Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Action, Adventure, Family
Run Time: 1 hour, 37 minutes, Rated PG Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Lesley Manville, Juno Temple, Imelda Staunton, Sam Riley, Brenton Thwaites, Isobelle Molloy Directed by Robert Stromberg (feature-film directorial debut) The first mark of a true villain is that they don't consider themselves to be villainous. Enter Maleficent, the evil sorceress responsible for putting the deep-sleep curse on Princess Aurora in Disney's Sleeping Beauty (of course, the 1959 animated Disney version is based on the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale, first published by Charles Perrault in 1697). It seems that we have gotten the story all wrong. In Maleficent (opening today), we get a different side of the story, as told from Maleficent's point of view
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Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Comedy, Western
Run Time: 1 hour 56 minutes, Rated R Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman Co-Written & Directed by Seth MacFarlane (Ted) Simply put, we've come to expect more from Seth MacFarlane. In A Million Ways to Die in the West (opening today), the creator of shows like Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, whose first feature-film directorial debut, Ted, was a huge success, serves up an often funny but horribly uneven take on the Western genre. It's a rare misfire for one of the hottest comedic voices in Hollywood. And that's a shame. Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Run Time: 2 hours, 11 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Josh Helman, Evan Peters Directed by Bryan Singer (X-Men, X-Men 2, The Usual Suspects, Superman X-Men: Days of Future Past (opening today) is the fifth installment in the X-Men franchise (not counting the two Wolverine spin-off films). It comes on the heels of 2011's X-Men: First Class, the strongest entry in the franchise that took place back in the 60s and told the origins of X-Men founder, Professor X and his best friend/arch nemesis, Magneto. This latest chapter mashes together the past with the X-Men of the present - and future, resulting in a wildly entertaining film, but I'm disappointed to report that it represents a slight step backwards for the mutant franchise. Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Run Time: 2 hours, Not Rated Starring: Alexia Rasmussen, Alexa Havins, Kristina Klebe, Joe Swanberg Written by Kevin Donner, Zack Parker Directed by Zack Parker (Scalene, Quench, Inexchange) Proxy (opening today) begins with a horrifying opening sequence that challenges you to keep watching. A young mother with presumably no family or close friends, Esther (Alexia Rasmussen) is nearly through her nine-months of pregnancy when on the way home from her doctor, she is knocked over the head by a masked assailant. Unconscious, the attacker continually beats her pregnant belly with a brick before escaping the scene. Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama
Run Time: 1 hour, 28 minutes, Rated R Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Eddie Marsan, Caleb Landry Jones, Christina Hendricks, Domenick Lombardozzi Based on the novel by Peter Dexter Directed by John Slattery (feature-film debut) You may know him as Roger Sterling on AMC's Mad Men, but John Slattery takes a seat in the director's chair for his very first feature-film, the black dram-edy, God's Pocket (opening today). Although there is much to like, the film will mostly be remembered as one of the final film performances of the late, great, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who stars as a greasy, two-bit, low-life criminal trying to pick up the pieces after he becomes ensnared in a local tragedy. Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Comedy
Run Time: 1 hour, 36 minutes, Rated R Starring: Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zac Efron, Dave Franco, Christopher Mintz-Plasse Directed by Nicholas Stoller (The Five-Year Engagement, Get Him to the Greek, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) Neighbors (opening today) is a raunchy, outrageous and often-times hilarious film that successfully blends several genres into one. It stands out as the funniest comedy so far this year. Rating: 2 out of 5 starsGenre: Comedy
Run Time: 1 hours, 30 minutes, Rated R Starring: John Turturro, Woody Allen, Liev Schreiber, Vanessa Paradis, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vergara Written & Directed by John Turturro (Passione, Romance & Cigarettes, Illuminata, Mac) It hasn't happened very often, but here and there, Woody Allen has been known to take on acting roles in films that he has not written or directed. He appears in Fading Gigolo (opening today), presumably as a favor to friend and fellow New Yorker, John Turturro, who plays the lead and also wrote and directed. It's a perfect part for Woody Allen, who plays (what else?) a neurotic Jew with deep insecurities. But Allen's array of occasionally amusing one-liners isn't enough to save this misguided, misogynistic film. Rating: 1 out of 5 starsGenre: Animated
Run Time: 1 hour, 28 minutes, Rated PG Starring (voices of): Lea Michele, Martin Short, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, Kelsey Grammer, Bernadette Peters, Oliver Platt, Hugh Dancy Directed by Will Finn (The Road to El Dorado, Home on the Range) & Dan St. Pierre (Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, Everyone's Hero) There used to be such a thing as a "straight-to-video" release and everybody usually knew what that meant: That the movie sucked, or was otherwise too lame for a theatrical release. In today's world, these B and C-caliber films are often made "On Demand," which is sort of an ironic moniker, since that label implies that there is someone out there who would actually want to watch it. With this lesson in mind comes Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return(opening today), a film so horrible that it defies proper categorization. It's the Citizen Kane of crap, a film that is somehow being released theatrically, despite the fact that it should have never even been made. Rating: 5 out of 5 starsGenre: Documentary
Run Time: 1 hours, 32 minutes, Rated PG Featuring: Katie Couric, Bill Clinton Co-Written & Directed by Stephanie Soechtig (Tapped) It is rare for a film to truly make you enraged. It is rarer still - nearly impossible these days it seems - to come across a movie that leads to real social and political change. Fed Up (opening today) aspires to do both. It's a new documentary that also is a call to action in regards to our nation's obesity and food problems. It made me truly enraged. Time will tell if our nation is ready for some real change. Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Animated, Foreign, Comedy, Drama
Run Time: 2 hours, 22 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Felicity Jones, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, B.J. Novak, Embeth Davidtz, Colm Feore Directed by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man, (500) Days of Summer) The origin story is behind us and its time to kick some bad guy butt. Yes, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (opening today) is high-flying, silk-slinging fun, but it carries with it the same darkness and depth introduced to us by its predecessor. Caught up also in its web are one too many unfortunate comic book movie cliches that bog the movie down and distract from the central story. But as with the 2012 film, this one relies heavily on great performances by its stellar young cast, and they again don't disappoint. |
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