“Frankenweenie” is as Burtonesque as Tim Burton movies come. It’s also a mess, a parade of amusing moments and clever ideas that never come together to form a cohesive whole. Burton apparently worked on this at night while directing “Dark Shadows” during the day. Both movies would have benefited greatly from his undivided attention. Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) is a middle school-aged boy who loves science but has no friends, save his faithful dog Sparky. When Sparky is killed in a car accident, Victor is devastated, but gains hope when his new science teacher Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau) inadvertently inspires…
Author: David Medsker
If you just did a quick scan of the cast, it would be fair to assume that “Hotel Transylvania” is essentially an animated version of “Grown Ups,” or any other movie where Adam Sandler drummed up some half-baked premise that allowed him to goof off with his buddies and get paid in the process. Look past the cast, though, and you’ll see two huge upgrades at director (Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of “The Powerpuff Girls” and “Samurai Jack”) and writer (Robert Smigel, longtime “SNL” writer and creator of the “Saturday TV Funhouse” series). Sandler hasn’t worked with a director this good…
It feels like the setup for a joke: Amanda Seyfried walks into a bar with Wolverine, Maximus, Catwoman and Borat. Twelve hours and six bottles of tequila later, they decide to make a musical, and not just any musical, but “Les Miserables,” one of the most beloved musicals of the last 30 years. But this production of “Les Miz” is anything but a joke: indeed it’s as close to perfect casting as it gets, and with recent Oscar winner Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) at the helm, the timing is equally perfect. Have you seen the movies released this year?…
It’s clear what writer/director Nicholas Jarecki was trying to do with “Arbitrage”: he wanted to make an old-fashioned thriller about the guy who has everything but values nothing. It’s a very ‘80s mindset, and it’s fun to see people try to make movies that look like they could have come from another decade. Tony Gilroy did something similar with “Michael Clayton,” though that movie had some new ideas. “Arbitrage,” however, does not. You’ve seen this movie before, almost to the letter. Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is an extremely successful hedge fund manager who’s juggling his wife (Susan Sarandon), a mistress…
There is virtually nothing original about the premise of “Premium Rush,” but its execution is immensely entertaining, not to mention shocking when you consider that it was co-written and directed by David Koepp, a man better known for adapting mainstream fare like “Jurassic Park,” “War of the Worlds” and “Angels & Demons” than he is for looser material like this. Koepp’s done small movies, sure, but nothing quite as effects-laden and gonzo as what he does here. Indeed, had they put Joe Carnahan’s name on this movie instead of his, no one would have batted an eye. Props to Koepp…
Never tell a studio that their golden goose is finished laying eggs. Matt Damon may have decided to hang up his gun, but after scaring up nearly $945 million worldwide at the box office over the course of three movies, it was never a question of if there would be another Jason Bourne movie, but when. Universal didn’t have to wait very long to find their man, either; after wowing critics and audiences with his portrayal of the slightly unhinged explosives disposal agent in “The Hurt Locker,” Jeremy Renner was quickly primed for the action circuit, culminating in the impressive…
How much you enjoy “Hope Springs” will depend largely on how much you enjoy watching older people have sex. Or, more accurately, it will depend on how much you enjoy watching older people try, and fail, to have sex. There is a big difference between the two; one is amusingly clumsy, while the other is heartbreaking. “Hope Springs” is both of these things, but only one of them works in context with the characters. The other feels like a cheap stunt. One guess as to which is which. Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) have been married for…
That gale-force wind blowing outside your window is merely Christopher Nolan letting out a sigh of relief now that he’s officially finished with the “Batman” franchise. He has dealt with – and exceeded – unreasonable expectations from the moment he signed on to direct 2005’s “Batman Begins,” so you have to think that he is ecstatic to be moving on. Indeed, it appears that Nolan himself knew when he began work on “The Dark Knight Rises” that there was no way that he could one-up the relentless thrillfest that is “The Dark Knight,” so this time, he didn’t even try;…
There will not be a single review of “Magic Mike” that does not reference “Boogie Nights.” Not one. So let’s get the comparisons out of the way, shall we? Yes, “Magic Mike” is “Boogie Nights” with strippers. The thrilling highs, the devastating lows, the drugs, the impetuousness and arrogance of youth, it’s all here. Also, Channing Tatum shows his ass. That last bit will probably serve as the proverbial spoonful of sugar to help the flawed story structure go down, at least as far as the female audience is concerned, but there is too much medicine in this movie. It’s…
It’s tempting to call “Prometheus” thinking man’s sci-fi, but that would be a tad misleading. The movie does ask some larger questions about discovering the origin of our species, and whether or not that is really a good idea, but at its core, “Prometheus” is an outer space monster movie (and the most gorgeous space monster movie you’ve ever seen at that). The only question is determining exactly who the monster is. Set in 2094, a group of scientists with varying areas of specialty arrive at a remote planet (as in, they spent two years in hypersleep in order to…