Warm Bodies is a movie simultaneously blessed and cursed by Twilight. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that the widescreen release of the Nicholas Hoult-starring zombie-romantic-comedy owes its budget, profile, and probably its very existence to the success of a certain sparkly set of vampires with romantic problems. But given the number of times […]
I’ve written previously about my connection with the Girls’ character Hannah. It is not a connection I made up – I have literally received phone calls and texts from many people after a given episode, so amazed are they by the connection. It’s not entirely flattering: she’s a chubby, semi-unemployed, self-important whiner. But neither is […]
I’ve read a lot of reviews that describe Gangster Squad as all style, no substance. I think that’s being too kind. The style of gangster squad isn’t up to par either. The costuming is a feat of nature, the make up spot on, and the set dressing is some of the most gorgeous I’ve ever […]
Top 10 lists are marvelous beasts, revealing substantially more about the reviewer than they do about this year in filmed fiction. It’s one of my favorite reasons to do them – each year’s Top 10 List serves as a tiny autobiography of this year in Me. Without further ado, here’s my Top 10 Films for […]
When Jennifer Lawrence was first selected to play Katniss in The Hunger Games, I hadn’t seen her in anything. I wanted to avoid seeing her in anything AFTER as well, but the nerd in me couldn’t avoid X-Men: First Class (nor could the Michael Fassbender addict). I thought she was pretty “meh” in First Class, […]
I was having a tough day at work today. Like one of those “I wish I hadn’t worn eyeliner because my discrete bathroom crying is going to be WAY more noticeable” kind of days. And I did what I always do when faced with an intractable problem: ask myself what Leslie Knope would do. So […]
Looper, the newest sci-fi thriller from wunderkind director Rian Johnson, is a rare thing: it’s a perfect movie. By that I don’t mean it’s the world’s best movie, or even the year’s best. What I mean is that Johnson and his crew created a movie that manages to perfectly embody its own story and […]
When I was a kid, my first superhero love was Spiderman. In his cartoon incarnation, he was a wise-cracking, semi-nerdy photographer who just seemed to stumble into crime fighting. He was good-hearted and goofy, and he earned his super powers by supplementing with scientific curiosity and goodwill. When Sam Raimi’s version of the character came […]