Film

I was under the impression that Being Flynn might be some sort of comeback for DeNiro after about two straight decades of duds. That is simply not the case.
Based on the memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by playwright and poet Nick Flynn, the movie depicts Flynn’s reunion with his estranged father, Jonathan, a homeless alcoholic who lives at a shelter where Nick was a social worker in the late 1980s.
The concept is original and the film is touching at times, but lacks energy or any real rhythm.
We follow Nick (Paul Dano) who is semi down and out and looking for a cheap place to live and any work he can find, finally meeting his father (DeNiro), a delusional alcoholic who roams the streets doing odd jobs like driving cab. The full circle Taxi Driver reference is right there, but it seems director Paul Weitz overlooks the significance.

Kids in the woods horror movies are a pretty reliable genre. Evil Dead (1 and 2) being the best example of the formula. Cabin Fever also fits the bill and now, thanks to Lion's Gate and Mutant Energy Productions, we have the supreme example of them all in 2012's Cabin in the Woods. Horror movie fans and aficionados will go berserk with this one, but they'll also wonder why this film, made back in 2009, wasn't released until now.

It might not be fair, but I don’t judge martial arts movies by the same standard as I do other genres. I don’t need character development, brilliant acting or nuance when it comes to a new kung-fu movie. I only need exhilarating action, an under-reliance on wire work and some savage ass-kickery. The Raid: Redemption not only delivers on those three fronts, but executes them perfectly (especially the ass-kickery part). I would even go so far as to say that there hasn’t been such a relentlessly action packed movie since Hard Boiled came out in 1992 and introduced Chow Yun-fat to America.

Some movies clue you in from the first scene that you're in for a different experience. We Need to Talk About Kevin achieves this and falls into the category of really different. The opening looks like a blood orgy, with Tilda Swinton slathered to the hilt in red, but turns out to be some sort of tomato festival with gobs of crushed slime running red all over huddled masses. It's not clear if this is some sort of flashback or a surreal dream sequence, and frankly it doesn't matter. Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, responsible for the underrated Morven Callar and Ratcatcher, likes to give us a lot to work with. Here she uses the ever-present color red, symbolizing the stigma of never being able to wash the blood of tragedy from your hands.

I suppose I should get this out of the way up front: I don’t think I am in this film’s target demographic. And for large stretches of the film’s running time, I’m not sure the writer and director were entirely sure who the movie's audience is.
At first, I thought the film was a drama about the United Kingdom reaching out to Yemen in the hopes of creating some positive PR. Then the script delved into questions of faith and religious certainty. Then it slipped the shackles of being a “message movie” in favor of a fairly straightforward romantic comedy.

Most everyone I know fondly remembers the 1981 version of Clash of the Titans. It had it all: Greek mythology, the Stygian Witches, Calibos, Medusa, the Kraken, giant scorpions and, of course, Bubo the mechanical owl. I watched this original version again, for the first time in 20 years, before watching Wrath of the Titans. I wanted to remind myself of the main story points and remember how much better it was than the remake. That was not the best idea.
While it is still much better than the remake, the original really didn't stand up too well. Aside from Ray Harryhausen's effects work (his last before retiring), it's somewhat dull and lifeless. Harry Hamlin, with his bronzed, hairless legs, just isn't a hero that I care about. It's all too campy to take seriously as an epic adventure. That's to say that Clash of the Titans is not a sacred cow for me, so my feelings for Wrath aren't related to nostalgia for the original.

Mirror Mirror wasn't horrible, and that's the problem. With a safe, even keel, this flick excels at being nothing special. It's not stupid enough for to me to be fully embarrassed for the human race, and not campy enough to be blasé. It's a prequel and also a bland retelling of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarves fairy tale that's decent enough for kids. Damn it!
Sent with cruel intentions by my wicked step-editor, I knew my movie-going experience was fated to be nightmarish given it's spring break and kids are out in droves. And so I was turned away from this kid magnet after at my first round of standing in a line of exuberant children because it was sold out. Perhaps that was a good thing.

Rampart wasn't what I expected, and that's a good thing. I thought we'd see a lunatic displaying a ton of violence and bad temper explosions. What we get is a diabolically slow burn through an amazing performance by Woody Harrelson. I was expecting the ranting of an insane powder keg ready to blow, instead this is a profile of an intellectual, yet bull-headed cop unwilling to take his political medicine. Oh, and he beats and kills people he thinks deserve it. The film is set in 1999, during the Rampart scandal when more than 70 cops were charged with acts of unprovoked brutality in the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart division.
In this case, the film focuses on Officer Dave Brown (Harrelson), who serves as a composite of the dozens of problems cops implicated in the scandal. Brown is a racist badass who wantonly prowls the city. The story picks up after Brown is caught on videotape as he beats a suspect.

It's seems like forever since funnyman Will Ferrell released a movie worth talking about. With recent mega-duds like Land of the Lost and The Other Guys, my expectations for Ferrell's career were quickly fading. His comedic prowess has drastically dwindled since his classic characters such as NASCAR misfit Ricky Bobby and the legendary anchorman Ron Burgundy. But now, in a movie I was quite skeptical about, he has made me laugh again.
In the ridiculous Casa de mi Padre, Will Ferrell is Armando Alvarez, a vaquero who is viewed as an idiot by his family. His once simple life takes a turn for the interesting upon the return of his drug-dealing brother, Raul. Despite being the favorite son, Raul's homecoming begins to strain the family.

Here's what's remarkable and extraordinary about Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games: not all that much, really. Don't misunderstand; there's nothing wrong with it. It's a solid, satisfying read, no crime against literature, unlike other much-adored recent book series we could name. But Collins mines familiar dystopian ground, building around the kind of public-spectacle blood-and-circuses concept that has fueled everything, from Logan's Run to Death Race 2000, from The Running Man to the Japanese Battle Royale. Once again, the future's such a blight, you gotta wear blades.