Man of Steel is a mighty, massive relaunch for Superman. It fits the bill for a summer blockbuster and then some. There’s a lot of good stuff in Man of Steel. A lot of over-the-top, extra stuff, too. Maybe in their efforts to please moviegoers searching for summertime action and spectacle, the filmmakers overloaded their movie with earthshaking, loud, long fights and action sequences. Continue reading →

Writer-actress Brit Marling is developing an impressive catalog of films. The East, a tense, smartly cast drama about anti-corporation vigilantes, is her third and most high-profile project, following the well-received 2011 films, Another Earth and Sound of My Voice. For the Shreveport-shot The East, Marling reteams with her Sound of My Voice director and co-writer, Zal … Continue reading →

It’s the end of the world, dateline Hollywood. This Is The End imagines the Apocalypse, the Rapture, the End of Days, as doomsday swirls around a group of six actors and friends. And these aren’t merely aspiring actors or struggling actors. These guys are famous. The movie comedies they starred in earned millions. Using … Continue reading →

There are really three movie stars headlining “The Internship”: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, and Google. Actually, it’s a surprise Google doesn’t get top billing over the humans, so adoringly is the company displayed. But if you can get past this Mother of All Product Placements, you’ll likely find yourself chuckling a lot during this silly but warm-hearted … Continue reading →

A new horror movie classic, The Purge unleashes the monsters in our friends, our neighbors and ourselves. In the near-at-hand future of 2022, federal law sanctioned by a new regime called the New Founders of America (NFA) declares that all crime, including murder, is legal one night a year. Bad stuff can happen and no one, including … Continue reading →

In writer-director Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha, the title character runs and dances through the streets of New York. Greta Gerwig, the film’s co-writer, stars as the joyful Frances, a 27-year-old aspiring dancer. But Frances dwells in a purgatory between college life and genuine adulthood. She dreams of dancing with the professional company she’s associated with, … Continue reading →

Now You See Me, a heist movie revolving around a quartet of magicians, has flash and zest. There’s an exciting chase sequence, too, on foot and in vehicles, in New York City. There’s also much huffing and puffing over magic tricks and stunts that aren’t so thrilling or enchanting. Now You See Me further suffers … Continue reading →

Ever wonder what it would feel like to suddenly wake up in another universe? You could find out, perhaps, by joining the next space mission to another galaxy, or, slightly easier, you could go to your local multiplex and watch “Fast & Furious 6” without having seen the first five movies. Should you decide to undertake … Continue reading →

“Daring” isn’t a word you would use very much to describe 2011’s “The Hangover Part II,” the disappointingly lazy, beat-for-beat rehash of the wild and wildly successful original “Hangover” from 2009. And yet, here we are with “The Hangover Part III,” which runs a different sort of risk by going to darker and more dangerous places than … Continue reading →

In director and co-writer Ramin Bahrani’s Iowa corn country-set drama, At Any Price, Henry Whipple is a hustling seed salesman. Played by a manic Dennis Quaid, Whipple is a third-generation farmer who lives by the modern-day agribusiness code of “expand or die.” In the film’s first few minutes, he ruthlessly, shamelessly expands his already 3,000-acre … Continue reading →

“Star Trek Into Darkness” is like fan-boy fiction on a $185 million budget. It’s reverential, it’s faithful, it’s steeped in “Trek” mythology. It’s also an excessively derivative what-if rehash of themes and interactions that came before, most of the characters lesser copies and even caricatures of the originals. The scenario’s been hijacked and rejiggered from better “Trek” … Continue reading →

After Adolf Hitler’s suicide, as the Third Reich falls, five German children are left on their own. Their Nazi parents are arrested by the victorious Allies. But before their mother is imprisoned, she instructs her eldest daughter, 14-year-old Hannelore Dressler, to leave Bavaria with her siblings and go north, where their grandmother lives. The Allies, her … Continue reading →

If any piece of classic American literature should be depicted on film with wildly decadent and boldly inventive style, it’s “The Great Gatsby.” After all, who was the character of Jay Gatsby himself if not a spinner of grandiose tales and a peddler of lavish dreams? And Baz Luhrmann would seem like the ideal director to bring … Continue reading →

The people of “Peeples” make a better impression than most collections of oddballs in the weary mold of comedies centered on meeting the prospective in-laws. They still overstay their welcome, though. With a long, boring buildup that finally pays off with scattered laughs in the second half, “Peeples” also manages to leave a better impression than … Continue reading →

Fifteen directors and one concept are packed into the cinematic love song to New Orleans, Where Y’at (hello). Echoing the communal spirit that helped produce Louisiana’s entry into last year’s Oscar race, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Timecode:NOLA, a New Orleans filmmaker collective, assigned specific street corners throughout the city to specific directors. In the … Continue reading →

As resourceful as industrialist-inventor-superhero Tony Stark is, he’s frequently tested to his limits in Iron Man 3. Not just tested, Stark is defeated in a spectacular series of bruising losing battles. Stark’s gargantuan struggles against a mysterious, overwhelming enemy known as the Mandarin, fly by in a flash of fight and action sequences. Continue reading →

There’s a siege mentality about Michael Bay’s movies, as though viewers are the enemy holed up in a bunker and he’s the guy ordering heavy-metal music around-the-clock to wear down our morale and force us to surrender. Bay’s true-crime caper “Pain & Gain” lacks the visual-effects mayhem and sci-fi cacophony of his “Transformers” blockbusters, yet the movie … Continue reading →

Early in the sleek sci-fi thriller “Oblivion,” Tom Cruise, as a flyboy repairman living a removed, Jetsons-like existence above an invaded and deserted Earth, intones his home sickness. “I can’t shake the feeling that despite all that’s happened, Earth is still my home,” he narrates. One can’t help but chortle and wonder if Cruise is speaking … Continue reading →

“42” is the story of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play American Major League Baseball. Starring Chadwick Boseman as Robinson and Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ president and general manager, this film looks at the two years following Robinson’s entrance into the league in 1947. The Good Stuff: “42” is a terrific film. … Continue reading →

Hollywood goes for the formulaic in 42. A biopic about barrier-breaking baseball great Jackie Robinson, the film scratches the surface of history and diminishes Robinson’s very real human achievement by casting him in the ill-defined haze of myth. Born in 1919 in Cairo, Ga., Robinson left the Jim Crow-era South and became a … Continue reading →

Writer-director Sam Raimi’s 1981 horror classic, The Evil Dead, gets a worthy remake via the intensely taut Evil Dead. Minus the original’s “The,” Evil Dead revives Raimi’s sturdy, effectively spare source material for what likely will become a new horror classic. Continue reading →

If a big, dumb action movie knows it’s a big, dumb action movie and revels in that fact, is that preferable to a big, dumb action movie making the mistake of thinking it’s significant, relevant art? That’s the question to ponder — if you can think straight and your ears aren’t ringing too badly — during “G.I. … Continue reading →

In countless films about emergencies, crimes and police work, the 911 dispatcher is but a bit player, an anonymous, robotic voice briefly heard on the other end of a breathless call made by our movie’s main players. But in “The Call,” the 911 operator gets a starring role. It would seem to be long overdue, since Halle … Continue reading →

In the action-drama-terrorist tale Olympus Has Fallen, an enemy aircraft, specifically a heavily armed and fortified C-130 transport plane, slips undetected into airspace over Washington, D.C. The plane is nearly on top of the White House before a pair of U.S. fighters intersect it. The mighty American fighter jets are too little, too late, helpless … Continue reading →

Harmony Korine seems to want it both ways, all day, with “Spring Breakers,” his super-stylized descent into a sunbaked hell where bikini-clad, gun-toting college babes serve as our guides. As writer and director, Korine wants us to be appalled and aroused, hypnotized and titillated. He wants to satirize the debauchery of girls gone wild while simultaneously reveling … Continue reading →

What should be a hilarious, long-overdue pairing of two hugely likable, superstar comedians ends up being a major disappointment with “Admission.” As much film and television work as they do individually, Tina Fey and Paul Rudd surprisingly never have worked together. In theory, her smart, zingy persona should mesh beautifully with his easygoing goofiness — or their … Continue reading →

The normally clandestine world of the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret service, is revealed with remarkable transparency in The Gatekeepers. A thought-provoking documentary by Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh, The Gatekeepers examines Israel’s decades of strife-ridden post-World War II history. Moreh tells the story through historic film footage and, most of all, six former heads of the Shin … Continue reading →

In Detroit filmmaker Bryan D. Hopkins’ documentary, Dirty Energy, Louisiana residents affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster and its prodigious gusher of an oil leak get a chance to tell their stories. Of course, none of these people has deep pockets of the kind that allow them to run national TV campaigns about how they’re going to make something that’s so terribly wrong right. Continue reading →

Audiences can follow the yellow brick road again in a newly devised prequel to the beloved 1939 MGM musical The Wizard of Oz. This modern take on the Oz story has many of things contemporary audiences expect, including a multitude of special effects and 3D. Oz the Great and Powerful also lacks many things that … Continue reading →

When I heard about “Snitch,” the words drug dealers, guns and The Rock stuck in my mind. I went in with low expectations, assuming I would see plenty of action, shooting, muscles and corny one-liners. What I did not expect was a movie about the unbreakable relationship between father and son. The starring role is … Continue reading →

When hearing that the producer of popular thrillers “Insidious,” “Sinister” and “Paranormal Activity,” has created a new movie, one’s mind will go directly to paranormal happenings and ghosts or demons lurking around in the shadows. However, “Dark Skies” doesn’t particularly follow any previous plots or ideas. It is a new thriller based on unworldly visitors, but ghosts and … Continue reading →

A big-budget, effects-laden, 3-D retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk legend may seem like the unlikeliest pairing yet of director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie, but “Jack the Giant Slayer” ends up being smart, thrilling and a whole lot of fun. Continue reading →

If you liked “The Hangover” but felt like it needed more projectile vomit, stampeding buffaloes and naughty sorority pledges being spanked, then “21 & Over” is the feel-good, feel-bad movie for you. The writers of that 2009 smashed smash hit, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, wrote the script here, too, and direct for the first time. Comparatively, … Continue reading →

A film that makes good, unglamorized use of its gritty New Orleans locations, The Power of Few introduces five stories containing five parallel sets of characters. Few, a girl seemingly minding her own business as she walks down a city street, serves as the launching pad for it all. As each story unfolds, often accompanied by … Continue reading →

• Power of Few director pleased with Louisiana filmmaking
• Video: Leone Marucci talks about 'Power of Few'

The film adaptation of Rudolfo Anaya’s first novel, Bless Me, Ultima, has strong performances by a mostly Latino cast. The film’s also got beautiful images of nature and individual scenes of undeniable power. The choice to include a ponderous narration, however, violates that basic rule of storytelling: Show rather than tell. Film being most of all … Continue reading →

“A Good Day to Die Hard,” the newest sequel to the action-junkie’s favorite series, “Die Hard,” opened in theaters on Valentine’s Day. However, this is probably not the movie for couples who want to cozy up for a romantic night out. It is action-packed, relatively plotless and stars the ever-present, ever-impressive king of the action movie Bruce Willis. Continue reading →

If “Side Effects” is indeed Steven Soderbergh’s final film, as he’s said it will be after toying with the notion of retirement for a couple of years now, then intriguingly it feels like he’s coming full circle in some ways to the film that put him on the map: the trailblazing, 1989 indie “sex, lies and videotape.” Continue reading →

With growing zombie fans around the world expecting a fast-approaching zombie apocalypse, it’s about time for Hollywood to start rethinking the overdone traditional zombie film. Director Jonathan Levine works magic as he composes this endearing comedy that brings hope to a world of expected misery. “Warm Bodies,” presents a fresh depiction of these well-known zombies and … Continue reading →

When a movie actually has the word “movie” in the title, one would think they are sitting through an hour and a half of a production that includes a plot and a development of characters. In basic fundamentals of learning, it has been taught that a successful story includes an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action and a … Continue reading →

First there was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Now there’s Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. In the fairy tale collected and published by the Brothers Grimm, Hansel and Gretel are children who, after they’re abandoned by their parents, fall into a trap set by a cannibal witch. But the children outwit their captor and escape. … Continue reading →

Stand Up Guys is a modestly budgeted movie loaded with charm, amusement and poignant moments that arrive with the unannounced stealth of a neighbor’s cat. A trio of Oscar-winning old pros come together to play three retired partners in crime. It’s a treat to see Al Pacino, 72, Christopher Walken, 69, and Alan Arkin, 78, at … Continue reading →

Filmmakers who want to out-Tarantino writer-director Quentin Tarantino had best beware. The soon-to-be 50 filmmaker behind Django Unchained, Inglourious Basterds, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction is the undisputed master at making Tarantino movies. Barry Battles, also a writer-director, may have had a good idea behind the Slidell-shot The Baytown Outlaws, but the execution of this bloody, … Continue reading →

“Parker” plays like the bloodiest promotional video ever made for Palm Beach tourism. Stabbings, explosions and furniture-smashing brawls occur at some of the ritziest (and name-checked) locations within the sun-splashed, pastel-soaked slab of Florida opulence. Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the idea of The Breakers. The city is the setting for an elaborate, $50 million … Continue reading →

It should come as no surprise that every character in a movie called Broken City is either rotten to the core, or a liar, or a schemer, or the bearer of seriously damaging secrets. What is surprising — and frustrating, really — is that these characters never feel like real people, despite a series … Continue reading →

Having played the part of governor of California from 2003 to 2011, Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in action for The Last Stand. It’s his first leading role since 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. But moviegoers didn’t come out in big numbers for The Last Stand during its opening weekend. The film’s ninth place finish … Continue reading →