Steven Silver is a South African whose filmmaking background in documentaries, so it stands to reason that he’s the guy to translate this true story, about a group of thrill-seeking white photographers documenting the violent last days of apartheid, to the screen. Yet The Bang Bang Club is curiously devoid of heft, diluted by Silver’s […]
Cineplex Park Lane
Posted inArts + Music
Super 8 scratches summer movie itch
Just when you thought we’d gone digital for good, J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) brings Kodak back with a bang. The extraterrestrial mystery unfurls when a pack of preteens shooting a movie —on super 8 film, duh— witnesses an explosive train accident leaving behind countless little “white Rubik’s cubes,” misbehaving electronics and prompts clandestine Air Force […]
Posted inArts + Music
X-Men: First Class a relaunch for mutant franchise
The fifth X-Men movie feels like a fresh start for the franchise, and not just because it’s a prequel that chronicles the origin of the mutant superhero team in the JFK era. From the early introductions of the cocky but good-hearted scientist Charles Xavier (James MacAvoy) and the vengeance-driven Holocaust survivor Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender), […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Hangover Part II recycles predecessor
Same hangover, new city: Todd Phillips reunites the original Alan-Stu-Phil (Zack Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper) “wolf pack” for raunchy comedy round two. The gang treks to Thailand, where Stu is getting hitched to Lauren, who has a “solid rack for an Asian.” After Alan roofies the crew (again), they regain consciousness in Bangkok in […]
Posted inArts + Music
Kung Fu Panda 2 “animation at its best”
Jack Black whips some animal butt as the voice of Po, the rotund Dragon Master panda, in Jennifer Yuh’s Kung Fu sequel. A vengeful peacock, Shen (Gary Oldman), invents a contraption that “eats fire and breathes metal”—a cannon—to help him conquer China. Po, yearning to discover his past (his “father” is a goose, after all), […]
Posted inArts + Music
Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides sinks
The fourth Pirates movie is a forgettable attempt to extend an expired Disney franchise. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley have abandoned ship, leaving Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp. Even the director of the first three movies has bailed, replaced by Rob Marshall (Chicago). The plot involves a group of pirates (a British flotilla, religious Spaniards, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Unspectacular Priest
Scott Stewart’s adaptation of the eponymous graphic novel series opens with a couple of minutes of bloody, animated exposition, during which we learn that after years of warfare, super-powered priests have beaten back a race of eyeless vampires and the church has established Orwellian colonies for the human survivors. As silly as all that is, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Bridesmaids hilarious
The movie starts with a bang: down-on-her-luck Annie (Kristen Wiig) and her handsome fuck-buddy (Jon Hamm) are going at it like rabbits—Wiig’s exasperated expressions and flailing limbs will make you laugh so hard you cry. This sets the tone for a hilarious trip down the aisle as Annie attempts to fulfill her Maid of Honour […]
Posted inArts + Music
Something Borrowed “insipid”
I don’t know how true Jennie Snyder’s screenplay is to Emily Griffin’s novel because I never finished reading it. In the movie, smarty-pants lawyer Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) and bossy party girl Darcy (Kate Hudson) are BFFs. After Rachel’s birthday party, she hooks up with her boring but supposedly hunky lawyer friend Dex (Colin Egglesfield) who […]
Posted inArts + Music
Thor swings a big hammer
Take a Marvel Norse god superhero, Shakespearean director Kenneth Branagh, and special effects up the wazoo and you get the epic battle-fest, Thor. After venturing to icy Yodenheim to fight blue-skinned, red-eyed giants, the jacked, blonde Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is banished from Asgard—his magical, gilded home in the sky—landing on Earth in a magnetic tornado, […]
Posted inArts + Music
Fast Five dumb, fun
The fifth installment of the cars-go-vroom series takes the action to Rio de Janeiro, where the gang led by Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Jordana Brewster try to pull off One Last Job. That job involves making off with a crime kingpin’s millions while evading his militia and a U.S. agent (Dwayne Johnson) determined to […]
Posted inArts + Music
You don’t have to go to Prom
A narrator offers these wise words: “High school, it happens to everyone.” Fortunately, Joe Nussbaum’s Prom doesn’t have to happen to everyone. When the Starry Night Prom set accidentally gets burned to a crisp, the school principal assigns badass Jesse Richter (Thomas McDonell) to help the ambitious Nova Prescott (Aimee Teegarden) rebuild it in three […]
