Third installments have a history of letting us down — in the superhero world especially. You won’t find a lot of folks who list a movie with a “3” at the end as their favorite of a movie series, and frankly, they don’t have a lot to choose from either. It’s extremely tough to find […]

Back in 2002, Sony Pictures and filmmaker Sam Raimi brought one of Marvel Comics’ most popular superheroes, Spider-Man, to big screen for the first time. Peter Parker’s story captivated audiences and set the record for the most money made on an opening weekend. Now, let’s imagine none of that ever happened. Let’s pretend director Marc […]

First there was Gollum, then Caesar the ape and now … Ted? If you thought motion-capture animation was beyond the range of foul-mouthed R-rated comedy, here’s your evidence to the contrary. “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane has taken his love of characters who shouldn’t behave like humans behaving like humans to the next level —and […]

This is a clip of a review first published on We Got This Covered. Who knew that social issues such as poverty and flooding could be explored in film with such — magic. Benh Zeitlin’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild” gives a folk tale quality to what is essentially post-Katrina New Orleans.

After vampires, movie studios these days love the apocalypse (or at least an alien invasion that could bring it about), so it was a matter of time before we started to get different riffs on Armageddon. “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” brings doomsday into romantic comedy territory and the resulting story […]

Disney is no stranger to the fairy tale (understatement of the last century), but princesses, curses and kingdoms are definitely new forays for its partner, digital animation powerhouse, Pixar. John Lasseter and company have always been more preoccupied with breathing life into inanimate objects and giving vocal cords to animals, so a film with humans […]

After 10 years it’s tough to imagine “Men in Black III” having any kind of meaningful impact on audiences. No one has spent 10 years clamoring for another entry after “Men in Black II” disappointed — at least no one who would go on the record publicly. Yet despite no attachments to the series but […]

A return to the “Alien” universe from the man who originally envisioned it? Hard not to sign up for that adventure, even knowing that “Prometheus” appears to be quite far from an “Alien” movie. This film dares to ask bigger questions about creation and the purpose of life while thrusting us into an un-fathomable sci-fi […]

(This is a clip of a review first published on We Got This Covered) It wouldn’t be a Richard Linklater film if you didn’t go in expecting one thing and come out with something totally different. “Bernie” adds another diverse note to the (predominantly) indie filmmaker’s eclectic resume, which includes his celebrated debut efforts “Slacker” and “Dazed & Confused,” the romance […]

Good day, democratic imbeciles. You first knew him as a Kazakh news reporter, then as an Austrian fashionista. Now, dedicated character comedian Sacha Baron Cohen plays a North African fascist in “The Dictator”. The journey of Admiral General Aladeen is unlike his predecessors in that it’s not done in a mockumentary style. So, how does […]

It has finally been assembled. Marvel’s decision to make “The Avengers” might seem like the superhero equivalent of the ensemble movie “Valentine’s Day,” or the theory that stuffing multiple popular actors into one movie is an adequate substitute for storytelling and makes it so marketable that no one could pass it up. While that’s not […]

The horror genre clings onto and feeds off of audience expectations. From a fan perspective, horror-lovers tend to flock to films that appear as if they will evoke the feelings of previous successes, even to the point of supporting blatant mimicry. From a filmmaking perspective, a horror director’s go-to card is expectation—the audience recognizing those […]

It’s fair to say Luc Besson has gotten a bit giddy ever since “Taken.” The man who once upon a time brought us “La Femme Nikita” and “Leon: The Professional” has instead taken  to lighter action fare, in this case recruiting amateurs James Mather and Stephen St. Leger to help write and direct his “original […]

The hype, the fan base, the skeptics—the skeptics created by the hype and the fan base—all of these make adapting an insanely popular novel anything but easy. Given the breadth of the age and gender demographics that Suzanne Collins’ young adult science-fiction story “The Hunger Games” has reached, there are so many niches to please. […]

What was the point of making a “21 Jump Street” movie? No, really, why bother remaking or rebooting re-imagining a short-lived cop series from the ‘80s, especially when you’ve targeted your movie at people born long after it went off the air? The way writer Michael Bacall along with Jonah Hill, directors Phil Lord and […]