Wanting to destroy the world just doesn’t cut it these days. Wealth, power and greed? Kid stuff. As Heath Ledger’s Joker said, “this city deserves a better class of criminal, and I’m gonna give it to them.” Who knew that by “city” he meant Hollywood?

When newly minted Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence tripped on the steps up to the Dolby Theatre stage on Sunday, you could hear the rumble in the tabloid Twitter-verse as Hollywood followers raced to call out the gaffe and smear Lawrence’s embarrassment all over the Internet. To casual Oscar viewers and those whose attention to celebrity [...]

Crazy to think that this is my fourth time wrapping up Movie Muse’s Oscar coverage, but here we are, another awards season gone by. This year was highly unusual in that there were so many good films and performances, but there was never really a clear favorite for Best Picture, even with “Argo” sweeping all [...]

As always, I close the book on 2012 with my year in review, a close examination of the trends in movies and moviegoing that either emerged or changed during the course of the year.

I wrote this for Entertainment Fuse. If you want to go ahead and read this article in its entirety, click her to read it on EntertainmentFuse.com     “Star Wars” returning to the big screen for Episodes VII, VIII and IX is a super exciting prospect, but we all felt the same way before I, II [...]

If you need a reminder of why “The Dark Knight Rises” is the most anticipated film in years, just watch “The Dark Knight” — one more time. Christopher Nolan’s sequel never disappoints.

This piece of mine was first published on PlayerAffinity.com Sony’s reboot of Spider-Man is still baffling to the general public. Why start all over again? Why retell Peter Parker’s origin story when an overwhelming majority of moviegoers know it by heart?

With “Prometheus” about to enter theaters, you may have been one of many—myself included—who put “watch ‘Alien’” on their to-do list. Director Ridley Scott and writer Damon Lindelof have tried to obscure the relationship between this summer’s blockbuster and the 1979 classic, but the former is a convenient excuse for visiting the latter.

His formula is simple: 1) Create a character. 2) Imbue him with social and cultural ignorance and a host of stereotypes and/or insensitive world views. 3) Commit to him on and off the screen. 4) Use character to push boundaries of political correctness and obscenity. 5) Do not stop repeating No. 4. Ever. The success [...]

No risk, no reward — you can’t exactly picture Hollywood execs saying that one too often. The movie industry is almost always about sure bets, especially when studios spend more than $100 million on most of their major films. Sequels, book adaptations — anything familiar with a built-in fan base to justify a high price [...]

Directing can be assessed in countless ways, from the how someone frames a shot to how they interpret the script to simply an ability to get the best out of the talent on screen. Sometimes, they might just be damn good at picking the right projects. The very best directors seem to possess one or [...]

“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? [...]

This morning, if you are a Netflix subscriber you were apologized to, so let me start off by apologizing for not covering the big Netflix news this summer, which now matters all the more after the most recent announcement. The company’s announced change in pricing structure, which takes effect this month (for me on Wednesday [...]

$168 million in its first weekend. $92.1 million in its first day. $43.5 million in its first public screenings. These are incredible numbers, but allow me to cast a small memory charm on you for a moment. The success of “Harry Potter” goes well, well beyond the current and long-term success of “Harry Potter and the [...]