Author: Jason Zingale

After receiving rave reviews from the test audience a month back, “Behind Enemy Lines” was released early, not only due to the response, but also most likely to the extreme sense of patriotism being worn around these days. “Behind Enemy Lines” is a slick war movie that works as an adrenaline-pumping action ride and as a great recruitment ad for the U.S. Navy. Rarely has an F-18 roaring off an aircraft carrier looked as thrilling since “Top Gun.” Owen Wilson stars in the film as Lt. Chris Burnett, a cocky U.S. Navy pilot who is sick of the day-in, day-out…

It seems he got it right. Director Chris Columbus, that is, making “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” one of the few faithfully translated books to the screen. The most hyped film since the most recent installment of the Star Wars series, “Harry Potter” didn’t sell me on being the next big epic it was talked up to be, but man was it good, and for once I am eagerly awaiting the next installment. For those who aren’t too familiar with the story, it goes like this: Harry Potter survives an attack as a baby by Lord Voldemort, an evil…

Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn are good partners in comedy. It was their chemistry as much as the story that propelled “Swingers” into the spotlight. Written, directed and produced by Favreau, “Made” gives them an even better opportunity to showcase their stuff. And the chemistry still flares, larger and brighter this time around. Bobby (Favreau) is a rather bad amateur boxer who also drives for his exotic dancer girlfriend, Jessica (Famke Janssen). His best friend Ricky (Vaughn) is a lazy, difficult and dishonest talker who always seems to get them in trouble. Think Ed Norton and Matt Damon in “Rounders”.…

Although it’s difficult to make the fashion world seem goofier than the fashion world makes itself seem, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson do it with flashes of moronic brilliance in ”Zoolander.” And let’s just be honest here — it’s funny. Some of it is very funny. We meet Derek Zoolander (Stiller), the world’s top male supermodel and moron, just before his career falls apart. In quick succession, he becomes the subject of a devastating Time magazine feature by “investigatory journalist” Matilda Jeffries (Christine Taylor) and fails to win his fourth Model of the Year award. Zoolander’s final humiliation comes in…

Violence and humor never seemed compatible in film, but when it comes to Takeshi Kitano’s “Brother”, it works like a charm. Written and directed by Kitano, he also appears as the main character under alias, Beat Takeshi. In “Brother,” Takeshi plays Yamamoto; a gangster forced to flee Japan after his mob boss is assassinated. He escapes to America where he meets up with his half-brother Ken (Claude Maki), an American drug dealer. Perhaps out of pride, or even boredom, Yamamoto quickly dispenses with the small-time drug stuff and elevates the little gang into a highly paid drug empire with a…

The marketing problem could have been worse. “Training Day” could have been a movie about a corrupt firefighter. Denzel Washington seems to be having the time of his life playing Alonzo Harris, a hugely corrupt LAPD narcotics detective who spends a day introducing determined rookie Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) to the mean streets of South Central LA. Jake is bent on becoming a detective himself, agreeing to anything Alonzo tells him to do, such as smoking confiscated pot, to learn the ropes of uncover police work in LA. But it soon becomes clear that Alonzo has a dislike for a…

“3000 Miles to Graceland” starts as a sort of “Ocean’s Eleven” meets “Reservoir Dogs,” when five desperados blast their way in and out of a Vegas casino dressed as Elvis impersonators to land $3.2 million. The heist is led by tough guy Murphy (Kevin Costner at his best) and the much nicer Mike (Kurt Russell), along with Christian Slater, David Arquette and Bokeem Woodbine. Everyone gets greedy, thus setting off a grab bag of double crosses and finally leading into a run out road chase to the Canadian border. Very cool, but then the film goes sour. It’s obvious soon…

Talk about false advertising. Despite the promise of the original’s tagline: “No Mercy. No Shame. No Sequel,” director Keenen Ivory Wayans just couldn’t look past another possible $260 million box office. Unlike teen horror flick spoofs that dominated “Scary Movie,” this sequel takes aim at more classic horror films, as well as TV shows and commercials. Anna Faris and the Wayans brothers (quite possibly the worst acting duo in Hollywood) reprise their roles from the original, but now they’re in college and are invited into a psychology class with three other students, taught by the one-and-only Tim Curry. The six…

Quite similar to the Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze flick “Point Break,” “The Fast and the Furious” is a story about an undercover cop who becomes friends with the criminals. Except this time it’s cars instead of surfboards. Based on a magazine article published in Vibe, the film is set in the world of street-racing gangs that seem to be all the rage in LA. In much the same way that ravers elude the cops by moving their illegal all-night music/dance events from warehouse to warehouse, the racers seal off entire blocks of street so they can put on drag races, then…