Battle of the Sexes (Review)
Battle Of The Sexes tells the wild true life story of when reining feminist tennis legend Billie Jean King accepted a $100,000 Challenge from male chauvinist champ Bobby Riggs, an outrageous event that was carried on prime-time TV to an audience of 90 million viewers. It was the epitome of 1970s sports entertainment in which the splashiness of the event itself was bigger than the actual competition. But it was about so much more. As...
Battle: Los Angeles (Review)
BATTLE: LOS ANGELES (3/11/11; Sci-Fi, Action) Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Will Rothhaar, Bridget Moynahan, Jim Parrack, Adetokumboh M’Cormack, Michael Peña, Lucas Till, Ne-Yo, Joey King, Aisha Tyler SCR: Christopher Bertolini DIR: Jonathan Liebesman MPAA: PG-13 for sustained and intense sequences of war violence and destruction, and for language. 1 hour 56 mins BOX: $83,441,876 This second of two concurrently-released...
Beacon Point (Review)
Beacon Point is a surprising indie horror gem about a hike in the woods that goes bad. There are hidden revelations, an evil entity, gory murders and a fetching heroine. We’ve seen it all before, which is why Eric Blue’s film is refreshing in its ability to engage early and sidestep the obvious beats. A group of randomly-assembled hikers on the Appalachian Trail become lost. Zoe (Rae Olivier) has a very personal reason for the trip....
Beastly (Review)
BEASTLY (3/04/11; Fantasy) Vanessa Hudgens, Alex Pettyfer, Mary-Kate Olsen, Neil Patrick Harris, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Peter Krause SCR/DIR: Daniel Barnz MPAA: PG-13 for language including some crude comments, drug references and brief violence. 1 hour 35 mins BOX: $28,834,009 Kyle Kingson (Pettyfer) is a rich good-looking A-hole who enjoys mocking fellow high school students whom he considers “aggressively unattractive.” He...
Beaver, The (Review)
BEAVER, THE (5/06/11; Drama) Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence, Riley Thomas Stewart, Zachary Booth, Cherry Jones SCR: Kyle Killen DIR: Jodie Foster MPAA: PG-13 for mature thematic material, some disturbing content, sexuality and language including a drug reference. 1 hour 31 mins It’s hard not to think about Gibson’s personal troubles when he floats across the screen in a swimming pool, fully dressed, with a...
Best Worst Movie (Review)
BEST WORST MOVIE (6/04/10; Documentary) SCR/DIR: Michael Stephenson George Hardy, Michael Stephenson, Darren Ewing, Jason Steadman, Jason Wright MPAA: NR 1 hour 33 mins Clearly, the filmmakers, cast and crew who made Goblin (released in 1988 as Troll 2) had no idea they were inadvertently making Hollywood history. To be fair, it wasn’t always the most adored cult movie of all time. For a while, as the movie languished on video store...
Big Fan (Review)
BIG FAN (10/23/09; Drama) Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rapaport, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Gino Cafarelli, Matt Servitto, Jonathan Hamm SCR/DIR: Robert D. Siegel MPAA: R for language and some sexuality. 1 hour 26 mins BOX: $233,908 Parking garage attendant Paul (Oswald, in his first lead) is obsessed with the New York Giants. Every night, he calls a sports radio show taunting the team’s opponents, much to the amusement of the...
Bitch Slap (Review)
BITCH SLAP (1/08/10; Comedy, Action) Julia Voth, Erin Cummings, America Olivo, Michael Hurst, Lucy Lawless, Kevin Sorbo SCR: Eric Gruendemann, Rick Jacobson DIR: Rick Jacobson MPAA: R for brutal violence, strong sexual content and language throughout, and brief drug use. 1 hour 49 mins BOX: $17,365 According to Wikipedia, “Three girls, a down-and-out stripper named Trixie, a drug-running killer and ex-convict named Camero, and a...
Black Mass (Review)
Like the character it portrays, Black Mass avoids flash and grandeur and joins a long tradition of good-if-not-great gangster movies. American moviemakers have been making gangster movies since the beginning of movies — Raoul Walsh’s 1915 Regeneration may have been the first — and there’s never any shortage of gangster stories, true or fictional. But sometimes filmmakers try to say something important about America or...
Blind Side, The (Review)
BLIND SIDE, THE (11/20/09; Biopic) Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Jae Head, Lily Collins, Kathy Bates SCR/DIR: John Lee Hancock MPAA: PG-13 for one scene involving brief violence, drug and sexual references. 2 hours 8 mins BOX: $252,736,267 Surprise box office hit provided Bullock with her Oscar-winning role as the real-life Texas socialite who reached out to an impoverished black kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Her...
Blue Valentine (Review)
BLUE VALENTINE (12/29/10; Drama) Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Mike Vogel, John Doman, Maryann Plunkett SCR: Derek Cianfrance, Cami Delavigne, Joey Curtis DIR: Derek Cianfrance MPAA: R for strong graphic sexual content, language and a beating. 2 hours BOX: $9,691,675 This searing low-budget drama is a difficult film to get warm and fuzzy about. It cuts so deep and frustrates on so many intimate levels, most of us would rather just...
Bone Tomahawk (Review)
A debut feature by S. Craig Zahler, this feels like a potential cult favorite; it’s strange and disturbing, but also imaginative and surprising. It displays a rare, impressive amount of patience. Although it’s a long 132 minutes, the movie’s greatest strength is its pacing. No moment feels wasted, and every moment is an opportunity for greater richness of character, or to ponder the rights and wrongs of the...
Boogie Woogie (Review)
BOOGIE WOOGIE (4/23/10; Comedy) Gillian Anderson, Alan Cumming, Heather Graham, Danny Huston, Christopher Lee, Joanna Lumley, Charlotte Rampling, Amanda Seyfried, Stellan Skarsgård, Jamie Winstone SCR: Danny Moynihan, based on his novel DIR: Duncan Ward MPAA: R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, language throughout and some drug use. 1 hour 31 mins Who knew the modern art world was so swingin’? This satire finds an ensemble of...
Book of Eli, The (Review)
BOOK OF ELI, THE (1/15/10; Sci-Fi) Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beals, Evan Jones, Michael Gambon SCR: Gary Whitta, Anthony Peckham DIR: Allen Hughes, Albert Hughes MPAA: R for some brutal violence and language. 1 hour 58 mins BOX: $93,787,369 Ashen-hued thriller takes place 30 years after the big “flash,” and looks like a million other post-apocalyptic flicks (in particular, The Road) but at...
Bounty Hunter, The (Review)
BOUNTY HUNTER, THE (3/19/10; Comedy, Action) Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler, Christine Baranski, Jason Sudeikis SCR: Sarah Thorp DIR: Andy Tennant MPAA: PG-13 for sexual content including suggestive comments, language and some violence. 1 hour 50 mins BOX: $64,696,084 Butler is a down-on-his-luck bounty hunter assigned to bring in his bail-jumping ex-wife (Aniston), who also happens to be a reporter investigating a suicide case that...
Box, The (Review)
BOX, THE (11/06/09; Sci-Fi) Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, James Rebhorn, Holmes Osborne, Sam Oz Stone, Gillian Jacobs SCR: Richard Kelly; based on the 1970 short story “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson DIR: Richard Kelly MPAA: PG-13, for thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images. 1 hour 55 mins BOX: $14,882,598 In 1976, a strange box with a big red button shows up at the home of cash-strapped...
Bridesmaids (Review)
BRIDESMAIDS (5/13/11; Comedy) Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCarthy, Chris O’Dowd, Ben Falcone, Jill Clayburgh, Jon Hamm (uncredited) SCR: Annie Mumolo, Kristen Wiig DIR: Paul Feig 2 hours 4 mins Originally promoted (and likely pitched) as the female version of The Hangover, Bridesmaids is an inventive creation better than the sum of its parts. It’s part chick flick, part...
Bronson (Review)
BRONSON (10/09/09; Drama) Tom Hardy, Matt King, Terry Stone, Amanda Burton, Kelly Adams, Jonathan Phillips SCR: Brock Norman Brock, Nicolas Winding Refn DIR: Nicolas Winding Refn MPAA: R for violent and disturbing content, graphic nudity, sexuality and language. 1 hour 28 mins BOX: $2,119,130 Violent experimental biopic tells the story of notorious UK prisoner Michael Gordon Peterson (Hardy), who took the name of American tough guy...
Brotherhood (Review)
BROTHERHOOD (2/18/11; Thriller) Jon Foster, Trevor Morgan, Lou Taylor Pucci, Arlen Escarpeta, Jesse Steccato SCR: Will Canon, Doug Simon DIR: Will Canon MPAA: R for pervasive language, some violence and sexual content. 1 hour 21 mins Aggressive drama unfolds over one night as a variation on the old fraternity-prank-gone-wrong, but with a lot more gunplay, beatings and unpleasantness. It all begins with freshman Morgan being browbeaten...
Bullet to the Head (Review)
BULLET TO THE HEAD (2/01/13; Action) Sylvester Stallone, Sung Kang, Sarah Shahi, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christian Slater, Jason Momoa SCR: Walter Hill, Alessandro Camon; based on Du Plomb Dans La Tete by Alexis Nolent DIR: Walter Hill MPAA: R for strong violence, bloody images, language, some nudity and brief drug use. 1 hour 31 mins (Warner Bros.) Bullet to the Head is a monstrosity, the kind of Frankenmovie so endlessly stitched...
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