Screen
Are you awake?
The folks at Microsoft announced Alan Wake back in 2005, hyping how the game would change the face of gaming. Wish they let us know we would have to wait five years for the game, during which Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto IV and Modern Warfare have already changed ...
You’re standing on my neck
The year was 1997. Hanson’s “MMMBop” was jostling with Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” for the top spot on the charts, Bill Clinton’s “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky were still private, and an MTV animated cult hit about two morons in high school called Beavis and ...
The casino that Jack destroyed
Why would you make a documentary?” kingpin lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a.k.a. the Man Who Bought Washington, asked filmmaker Alex Gibney. “No one watches documentaries. You should make an action movie,” he advised, which, in the best possible sense, is what Gibney ...
Solid-iron fun
Iron Man 2 is not a perfect movie, but it’s sure fun and engaging. The new story twists, the health issue that Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) faces and the half-baked but disturbing archenemy Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) add up to a film that’s sure to be the first ...
Cuteness gets old
If the French-made, globally minded study in adorableness known as Babies keeps a few Westernized parents from over-scheduling, micromanaging, helicoptering and snowplowing their way through their neurotic kids’ existence, then I say give director Thomas Balmes the...
Conan vs. Leno
While former Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien is moving on with his career by embracing Twitter and headlining a hit comedy tour that visits Boulder on Sunday, David Letterman isn’t finished talking about O’Brien’s well-publicized feud with Jay Leno and NBC...
Conned by a film
The brilliantly untrustworthy documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop reminds us that a film can start out in one direction and then change course so radically, it becomes an act of provocation unto itself. It’s billed as the first feature by the shadowy British ...
One-two punch
A nerve-racking noir from Australia, The Square is accompanied by a nine-minute curtain-raiser, a short film called “Spider,” from the same director, Nash Edgerton. The less you know about “Spider” the better. I’ll say this much: There may be no more effective sucker...
Losers, yet fun
Is there something written that good, enjoyable films have to make sense, be internally consistent and not have dumb continuity gaffes? I hope not, because that perfectly describes my reaction to The Losers, yet another Hollywood film based on a graphic novel. This...
Rom-com yawn
The business plan behind CBS Films is simple: midsize projects with good-size headliners, such as Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser of the inaugural CBS Films effort Extraordinary Measures, or Jennifer Lopez, who co-stars with Aussie hunk Alex O’Loughlin in the ...
Strength and decay: One strongman’s quest for the American dream
New Jersey strongman Stan “Stanless Steel” Pleskun, the “Strongest Man in the World at Bending Steel,” and his struggle to build a career performing feats of strength are the subject of New York filmmaker Zach Levy’s award-winning documentary Strongman, which will ...
Don’t bother keeping up
Since The X Files, David Duchovny’s air of undentable diffidence has been his strength (to those who find him dreamy) as well as his limitation (to the others). In the social satire The Joneses, Duchovny plays a salesman who, at a key point, when he truly deserves ...