I’m a couple weeks away from turning 34 years old. Even so, I couldn’t wait to hit the old cinema opening day for the release of the highly anticipated Toy Story 4.
In a summer packed with franchise after franchise seemingly exhausting audiences because many of them don’t offer anything essential to the franchise, I had a tinge of worry in my toy-loving belly that maybe this fourth installment would fall well short of what I think is probably the best and most universally adored film trilogy of all-time. So did the film deliver on expectations? Continue reading
Having followed the career of Zach Galifianakis for a long time, I’ve always been sort of surprised that he became a superstar. As both a standup and actor, his style has always been so uncompromisingly odd and niche – even in his breakthrough 
Moonrise Kingdom is classic Wes Anderson. Every film that Wes Anderson has ever directed has been classic Wes Anderson, and it’s this feeling of excessive self-awareness that prevents his latest film from exceeding the hype that has surrounded it since its release. Anderson takes a pretty common human experience (in this case, young love), peppers it with a cast of unique characters played by recognizable actors in a bygone romanticized era, and mixes in equal parts classical and surreal to the plot to make some sort of Wes Anderson buffet that tastes exactly like the buffet he’s been serving us for over a decade. Everything still tastes good, maybe just okay these days. It’s filling enough, but there’s an emptiness that persists not so long after that makes you wonder why you keep coming back when there might be more exciting options available.
Ted is the relatively simple tale of boy and toy, seen through the sometimes perverse, but often hilarious eyes of Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad). MacFarlane, who directs and provides the voice of the title character (a teddy bear brought to life through a young boy’s Christmas wish), gives us a comedy that stands out not only because it’s MacFarlane’s first live action directed feature, but because it also ironically takes what would seem to be the plot of a G-rated movie and converts it into R-rated glory packed with MacFarlane’s signature brand of pop culture laden crude humor. Ted is exactly what you’d expect– funny and simple– but with a surprising ability to blend its fantastical premise with some genuine emotion.
Usually when a film gets tagged with the dreaded NC-17 rating it’s largely swept under the rug by the mass movie going public, only to be seen by those who go out of their way to seek it out. Whatever the subject matter that is contained within the film that warranted the severe MPAA restriction is usually enough to keep all but the most ardent cinephiles from taking the time to seek it out. Shame is a 2011 film that did receive that rating, but for mature filmgoers it packs a simple concept into one of the most remarkably moving packages in recent memory.
My Week with Marilyn is a 2011 film based on the true story that transpired in the summer of 1956 on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, a film that brought together two titans of show business—the highly acclaimed thespian Sir Laurence Olivier and Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe—with fresh Oxford graduate Colin Clark playing the bridge that connected the two famed actors both on and off the set.
George Clooney is the safest bet in Hollywood these days. If you take a drive to the movie theater, or adjust your Netflix queue or visit a Redbox unit, odds are that if you take a chance on a Clooney flick you won’t be disappointed. He has become a home run hitter not only as an actor, but as a director and producer as well, and he has shown a keen eye for choosing scripts that provide him with the opportunity to make meaningful movies that hold some type of social significance, and The Descendants is no different.