Screen
Fender blender
Everybody needs a little help. Writer/director/actor Dax Shepard could have probably used another writer, a third director (David Palmer already co-directed) and a better group of actors for Hit and Run, a movie that is a cinematic traffic accident with multiple ...
Recyclists
This is not a good movie. It’s important to establish that early on so that you can understand how an appreciation of its moving parts doesn’t fully remove one central thesis: Premium Rush is crap. It may, however, be somewhat fun crap, depending on your tolerance ...
I see clay people
Before Pixar flexed its artistic muscle (a muscle they could stand to exercise more frequently these days), the message in American animated films ranged from “always be true to yourself” to “always be true to yourself and also get heterosexually married...
Bourne to be bored
The Bourne trilogy includes three of the best action thrillers in cinema, with Jason Bourne portrayed by Matt Damon as an everyman who finds he’s been programmed by the CIA to be a deadly assassin. The third film ends with Bourne lured out of hiding by reporter Simon...
Comedians united
It seems like an odd way to start a review for a movie in which Will Ferrell tries to make Zach Galifianakis touch his testicles on stage during a debate, but The Campaign has a clever message...
Reel to reel | Week of August 16, 2012
AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY Ai Weiwei is China’s most famous international artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. At Chez Artiste and Century. — Landmark Theatres THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Peter Parker gets a new look (and an origin story) in this Marvel remake ...
Forgettable
If you’ve ever seen an online profile picture, chances are you’re familiar with the pursed-lips, craned-neck, supposedly slimming contortion known affectionately as “the duckface.” Total Recall is the sci-fi tale of a quasi-postapocalyptic duckface war between Kate ...
From artist to activist
When Chinese government officials unexpectedly detained controversial artist Ai Weiwei — keeping him for 81 days in an undisclosed location — it ignited a firestorm of protests across the world that reinforced Ai’s calls for democracy in China...
Who watches ‘The Watch,’ man?
Seeing as how it has an extraterrestrial plot, let’s describe The Watch using an astronomical metaphor. Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade are like comedic planets that orbit a central, burning sun. And that sun is made entirely of penis jokes. ...
