My Favorite Movies: The Original Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983)
It is nearly impossible to see this as [...]
Kids
Epic (2013)
The late great critic Roger Ebert coined a term that accurately describes a movie like “Epic.” He would call it a “four-glasses-movie,” which he described as any movie whose plot can be summed up on four souvenir glasses from McDonald’s. “The glasses are of great value,” he said, “because they hold more water than the […]
The Croods (2013)
The Croods is a featherweight animated comedy perched somewhere between Ice Age and “The Flintstones.” It’s not as funny as the former or as endearing the latter. It is the kind of movie that you enjoy it while you’re watching it, but afterwards it slips away from your mind. In six months your kids might […]
Oz, the Great and Powerful (2013)
Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful is easier to deal with if we simply stand back and try not to compare with The Wizard of Oz, in spite of the fact that it has been marketed as prequel. That great 1939 classic is one of those great movie spaces that resides so resolutely in […]
Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)
Bryan Singer’s Jack the Giant Slayer is rousing adventure; exciting, adventurous and just plain fun. After the disaster of super-sized fairy tale adaptations like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood, this is the one that gets it right. It uses great special effects at the service of a story that, while not completely […]
Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
Disney’s new animated feature Wreck-It Ralph is written and conceived by people who have thought a lot about video games. They have obviously put a lot of thought into what life must be like on the other side of that screen and what they create is a dizzying display of creativity and imagination. They imagine […]
Rise of the Guardians (2012)
DreamWorks new animated adventure Rise of the Guardians comes packaged as a rip-snorting adventure yarn about beloved childhood icons like Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny and Jack Frost who act as a kind of superhero action response team defending kids who, in these dark times, are finding less and less to believe in – most […]
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
It is probably hard to drum up much excitement about an animated comedy with a title like Hotel Transylvania. You might expect a lot of puns and sight gags and jokes that you heard back in daycare. Not so fast. Hotel Transylvania is actually a witty, lively, funny and inventive screwball animated adventure that mashes […]
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (2012)
One of the problems with the recent attempts to adapt Dr. Seuss’ books into movies is Hollywood’s tendency to intrude upon his work with cute, snappy dialogue and slapstick comedy, and expand on appropriately thin material with gobs of hip-cool dialogue and needless subplots. Anyone familiar with Dr. Seuss’ books knows that this is completely […]
