Bill & Ted Face the Music is an instant comedy classic. It is everything it wants to be and then some. Of the three entries in the ‘Bill & Ted’ franchise, this one is my favorite. After a nearly thirty-year gap between the last installment (Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey), it is amazing how easily stars Keanu Reeve’s and Alex Winter step back into their roles so effortlessly. And William Sadler steals the show again as ‘Death.’ All of the...
Read MorePixar’s latest sequel hits all of the right notes but still fails to live up to the original’s charm and humor. One of the things that made Finding Nemo so much fun is the vastness of the open ocean. Finding Dory takes place almost entirely within the walls of an aquarium, which takes away some of the fun and wonder of the previous installment. Still, a couple of new characters help ensure that ‘Dory’ is still worth your time. Dory...
Read MoreMarvel still knows how to make a good superhero movie, but the formula is starting to get a bit old. So they decided to mix things up a bit by pitting our favorite superheros against each other, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. The thing is – I like Iron Man, and I like Captain America. I like seeing them team up to fight bad guys. When they are going against each other I really don’t...
Read MoreLast year was the year of nostalgia for film, with movies like Creed and Star Wars: The Force Awakens showing us that Hollywood doesn’t need original ideas – they just need to keep remaking old ones. And I’m actually being serious – I love that Creed was better than most Rocky movies while still capturing the same spirit, and ditto for Star Wars. The Jungle Book is just the latest movie that gets it right – perfectly capturing the spirit...
Read More10 Cloverfield Lane is a sort-of meta-sequel to 2008’s Cloverfield, but it is completely different for the most part and works in its own right. You don’t have to see Cloverfield to watch this movie, but it does help. After getting in a car accident, Michelle (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up in an underground cell, held captive by Howard (played by John Goodman). Howard, along with the other occupant on the shelter Emmett, claim that they can not...
Read MoreHail, Caesar! is the latest effort from the famous Cohen brothers, behind some of my favorite films including: Raising Arizona and True Grit. Hail Caesar! is not their best film, but certainly not their worst, and it definitely has it’s moments. The movie centers around a Hollywood ‘fixer’ (played by Josh Brolin) in the 1950s who spends the day working to keep the studio’s stars in line, one of which, Baird Whitlock (played by George Clooney) is kidnapped in the...
Read MorePixar has always set the bar high when it comes to feature-length animated films, and The Good Dinosaur is no exception. Earlier last year, Inside Out was a critical and box office hit. A few months later The Good Dinosaur released to decent review and decent box office returns, and I don’t understand why. It was an awesome Western, and definitely worth your attention. The concept of the movie is that dinosaurs were not wiped out – the asteroid missed...
Read MoreI’ve been a huge Star Wars fan since I was a little kid – I’ve seen the movies dozens of times in my life (Empire is my favorite) and played all of the video games. Basically, the Star Wars franchise (particularly the original trilogy) are among my favorite movies. So when I heard that Disney had acquired Lucas Film and planned to make a new trilogy, and on top of that were bring back the original cast (including Harrison Ford...
Read MoreDaniel Craig is back as 007 in what is likely to be his final go-around as James Bond. It is hard to write about this movie without giving too much away, but basically if you enjoyed Skyfall, Spectre is probably for you. I didn’t love Skyfall, but it had it’s moments, which is pretty much how I feel about Spectre. The first half of the movie was full of awesome, classic Bond action scenes, including a thrilling fight aboard a helicopter to...
Read MoreCreed is the seventh movie in the famous Rocky franchise, and is probably the best in the series since the 1976 original. It took nearly forty years and five movies in between, but we finally have a sequel that does justice to the classic underdog boxing story. Creed is basically a remake of the original Rocky. The story and plot-points are similar – young, hungry, written-off boxer with a chip on his shoulder is given the opportunity to fight for...
Read MoreM. Night Shyamalan is responsible for some true modern masterpieces, including After Earth, The Happening, Lady in the Water, the Village, and the list goes on. Okay, in all seriousness he has made one decent movie (The Sixth Sense) and has been riding that success for close to two decades. So I was a bit surprised, to say the least, when I actually enjoyed this movie. It’s far from perfect, but doesn’t really hold up when you start thinking about...
Read MoreTom Cruise is back in his most impossible mission yet! This is the fifth installment in the Mission Impossible franchise, and you’d think Ethan Hunt would’ve had enough and would be ready to retire. But instead he once again has gone rogue in order to save America from yet another doomsday, World War III catastrophe. Of course the CIA is trying to stop him every step of the way. Lucky for him he has his crack team of Simon Pegg,...
Read MoreJurassic Park was released in 1993 and is one of the first truly great theater experiences I remember. The special effects ushered in a new era that, for better or worse, have changed movies forever. Over 20 years later it still holds up and is one of Steven Spielberg’s greatest achievements. Jurassic World, while nowhere near the level of the original, is probably my favorite of the Jurassic sequels, and the filmmakers have a lot of fun with a fully...
Read MoreInside Out is the latest movie from Pixar, the studio that brought us most of the great animated feature films in recent memory. The story takes place mostly inside the head of a young girl, and it’s among Pixar’s best. Featuring the voices of Bill Hader, Amy Poehler, and Mindy Kaling (among many others), it packs an emotional punch and a lot of laughs throughout. After young Riley is moved from her happy life in Minnesota to San Francisco, her...
Read MoreBenedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician in World War II era Great Britain with little to no people skills. He is hired by British intelligence to crack Enigma, Germany’s machine which it uses to send encrypted messages to their army. Cracking Enigma would give the allied forces a huge advantage over Germany, as they would know their every move beforehand. The Imitation Game is a great film. It is a tragedy, a cautionary tale about the way...
Read MoreIn 1998, Bill Murray’s acting career was on the fritz. It had been years since his last great comedy, Groundhog Day, and after a series of critical and box office duds like Larger Than Life and The Man Who Knew Too Little, Murray was in need of a change. Lucky for him, director Wes Anderson, along with co-writer Owen Wilson, wrote a part just for Murray. Rushmore was completely different from anything Murray had done before, yet it played up...
Read MoreI watched Big Hero 6 over the weekend with my three-year-old son and we both loved this movie. Go see it. The End. Okay, I guess I should say a few things about why we liked it so much. It was actually quite scary and deep for a kids movie. There was a lot of tragedy and pain. The villain was frightening to look at and really didn’t hold back. My son covered his eyes every time he was on...
Read MoreKatniss Everdeen is back in action in this third installment of the Hunger Games series. The first movie was so-so, the second movie was basically a much improved remake of the first movie. This installment is a complete departure and feels like a completely different franchise, which is a good thing. Jennifer Lawrence is fantastic as usual. Josh Hutcherson is seldom seen as Peeta Mellark. Woody Harrelson’s Haymitch is under-utilized with only a few minutes of screen-time that I can...
Read MoreInterstellar is the kind of movie that you really shouldn’t think about too much, but you just can’t help it. It is one of the most mesmerizing movie experiences I’ve seen in years, and in the moment as the plot is unfolding everything seems to make sense. But thinking about the film after you leave the theater, things start to seem kind of silly and everything doesn’t really add up. This is actually a common occurrence with director Christopher Nolan (The Dark...
Read MoreI didn’t know what to expect when I took my three-year-old to The Book of Life. An animated picture featuring the voices of Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Danny Trejo, and Zoe Saldana, among others, I was most impressed with the soundtrack, which includes covers of Radiohead’s “Creep,” Mumford & Sons “I Will Wait,” and Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling In Love with You,” among many others. The film is about Manolo, a young man who is torn between fulfilling the expectations...
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