As we get closer to the Academy Award nominations I thought I would give a prediction of the Oscar Nominees before I get angry at who is nominated, call out who got the shaft and finally predict the actual winners. Most of the different critics awards have been given out and some of the major [...]
Although it’s easy to trash, I thought HORRIBLE BOSSES was perfect for what it was; a straight up, R-rated comedy. Its goal was strictly to make you laugh and I found myself laughing consistently throughout the film. So I’m moderately excited to see that Warner Bros. is planning on a sequel and stars Jason Bateman, [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant Flix66.com and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment are proud to offer you a chance to win WATER FOR ELEPHANTS on DVD. Take a journey back in time with the romantic tale based on Sara Gruen’s New York Times #1 Best-Seller novel of the same name, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, coming to Blu-ray [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant I’m actually surprised no studio has mimicked Disney’s practice of releasing films for a limited time and then putting them in a “vault”. It’s a practice that has served Disney well as they create an urgency in their customers to buy their product and then excitement when they finally bring something [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant Even though I’m not the biggest Harry Potter fan, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 might have been the best movie of the summer. It was a great way to end the series and everyone brought their best for the final installment. The film is due to hit Blu-ray [...]
From the very beginning of director Nicolas Winding Refn’s DRIVE, it’s clear that this isn’t going to be your typical action film. Whether it be the Euro-tech music from Desiree, College and Electric Youth or the 80’s-retro neon pink lettering, nothing about the filmmaking in DRIVE is familiar. As the film opens, we hear “the [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant Flix66.com and Universal Studios Home Entertainment is proud to offer you a chance to win BRIDESMAIDS on DVD. Simply answer the trivia question below for your chance to win BRIDESMAIDS, starring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Melissa McCarthy and directed by Paul Feig. Join the wildest wedding party [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant Flix66.com is proud to offer you a chance to win EVERYTHING MUST GO on DVD. Simply answer the trivia question below for your chance to win EVERYTHING MUST GO, starring Will Ferrell, Michael Pena, Laura Dern and Rebecca Hall. The film is directed by Dan Rush. Official synopsis: Headlined by two-time [...]
Have you ever wondered what it might look like to see GROUNDHOG DAY as a science-fiction/action movie? Subtract Bill Murray, add Jake Gyllenhaal (DONNIE DARKO, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN), put him on a train and give him 8 minutes to find a terrorist. Those are the elements of SOURCE CODE in their most simple form, but the [...]
Mitch and Dave have been best friends since childhood but couldn’t be more different. Dave is a career driven machine on the verge of making partner at his law firm and is also happily married with three kids. Mitch is a big kid who dabbles in acting, smokes a lot of weed and sleeps with [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant Even though Neil Patrick Harris and Jon Favreau are seriously testing their fans loyalty this weekend by starring in two disappointing films, audiences can’t seem to decide which one they liked better. On one hand, THE SMURFS is doing pretty well considering how horrible the previews were, but it is a [...]
Face it; Captain America is a cheesy superhero. There’s really no way to get around it. He has the worst costume of all major superheroes, his only gadget is a shield that inexplicably returns to him boomerang-style and when there’s a corny line to be said in the comic books, CA is there to say [...]
Well it is finally over. After years of following Potter-mania, the films from the classic books have come to an end with HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 (which I will now refer to as HPATDHP2). It is of course bittersweet to announce this finale as these characters and their wizarding world have [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant The final installment to the Harry Potter series (read our review: HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2) is now one of the biggest movies of all time. Already claiming the record for highest midnight gross with $43.5 million and then shattering the single day box office record total with [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant Director David Yates won over this mild Harry Potter fan with a fantastic final film to the franchise and it looks like the film is impressing just about everyone. Critics seem to all agree that this is a great film (read our review of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART [...]
Based upon the 1994 Rwandan conflict, Paul, a hotel manager who knows the benefits of keeping his friends close and his enemies even closer, is forced to fight for the lives of his family as well as countless refugees as a Rwandan dictator assassinates the Rwandan President overthrowing a peace agreement, leading to the massacring [...]
Posted by: Kristy Sturdivant It’s probably not going to be a big surprise to find out that Michael Bay’s third installment TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON has pulled out another successful weekend at the box office. The two “big” openers this week were HORRIBLE BOSSES, the comedy starring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis, [...]
Somehow I’ve gone fifteen years never having seen LEAVING LAS VEGAS. It’s one of those films that everyone says is so spectacular, but that’s it. You also hear about how that was one of the last amazing performances that Nicolas Cage ever gave. The man even won an Oscar for the role. So I figure [...]
With proven funnymen Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day, not to mention proven A-list stars like Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey and Jamie Foxx, it’s hard not to be excited about HORRIBLE BOSSES. Warner Brothers has assembled a comedic version of THE AVENGERS and is hoping that at least one actor of the [...]
This 2008 Norwegian film got a limited US release in late 2010 as part of an Academy Awards push, but I don’t recall any real press for the film in the midwest. This is a shame, because it’s a beautifully constructed, true story of sabotage and propaganda in the middle of World War II. What’s [...]
Posted by: Brad Sturdivant Remember when the 4th of July weekend used to belong to Will Smith? That seems like a long time ago. Lately, the Fourth of July belongs to Transformers and this weekend was no exception. The third installment of the franchise, TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, looks like it will rake in [...]
by Brad Sturdivant I’ve been looking forward to this July 4th weekend for quite some time now. No, it’s not because I’m looking forward to eating hotdogs and potato salad with a group of old friends, it’s because the Extended Edition of the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy hit Blu-ray this past Tuesday and that [...]
THE LINCOLN LAWYER is a legal crime drama based on the book of the same name authored by Michael Connelly in 2005. Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is a self proclaimed “street lawyer” who offices out of the back seat of his 1987 black Lincoln Town Car. Notorious around the judicial systems of Los Angels County, [...]
I chose to review AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY because I had heard so much about the comedian that I figured this would be a good way to get his whole story. Several of my friends online had posted clips from his stand-up and at times had photos of Hicks as their profile pics. Hicks [...]
America’s favorite pastime is one of the best things about summer for a lot of people. There’s a thrill of excitement when you enter a baseball stadium, grab a hot dog and sit down to watch nine innings from your favorite team. The only thing that comes close to that exhilarating rush at the ballpark [...]
Hal Jordan is an overconfident test pilot who can’t seem to stay out of trouble, but when an alien craft crash lands on earth, it’s dying pilot, a member of the intergalactic Green Lantern corps, must will his ring to choose a new master. The ring chooses Hal Jordan. Burdened by this sudden responsibility, Hal [...]
You might be surprised to hear that I never saw DEAD MAN WALKING back when it came out in 1995. In fact, I have never seen it until right before this review. I expected a film about a man on death row and a nun who comforts and helps him on his way. However, I [...]
Watching PLATOON again, over 25 years since its initial release, I’m reminded at how different war movies are in 2011 than they were in 1986. Today’s war movies are filled with hope and overcoming extreme circumstances. Even when things are bad, most of today’s war films focus on something positive and show the power of [...]
When looking at the Academy Awards, I have always thought the Best Screenplay categories of Adapted or Original contained the most quality films. Usually there are one or two little gems in there that don’t receive love from other categories. Such is the case with ANOTHER YEAR. Nominated for Best Original Screenplay, the film spans [...]
The summer creature film that J.J. Abrams and Paramount went to great lengths to keep secret is finally revealed to the world and after sitting through SUPER 8, the burning question I’m left with is; why was this such a secret? After stewing on it for a couple of days, I still can’t come up [...]
It has been a long time since I’ve liked an Adam Sandler film. In his defense, I’ve quit watching his more recent stuff so I can’t give those films a proper grade. But that’s not a good sign when people become so jaded they give up on your films. I am happy to say, despite [...]
Terrence Malick’s existential film about life, death and the conflicting ways of living life is not for everyone. Although to be fair, audiences have never had a chance to witness anything like THE TREE OF LIFE until now. Some may argue that Kubrick attempted to tell a story in this manner or that Ingmar Bergman [...]
It was no secret that production on X-MEN: FIRST CLASS was rushed, to say the least and whenever films get rushed through the production process, it usually equates to a jumbled mess of a movie with poorly developed characters and a weak script that doesn’t always make sense. It’s what fans have come to expect [...]
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu who previously brought us AMORES PERROS, 21 GRAMS and BABEL brings another hauntingly beautiful but still slightly misguided film about a man consciously torn about his actions in life in BIUTIFUL. If you are a big fan of his previous work then you will definitely like this film. But if you [...]
Big-budget sequels to popular original movies are like the children of successful parents – all too often they end up as victims of everyone else’s overbearing expectations. Studios expect sequels to be bigger, better, and even more successful than their progenitors, even if the original movie didn’t have nearly as much demanded of it; they [...]
Here’s a broad generalization for you: there are two types of movie directors. One type is in it for the filmmaking, for the experience of telling a story – any story – through the lens of a camera. The other type is there because he or she has a point of view, something they really [...]
As any film fan can tell you, one of the very best feelings you can have is the rush of discovery when you stumble across something new, interesting, and unexpected. It’s fun to anticipate things too, and Hollywood knows how to whet our appetites like almost nothing else in the world, but too often that [...]
Good comedy is hard to find. Good comedy from a female comedian in a movie directed towards females is almost impossible to find. It’s not that women aren’t funny, it’s that it’s rare for a female comedian to get a chance to carry her own film and when it does happen, it’s almost always in [...]
Much has been made of THE BEAVER, with attention focusing on Mel Gibson’s off the screen antics to the cockney accent he used to voice the puppet. But what audiences will find out about THE BEAVER is that this is a character study of a man that has given up hope and is struggling to [...]
When you hit the fifth film in a franchise, there are no surprises. By now, you know what you’re going to get with The Fast and Furious; fast cars, scantily clad ladies, muscle bound guys and action stunts that are predictable and over the top. There’s no reason to worry about little things like a [...]
In 1941 three men walked out of the Himalayas into India. They survived a 4000-mile walk to freedom after escaping prison in Siberia. THE WAY BACK is their amazing story of survival through determination and perseverance. In 1939 Hitler invaded Poland from the West and Stalin invaded from the East, imprisoning anyone who was thought [...]
Even in the best of times, historical or period pictures are a tough sell. Despite the fact that the overwhelmingly popular reason people will give you for wanting to go to the movies is escapism, for some reason few people want to escape to World War I or Restoration England or ancient China; for every [...]
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS is a film so close to greatness that it’s almost painful to watch. Each skillfully crafted circus performance, each breathtakingly beautiful setting, each genuinely romantic moment and every tear-jerking plot twist led us closer and closer to cinematic brilliance, only to let us down with a disappointing thud. This film has all [...]
TEEN WOLF is a trip down memory lane for those of us that grew up watching Michael J. Fox in the 80’s. I always considered this part of the “Michael J. Fox” trilogy that also included BACK TO THE FUTURE and THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS as the quintessential Fox films that defined the 80’s. [...]
It seems like this happens to me every year. I see a small movie before anyone else and I love it. Then awards season comes around and the small movie that no one had heard of becomes the Oscar movie that everyone saw. Then TITANIC-syndrome hits and the movie gets so hyped up and talked [...]
I have to admit: I whistled when the screen lit up with a huge, colorful 3-D jungle. A catchy samba beat kicked in as candy-colored birds wheeled just in front of my eyeballs, small mammals danced across the tops of the seats in front of me, and jungle flowers flexed their petals in geometric patterns [...]
I remember when I purchased the final hardback installment in the Harry Potter series being filled with mixed emotions. Sad that the book was almost over and crazy excited to dive back into the wonderful fantasy world J. K. Rowling created. The same holds true with the Harry Potter film franchise. Thankfully the film based [...]
In a world of superheroes and evil villains, society takes the heroes and the work they do for granted. After a series of lawsuits and high cost repairs the supers are forced to assume their secret identity on a full time basis putting their superhero tendencies on hold. This was the fate of two superheroes, [...]
