“The Hangover Part III” Review
May 24, 2013
“It’s funny because he’s Jewish!” exclaims Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong). “Don’t you get it?” Alan (Zach Galifianakis) sees the joke he’s trying to make, but doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t laugh, not only because it is, in fact, not funny at all, but also because he’s grown tired of Chow. And after...
“Star Trek Into Darkness” Review: Boldly Going Where The First Film Went Before
May 17, 2013
When J.J. Abrams rebooted the “Star Trek” franchise in 2009, I was faced with an interesting dilemma: a movie that was very dumb and poorly written, but was so fast and so much fun to watch that it actually didn’t matter. The energy was high, the cast was perfect, it was just hard to not have a good t...
“The Great Gatsby” Review: Luhrmann’s Excess Isn’t Enough
May 11, 2013
The news story “Warner Brothers Greenlights $100 Million 3D Adaptation of ‘The Great Gatsby’ For Summer” sounds like an article from The Onion, but it is in fact the movie we’re faced with this weekend. A book where, admittedly, not that much actually happens, has been turned into a big, lavish,...
“Stories We Tell” Review: Storytelling From Multiple Perspectives
May 8, 2013
Sarah Polley’s new documentary “Stories We Tell” is somewhat hard to describe by simply relaying the plot. Polley has had success directing narratives with “Away From Her” (for which she was nominated for an Academy Award) and last year’s “Take This Waltz,” but here she crafts somethi...
“Iron Man 3” Review: Marvel Kicks off “Phase 2” With A Bang
May 3, 2013
A year after the massive success of Marvel’s “The Avengers,” Marvel is back to start the “Phase Two” with the latest film from their most popular hero. Robert Downey Jr. dons the suit again for the third installment, this time backed by writer/director Shane Black (“Lethal Weapon,” “K...
“Shadow Dancer” Review: Spy Drama Focuses On Tension More Than Action
April 25, 2013
James Marsh is a director best known for his work with documentaries, primarily his Oscar-winning 2008 film “Man on a Wire.” The film about Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope stunt was exciting, tense and thrilling, and it was all true. Now, with “Shadow Dancer,” Marsh has successfully translated...
“Oblivion” Review: A Movie That Will Fade Into…
April 19, 2013
In 2010, director Joseph Kosinski came out of practically nowhere to helm Disney’s franchise-relauncher “TRON: Legacy,” a film that no one seems to have liked all that much and that didn’t light up the box office the way Disney might have hoped. I really only enjoyed parts of the film, mainly ...
“Evil Dead” Review: Blood Stains Can’t Cover Up Everything
April 5, 2013
About a month ago I saw Sam Raimi's new film, “Oz the Great and Powerful,” and took note of one specific shot that reminded me of the fun, creative camerawork in the 1981 horror classic “The Evil Dead” that made Raimi a star. In the shot, Oz (James Franco) is in a hot air balloon that has been wh...
“Room 237” Review: Conspiracy Theorists Examine “The Shining”
March 29, 2013
"I'm not saying we didn't go to the moon, I'm just saying that what we saw was faked, and that it was faked by Stanley Kubrick." At what level of obsession do you become crazy? That’s a question that should probably be posed to the interviewees in “Room 237,” a new documentary examining fan...
“GI Joe: Retaliation” Review: Still Dumb, Still Boring, But Slightly Less So
March 28, 2013
After the first scene of “GI Joe: Retaliation,” there’s a sort of animated recap of who all the characters are and what happened in the last movie. It’s kind of like when TV shows will have a short “previously on” segment to try to get new viewers, as if to say “Hey! You don’t need to see the stuff that came before this!” Almost all ...
EMBLIDGE INSIGHT: Support the VFX Protests
March 17, 2013
There were a lot of terrible things at the Academy Awards this year: Seth McFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs” song, the use of the “Jaws” theme to play people offstage, and “Skyfall” not winning best cinematography. But nothing could top the somewhat horrifying moment where, right after winning...
“Ginger & Rosa” Review: A Coming-of-Age Story That Never Comes of Age
March 15, 2013
Coming-of-age stories are, by definition self-indulgent. Filmmakers generally take material from their own lives, essentially saying, “look how interesting I am!” Most of the time that’s easy to forgive because we’re interested, we like the characters, and we care about what’s happening....
