Author: Jason Zingale

While the third installment in the “Austin Powers” series isn’t as strong as the previous two, the film still holds up in comic style for most of its fans. It is also deemed the film that “answers all the questions,” a true claim that I believe will ruin the entire franchise if indeed another “Powers” movie is made. Mike Myers, who already has three characters under his belt as Austin Powers, Dr. Evil and Fat Bastard, adds a fourth character this time around, the disgustingly inappropriate 1970s villain Goldmember, aptly named for his claim to fame. Goldmember, who kidnaps Austin’s…

Anyone knows that while a Jerry Bruckheimer/Joel Shumacher film will probably never be nominated for a Best Picture award, at least their films are able to entertain you for about two hours while you munch on popcorn and drink $10 sodas. This is not the case in “Bad Company,” a film so great in plot holes, overdone ideas and one-liners that even those not looking for the mistakes will find them. Anthony Hopkins stars as Gaylord Oakes, a down-to-business CIA-agent working with Kevin Pope (Chris Rock), an agent who has been undercover for the past two years in order to…

“Insomnia” is directed by the creator of the brilliant indie hit “Memento,” but don’t go too far to assume that his next film will be a hit too, because “Insomnia” falters in a lot of the same places that “Memento” exceeded in. The film follows the murder case of a young girl from Alaska that brings in big time LAPD detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and his partner to help solve the puzzle. Also around to help is newbie cop Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank), who plays the novice kid-type cop that just happened to have studied all of Dormer’s cases…

Who wants to watch a movie about male strippers? Apparently, lots of people do. Ten years after its theatrical release, “The Full Monty” still holds the record as the highest-grossing British film in history. And before you say that its $256 million box office take is nothing when compared to American films, consider this: “The Full Monty” so captivated U.S. audiences that it was also nominated for an Academy Award. It didn’t win, of course, (“Titanic” walked away with that honor), and it probably didn’t even deserve to get nominated, but the sheer fact that it was alongside films like…

The charmingly funny “About a Boy” is, well, about a boy, and a man who acts more like a boy as well. Hugh Grant stars in this Brit-dominant film about a man, a boy, and the ways in which each one helps the other through the tragedies that life brings. Will (Hugh Grant) is a rich, cynical and certainly immature middle-aged man who has yet to be married and has no intentions of taking a wife. He has never held a single job for one day; nonetheless he has the money to live a very luxurious social life thanks to…

I’ve never even been to Wall Street, but take my advice: you’re going to want to buy Marvel stock real soon. After successfully adapting “X-Men” for the big screen in 2000, it looked as if Hollywood had finally gotten it right. Then again, they could have just gotten lucky. After all, years upon years of corny comic book movies have been ingrained in the minds of fans everywhere, and it was going to take a lot more than one great film to make them forget. Look no further than “Spider-Man,” then, for proof that a comic book renaissance is just…

After his disastrous appearance in “The Mummy Returns,” I don’t think anyone planned on seeing The Scorpion King again, but Universal had different plans. Supposedly, director Stephen Sommers was so impressed with Dwayne Johnson’s limited performance in the film that he was able to convince the studio to lay down some major moola ($5 million, the biggest paycheck for a first-time leading man) with the promise that Johnson’s devoted following would more than make up for it at the box office. As it turns out, Sommers was right. Not only did moviegoers flock to theaters to see Johnson in action,…

On the afternoon of October 3, 1993, 160 elite U.S. soldiers swept into a hostile district of Mogadishu as part of a U.N. peacekeeping operation. Their mission was to liberate two lieutenant prisoners from a murderous warlord controlling the area. It was all supposed to take less than an hour. It lasted until the next morning. “Black Hawk Down” is a lean, mean war movie that will astonish you with its stark realism and exhaust you with its intensity. Directed by Ridley Scott, “Black Hawk” edges away from the Hollywood war movie cliché, forming a new genre of its own…

“Blade II” has some of the loud, silly, pop-culture feel you could expect from a movie based on a comic book, but unfortunately this vampire thriller starts off as a wild hoot and then sucks the blood out of its fun. Wesley Snipes revives his role as the title character, Blade, the half-vampire half-human who, this time around, gives more of a performance than he did in the first film, even letting a smile loose a few times. In this new update of Blade’s quest to destroy all vampires across the world, he is approached by liaisons of the vampire…

It’s finally here. the adaptation of the first installment from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” series, and all I have to say is, “Wow.” After a dark prologue that explains the history of the ring, we meet our hero Frodo (Elijah Wood), along with his mentor, the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen). The real story begins with the pair in bucolic Hobbiton, a city full of residing hobbits, or “little people,” as they are also referred to. Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), the current possessor of the ring, passes the ring on to his nephew Frodo on his 111th birthday…