Author: Jason Zingale

Roland Emmerich has officially run out of luck. After re-creating the event film with the SFX-heavy “Independence Day,” the German-born director has continuously failed at recapturing the magic of his summer blockbuster. “Godzilla” was considered one of the worst remakes ever made, while the environmentally aware “The Day After Tomorrow” felt more like a big-budget John Kerry campaign commercial than an actual movie. His latest effort, the historical epic “10,000 BC,” follows in the very same footsteps of disappointment, but for a totally different reason. Though not a single original idea can be found throughout the course of the film,…

You’d be hard-pressed to find a movie as light and fluffy as “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day,” but with so many films dominated by over-complicated plotlines and unnecessarily long runtimes, it’s nice to come across a film that does exactly what it sets out to do – with almost no interruptions. Fast and furious from the get-go, “Miss Pettigrew” starts out with a bang and never lets up, implementing its screwball sensibility to the fullest thanks to solid performances from stars Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. Though it could prove difficult finding an audience for a period comedy designed…

Electronic Arts’ “Army of Two” was near the top of my “must-have games list” of last year, before it was unceremoniously pushed back to early 2008. The action shooter promised something we hadn’t seen before (more on that later) and, well, you couldn’t deny the sheer awesomeness of the protagonists’ hockey mask face armor. When negative previews began surfacing from the major gaming magazines, however, EA chose to prolong the wait so they could polish up the final product. So, was the wait worth it? Yes… and no. While “Army of Two” delivers the unique experience it promised from the…

For those that aren’t completely sick and tired of trashy melodramas centered on Queen Elizabeth (I and II), director Justin Chadwick takes a slightly different approach with “The Other Boleyn Girl”: a movie that focuses not on the infamous rulers, but rather the series of nefarious events leading up to the first Elizabeth’s birth. Though it could have just as easily been titled “Elizabeth: The Prequel,” Chadwick’s film is seriously lacking a protagonist even remotely as passionate or interesting. Instead, he pulls together a group of ignorant and traitorous characters that the audience simply can’t identify with, ultimately resulting in…

History has proven that when it comes to video games based on movies, they usually suck. The same could probably be said of television series, too, if it weren’t for the fact that only a handful exist. Of course, if there were one TV property tailor-made for the video game treatment, well, it’d probably be NBC’s “Heroes.” If there were two, however, the other would undoubtedly be ABC’s island drama “Lost.” With various novels and webisodes already expanding upon the “Lost” universe, it’s hard to imagine a video game screwing it all up, and for the most part, it doesn’t.…

Before Jennifer Garner ever donned a single candy-colored wig on the ABC spy drama “Alias,” Franka Potente was busy making a name for herself as the Kool-Aid red-haired protagonist of “Run Lola Run.” One of many experimental films to come out of the late 90s indie movement, the German crime drama received an overwhelmingly positive reception during its overseas release, and after revisiting the film a decade later, you’d be surprised at just how well it holds up. But while “Run Lola Run” isn’t quite as effective as it was back in 1998 – when techno music was the lifeblood…

Much like the stupid, redneck protagonist of “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” Will Ferrell’s latest sports comedy, “Semi-Pro,” revolves entirely around a paper-thin character that’s supposed to be funny based on looks alone. True, Ferrell does look pretty goofy donning an afro and a pair of Daisy Duke basketball shorts, but is that really enough to garner laughs? For some, maybe, but where “Semi-Pro” scores in concept, it fails in execution – ultimately relying too often on the charisma of its star to realize that most of the jokes just aren’t funny. Ferrell stars as Jackie Moon, the…

As the sport of soccer continues to grow, so do the chances that a great soccer game will ever be made. Of course, that’s still probably a good few years away, but after completely retooling the “FIFA” franchise last year, the sports-obsessed nerds over at Electronic Arts certainly seem up to the task. Their latest success story is “FIFA Street 3,” and while past installments of the arcade soccer franchise haven’t yielded great results, the newest edition offers the style and attitude of street soccer without making it feel like a shallow button masher. Though the series still has leaps…

It’s only been six weeks into the new year and already we’ve seen four very different date movies. There was the surprisingly charming “27 Dresses,” the supernatural snorefest “Over Her Dead Body,” the mindless action-comedy “Fool’s Gold,” and finally, the Adam Brooks-directed rom-com, “Definitely, Maybe” – a genre flick that’s so superior to at least two of the films on this list that the Valentine’s Day battle for the box office has all but been decided. Teeming with the kind of smart-and-sweet writing you rarely see in the genre nowadays, “Definitely, Maybe” makes the most of its talented cast by…

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson may have struck box office gold with the romantic comedy “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” but just because you’ve done something once doesn’t make it any easier the second time around. Many thought that pairing the two gorgeous actors would ensure a similar result, but the duo’s lack of any onscreen chemistry pretty much sinks that ship well before the credits roll. It’s only one of several problems plaguing this “Into the Blue” copycat – the worst of them being that anyone would ever consider replicating such a shitty movie in the…