Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

So, About Those 2015 Oscar Nominations…

So, About Those 2015 Oscar Nominations…

What in the name of Dick Poop just happened?!?!?!? It was a wild morning that saw the announcement of the 2015 Oscar nominees, and I just can’t get past Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs’ all-time great mispronunciation of a name. Congratulations to Mr. Turner cinematographer Dick Pope on your Oscar nomination. I’m sorry you’ll live […]

The 20 Best Performances of 2014

The 20 Best Performances of 2014

It was a great year for acting, and I still haven’t seen some of the year’s most acclaimed performances. If David Oyelowo (Selma), Julianne Moore (Still Alice), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Beyond the Lights), or anyone else bowls me over the way they have so […]

The Best Films of 2014

The Best Films of 2014

It seems you’re supposed to open your end-of-year favorite films list with an assessment of the movie year as a whole, but I’ve never really been interested in that. Good, bad, or somewhere in between—I have no idea what I’d say about 2014 other than I love the 20 films I’m writing about today and […]

The Best Movies of 2014 So Far

The Best Movies of 2014 So Far

We’re here, finally, on the cusp of an exciting fall movie season, and I’m looking back and a weird-ass year so far. Not bad, per se, just…weird. I rated a lot of movies 3.5 stars or better. I thought my annual trip to the Tribeca Film Festival was as fruitful as its ever been. Yet […]

2015 Oscar Predictions: First Guesses Before Fall Fests

2015 Oscar Predictions: First Guesses Before Fall Fests

It’s 2015 Oscar predictions time, so let’s dig the prognosticator’s hat out of the attic, dust it off, and take a look at the landscape of the 2015 Oscar race. If I’m being honest, though, I almost didn’t want to get involved with 2015 Oscar predictions at all. Last year’s Oscar season and the nonsense […]

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review

RATING: (3.5 STARS) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is one of the most unusual big-budget Hollywood action movies I’ve ever seen. For one, it opens with a virtually silent 20-minute sequence—one that catches us up with characters from the film’s predecessor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There’s also next to no […]

2014 Summer Movie Preview: Part 1

2014 Summer Movie Preview: Part 1

You can’t go anywhere—on the internet, your television, or in person—without being inundated with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ads, which tells this guy one thing: the movie is coming soon…though you could have said the same thing a year ago considering the over-saturation of this baby. I jest because I care—or at least I used […]

14 Films for 2014

14 Films for 2014

A yearly tradition continues. I don’t much enjoy these early-year looking-ahead lists; I’ll still be in 2013 mode until I catch up with everything that eluded me before the turn of the calendar. Nevertheless, on a day like today one can’t help survey the calendar and mark his or her most-anticipated movie days. And 2014 […]