If you had to name the most famous fictional movie houses, you’d mostly come up with the haunted ones. Houses hardly end up as the main characters or the sole location for an entire film unless they’re haunted or something’s up. Even the best mansions and castles are the ones crawling with something not of […]

Halloween weekend: It must be time for another “Saw” … what? No new horror films this weekend? Weird. Well, most of you might be curling up on the couch with “Halloween” or another classic of your choosing, but there’s plenty to choose from at the theaters too. DreamWorks rolls out “Shrek” spin-off “Puss in Boots” […]

After the “Saw” franchises bowed out last year, few people doubted that “Paranormal Activity” and its sequel last fall marked the arrival of what would fill that annual horror void. But unlike the father of the torture horror genre, which peaked at about $33 million, producer and original “PA” director Oren Peli’s baby has climbed […]

It might not be an election year, but politics never take a break from being cutthroat. “The Ides of March” peels back the curtain on election campaigns, in this case those of two Democrats vying for their party’s nomination. Based on the play “Farragut North” by Beau Willimon, who had a hand in the screenplay, “Ides” […]

Fall gets its horror on this week as Halloween fast approaches. With “Saw” no longer in the picture, it’s the “Paranormal Activity” series’ time to shine and a big haul is once again expected for the found-footage poltergeist flick. Counter-programming comes all for one and one for all thanks to Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Matrix”-ization of the […]

  October gets diverse this weekend, but not unfamiliar. Returning to the screen in reboot form is “Footloose” and returning in prequel form is “The Thing.” For a more traditional comedy, “The Big Year” offers something for the older crowd with Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black.

Robots are still the future, right? Or at least androids? Hopefully there’s still a high demand for artificial intelligence like all the great sci-fi authors predicted, otherwise who is going to do stuff for us in the future like fight our battles and take care of our children? Last weekend’s “Real Steel” envisioned a time when boxers […]

Whoever had the Twitter handle “Qwikster” with the pot-smoking Elmo picture better have cashed in while he could; Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has announced on the company blog that Netflix will retain the DVD-by-mail service under the original brand name and not launch the separate by-mail site Qwikster. 

Never underestimate robot boxing. Despite reaching for nearly every cliché in the family-oriented sports underdog drama handbook short of titling the film “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots,” DreamWorks delivers a undeniable crowd-pleaser with “Real Steel.”

  With September in the rearview, the heavyweights of October enter the ring. First up this weekend is the robot-boxing drama (yea, it sounds weird to me too) “Real Steel” starring Hugh Jackman along with George Clooney’s political ensemble drama “The Ides of March.” If it’s a middling blockbuster against an Oscar contender — it […]

“I have Cancer.” I’ve said this many times, but never to try and pick up someone at a bar. It mostly comes up in conversation while I am out with friends, and I can say it is just as awkward as the movie “50/50” makes it look.

Perhaps this point could be debated, but nothing is more cruelly unfair than serious illness. You can blame murder and war on people, but unless you’re a conspiracy theorist, you can’t sanely blame anyone when someone develops cancer or a similarly vile or fatal illness. Yes, some are preventable, but many simply aren’t. Depressed yet? […]