 Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama
Run Time: 1 hours, 55 minutes, Rated R Starring: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, Stacy Keach Directed by Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Sideways, About Schmidt, Election) All Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) wants in life is a new truck and his old air compressor back from a friend he "loaned" it to 40 years ago. When we meet Woody - a hobbled, grizzled, unshaven and soft-spoken old coot - he is slowly meandering down the side of a highway, intent on walking all the way from his home in Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska. As director Alexander Payne's poetic, poignant, Nebraska (opening today) will eventually show us, this may be the first time in Woody's life when he knows where he's headed.
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 Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Run Time: 1 hour, 48 minutes, Rated PG Starring (voices of): Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Alan Tudyk, Santino Fontana, Ciaran Hinds Directed by Chris Buck (Surf's Up, Tarzan) & Jennifer Lee (feature-film directorial debut) Frozen (opening today) is a mix of the old and the new, a modern fairy tale told using classic, tried-and-true trappings. It is the 53rd animated feature released by Disney, loosely based on "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen (the author and poet of other classics, such as "Thumbelina," "The Little Mermaid" and "The Emperor's New Clothes"). It isn't quite as charming and fresh as Disney's Tangled, but it's the best Disney has had to offer since then and easily the best animated film of this year.  Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
Run Time: 2 hours, 26 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, Sam Claflin, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland, Jeffrey Wright Directed by Francis Lawrence (Water for Elephants, I Am Legend, Constantine) No mere movie review will stop legions of fans from flocking to theaters this weekend to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire(opening today). It's the second chapter in the movie series based on the second book, but it feels a lot like the first film. Structurally, it is nearly an exact template, with the wearisome first hour or so slowly building into an exciting finish, with an ending that leaves you longing for the next installment.  Rating: 2 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Crime, Romance
Run Time: 1 hour, 43 minutes, Rated R Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Evan Rachel Wood, Mads Mikkelsen, Til Schweiger, Rupert Grint, James Buckley, Vincent D'Onofrio, Melissa Leo, Aubrey Plaza Written by Matt Drake (Project X) Directed by Fredrik Bond (feature-film debut) Shia LaBeouf stars in the title role in Charlie Countryman (opening today), a film that was originally titled, "The Unnecessary Death of Charlie Countryman" when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival this past year. Apparently, an annoying narrator (voiced by John Hurt) was removed and other changes were made, but this new incarnation still feels quite unnecessary.  Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama
Run Time: 1 hour, 57 minutes, Rated R Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner, Denis O'Hare, Steve Zahn Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (Cafe de Flore, The Young Victoria, Loser Love, Los Locos) Dallas Buyers Club (opening today) manages to be a good film without being great, significant without being important. It's a based-on-a-true story that chronicles that scary time period in American history in the mid-1980s, when the AIDS virus was just coming into full effect.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Run Time: 1 hour, 52 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Zachary Levi, Ray Stevenson Directed by Alan Taylor (Palookaville, Kill the Poor) Thor: The Dark World (opening today) is the second "post-Avengers" movie, following May's Iron Man 3. Chris Hemsworth again stars as the god-like Thor, protector of the nine realms and master of the powerful artifact, the hammer, Mjolnir. The film kicks off where the last one left off, with Thor's villainous brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), in shackles and on his way to eternal imprisonment.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Romance
Run Time: 2 hours, 59 minutes, Rated NC-17 Starring: Adele Exarchopoulos, Lea Seydoux Adapted from the comic book "Le Bleu est une couleur chaude" by Julie Maroh Co-Written & Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche (Black Venus, The Secret of the Grain, Games of Love and Chance, Poetical Refugee) It will be mighty challenging for American audiences to latch on to Blue Is the Warmest Color (opening today). First of all, it has been given the NC-17 rating, a well-deserved classification. Add to it, it's a slow-moving romance that is three-hours long. Lastly - and not that I like this, but it's the truth - being a French import, the sub-titles will also keep people away.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsRating: 3 out of 5 stars
Read it on: http://www.axs.com/news/movie-review-last-vegas-a-mildly-disappointing-stay-in-senior-citi-sin-99506  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Run Time: 2 hours, 3 minutes, Rated R Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Lydia Wilson, Lindsay Duncan Written & Directed by Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Pirate Radio) What if you could travel back - not forward - through time, able to only revisit specific moments in your past? Which moments would you return to? What would you change? This is the lofty - and gimmicky - premise of About Time (opening today), a romantic comedy that bites off way more than it can possibly chew.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Run Time: 1 hour, 54 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis Based on the book by Orson Scott Card Written & Directed by Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Rendition, Tsotsi, A Reasonable Man) A young boy is "chosen" for being special and his skills will soon be needed to fight a necessary evil. He is recruited and sent to a school of sorts, to receive the proper training. There, he meets and befriends a rag-tag group of friends, they confront bullies and they compete as different teams in a competitive sport held in a massive arena. All adults exist only to serve as teachers and the fate of the world is solely in this young boy's hands. No, this is not only the plot of Harry Potter, it is the exact premise of Ender's Game (opening today). |
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tom santilli movie reviews
Tom Santilli is a professional film critic, TV personality, host and
the Executive Producer of Movie Show Plus.
He also is the featured film critic appearing on WXYZ Channel 7 Action News in Detroit,
and appeared weekly on FOX-2 in Detroit from 2016-2020.
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