Completing his multi-film vendetta against the world’s tourist trade, German-born director Roland Emmerich sends the mother of all storms to level the Washington Monument, the Eiffel Tower, and a priest-filled Vatican City, among other locales, in his newest end-times thriller, 2012. From Independence Day (1996) to The Day After Tomorrow…
In the lushly produced but dispiriting new comedy The Ugly Truth, Katherine Heigl stars as Abby Richter, a successful but hopelessly uptight TV producer who is also perpetually single. Ever efficient, Abby does background checks on the men she meets, and takes along on the first date a 10-point checklist…
“The cinema is not a slice of life but a piece of cake,” Alfred Hitchcock once said, and if that’s true — and who are we to dispute the Master? — then summertime is when we gorge (unhealthily, most of the time, on ear-splitting smash-’em-ups and nerd-filled sex comedies). This…
If the dream of every comic is to have his humor live on long after he’s left the stage, then the late Bernie Mac has exited this world on a high note. Soul Men, a comedy completed shortly before Mac’s untimely death in August, is no classic, but the comedian,…
“Course he’s willing to die. You think we do this kinda work ’cause we scared to die?” So speaks Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) about his sidekick Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), as the two stare down a posse of bad guys in Appaloosa, New Mexico, circa 1882. Cole and Hitch, who…
Despite his reputation as that rarest of creatures — a Hollywood intellectual — new evidence suggests that Steve Martin reads (prepare yourself) thrillers and spy novels. Or at least that’s the only conclusion one can draw from the “Story by” credit the comedian receives on Traitor, an uneven yet engrossing…
Hollywood’s Endless Superhero Summer rolls on with the arrival of Hellboy II: The Golden Army from Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro. But before this review goes any further, I must confess — head hanging low in shame — that I haven’t read a comic book since I was 12…
Explosions, pratfalls, and robots; heroes, aliens, and blondes — it must be summertime at the movies. Beyond the flash, though, it’s striking to note just how many movies will require us to actually think this summer. (Aren’t we supposed to save thinking for the fall?) Maybe it’s the election, but…
As one of what novelist Stephen King calls his Constant Readers, I was as jazzed as every other monster-lovin’ geek when word came that filmmaker Frank Darabont was making a movie of King’s classic novella, The Mist. Cynics suggested that after tanking big time with his Frank Capra homage, The…
It is as you’ve always suspected: Rob Zombie’s house is way cooler than yours. For one thing, the punk/metal god turned filmmaker has a 12-foot stuffed polar bear in his living room. (Zombie to dumbstruck interviewer: “I know, right? How fuckin’ big is that bear?”) The bear presides over dozens…
Chris Tucker still believes in Michael Jackson. You can tell, because in the very first scene of Rush Hour 3, the actor-comedian squeals melodically, grabs his crotch, and throws his arms up to the heavens. All that’s missing is a giant off-stage fan to make Tucker’s shirt billow out behind…
Summer movie season has arrived. There are an insane number of films on the following list, and plenty of room for optimism. To that end, we’ve tried to cut back on the snarky comments about pointless sequels and loathsome actors — although it’s nearly impossible to let those infernal pirates…
