Screen
Best and worst movies of 2013
This is the worst because it’s the best. Let me explain. The only thing worse than years virtually free of good movies are years when I could make a top 10 list from the films I cut from my final top 10 list. What I’m sayin’ is: 2013 was real, real good, y’all...
Talking twinkies
The Lego Movie being somehow good ruined our ability to completely dismiss a film’s concept upon first hearing it. Who knows, maybe Minions would be infused with the same cleverness, the same all-ages wonder and fun? In the first 10 minutes, a pillshaped living ...
Next-best thing
Operatic characters are larger than life. Especially when projected on a 20-foot tall movie screen...
Lonely Hearts’ Club
Let’s be honest, Love Is All You Need (or Den Skaldede Frisør if Danish is more than a donut to you) is basically redundant escapist fantasy. But when the fantasy services the desires of middle-aged women struggling with uncompassionate husbands and cancer and not ...
‘X-Men’ meets ‘90210’
Imagine the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210 being dropped into Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters from the X-Men movies and you’ll have a sense of the uneven pastiche that is I Am Number Four...
Jonze takes ‘Wild’ risks; succeeds
Truly, I am madly, deeply in love with the film version of Where the Wild Things Are. Not since Robert Altman took on Popeye a generation ago, and lost, has a major director addressed such a well-loved, all-ages title. This time everything works, from tip to tail, ...
Sherlock Holmes minus the mystery
While I enjoyed the 2009 Guy Ritchie reinvention of the fabled detective in Sherlock Holmes, applying the same formula in this newer film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows proved more a boring, tedious exercise in special effects and self-conscious filmmaking and ...
Nostalgic puppets to the rescue
A frisky new film showcasing some old pals made out of felt, charm and some kind of genius, the Disney release The Muppets overcomes a jaded streak reflecting its makers’ nervousness about selling Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and the gang to an audience ...
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 ...
‘Arthur’ a tipsy remake
From one perspective, the well-lubricated yet stiff-jointed 1981 comedy Arthur, the one about the millionaire Manhattan drunkard played by Dudley Moore, was ripe for a remake. It scored a huge popular success early in the Reagan era, when unexamined wealth was king. ...

















