loomis transport him, to find out more about his sister’s disappearance. After dispatching some obstacles, including a young Joseph Gordon Levitt, […]
Continue reading »