timgrierson Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Saying Goodbye To Roger Ebert: <em>Life Itself</em>, Reviewed
When Roger Ebert died on April 4, 2013, it felt like a death in the family, not only because I'm a film critic, but because he and Gene Siskel are a huge part of the reason why. The different incarnations of their Siskel & Ebert show were instrumental in my upbringing, driving home the idea that ...
Auto-Chaotic. <em>Transformers: Age of Extinction</em>, Reviewed.
Age of Extinction is the best of the Transformers movies. That's not saying much: The other films in the series were all pretty bad, and this one is no good, either. But for an hour or so, director Michael Bay does what he does as well as he's done it for quite some time. Perpetually juvenile he...
Double Dragon: <em>How To Train Your Dragon 2</em>, Reviewed
Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, DreamWorks Animation has enjoyed plenty of commercial and critical success, winning two animation Oscars and earning almost $11.6 billion worldwide. And yet, the company remains in the shadow of Pixar, which in about the same amount of time has won sev...
Emotional Assault: <em>The Fault In Our Stars</em>, Reviewed.
The Fault in Our Stars is designed as counterprogramming for audiences who don't care about big summer action movies, but in its own way, this tear-jerking YA romantic drama is as epic and overstuffed as any CGI blockbuster. Instead of explosions and chase sequences, you get emotional epiphanies ...
<em>Night Moves</em> and Personal Apocalypses: The Films Of Kelly Reichardt
None of director Kelly Reichardt's films has made over $1 million at the box office. That seems about right. It's not that her superb dramas don't deserve a bigger audience. But because they're so intimate, so understated, they feel like secrets: the cinematic equivalent of the bootlegs die-hard...
The <em>Sleeping Beauty</em> Reboot You Never Wanted: <em>Maleficent</em>, Reviewed.
Back in 2006, Patton Oswalt had a standup bit where he fantasized about going back in time and killing George Lucas so he'd never make the Star Wars prequels. In the imaginary conversation, Lucas tries to sell Oswalt on those reviled films by assuring the comedian that all the things he digs about t...
A Tolerable Adam Sandler Movie! <em>Blended</em>, Reviewed.
In the late '90s, when Adam Sandler decided to transition from imbecile par excellence to romantic lead, he teamed up with Drew Barrymore to make The Wedding Singer, a very silly and very lovable '80s comedy that brought a softer, more human side to his Happy Gilmore/Billy Madison persona. That fi...
In Praise Of <em>Sugar</em>, The Anti-<em>Million Dollar Arm</em>
Hoop Dreams has haunted me ever since I saw it 20 years ago. The story of two black Chicago high school basketball players hoping to make the NBA and escape their inner-city lives, the film ends with their pro dreams very much in doubt. Decades later, I still remember the last thing William Gat...
Cannes Film Festival 2014: 10 Movies We Can't Wait To See
The Cannes Film Festival kicks off today, setting in motion 10 days of premieres of some of the most heavily anticipated movies of the year. Inside Llewyn Davis and Blue Is the Warmest Color got their start there last year—not to mention Best Foreign Language Oscar winner The Great Beauty—and ce...
Our 10 Most Anticipated Summer Movies (And The Five We're Dreading)
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to blow shit up. Summer-movie season begins in earnest on Friday with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and we're excited for another go-round of sequels and spectacle, although this is also the time for exciting counter-programming involving small-scale dramas with Oscar ho...
<em>Draft Day</em> Proves That Kevin Costner Should Just Make Sports Movies
Draft Day isn't a great movie, but it's good enough, and that's entirely thanks to the fact that Kevin Costner is in it. Costner is like your dad: You loved the guy at first, and then maybe you rebelled against him—thought you had outgrown him—but now you've come around to the fact that he gets ...
No-Win Scenario: Errol Morris' Great, Infuriating <em>The Unknown Known</em>
On February 29, 2004, director Errol Morris won an Academy Award for The Fog of War. Subtitled Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara, it consisted of a one-on-one interview with the former Secretary of Defense as he looked back at his management—and mismanagement— of the Vietnam War. ...
The Lone Avenger: <em>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</em>, Reviewed
When Marvel pooled its superhero talent for 2012's The Avengers, the rationale was obvious: If Iron Man or Thor or the Incredible Hulk could top the box office solo, just think how massive a summer blockbuster with all of them would be. And although the result was indeed a mega-hit—it's the all-time...
Kick 'Em All: How <em>The Raid 2</em> Turns Violence Into Art
Violence is such a constant in movies that we rarely appreciate when it's done well. The smallest hint of sexual content or nudity lands a film an R or a dreaded NC-17, but summer action blockbusters can inundate us with shootouts, explosions, car crashes, and off-screen deaths, and as long as th...
Sensational, Inspirational, Celebrational: <em>Muppets Most Wanted</em>, Reviewed
When Roger Ebert gave The Naked Gun a rave review back in 1988, this is how he praised it: "You laugh, and then you laugh at yourself for laughing. Some of the jokes are incredibly stupid. Most of them are dumber than dumb." Muppets Most Wanted is that way, too. This sequel to the very enjoyable ...
Fuck This Shit. <em>Bad Words</em>, Reviewed.
Jerry Seinfeld has famously stayed away from swearing in his standup, insisting that cursing to get a laugh is easy. Even if many thousands of comedians have proved that, cheap or not, cussing for laughs can still be hilarious, he does have a point. There are few things less funny than sitting thr...
More Rush. Wes Anderson's <em>The Grand Budapest Hotel</em>, Reviewed.
The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders, Saturday Night Live's horror trailer in the style of a Wes Anderson movie, is funny not just because it's so stylistically dead-on but also because it's so affectionate. In the nearly 20 years since releasing his debut, Bottle Rocket, Anderson has becom...
Your Handy Guide For What Will Win The Oscar Categories No One Understands
One of the more competitive Oscars campaigns in recent years culminates Sunday, when millions of people will gather around their televisions and think, "Ellen DeGeneres is a pretty dull host, but at least she's not Seth MacFarlane." Tomorrow, Will and I will do our predictions for the eight majo...
I Wouldn't Buy This For A Dollar. <em>RoboCop</em>, Reviewed.
No matter what you think of director Paul Verhoeven's movies, the one thing you could never call them is dull. Whether it's Showgirls or Total Recall, Basic Instinct or Starship Troopers, they've got this giddy, slightly demented intensity that makes them feel campy, exuberant, alive. A Dutch filmm...
Excellence, Not Ego: Remembering The Great Philip Seymour Hoffman
What surprised me the most when I heard the news of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death was that his passing ran so counter to the reputation he had earned over his 25 years as an actor. Dependable, intelligent, consistently remarkable: These are the qualities we had come to associate with Hoffman's...