DEATH OF TRADITIONAL CINEMA

It's a gangster movie and a buddy movie in a single package. With a smart script that never takes itself too seriously, but packs a wallop of emotion at times you let your guard down, STAND UP GUYS is an exciting light fare made even better by the A-game performances of Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin. Watching them do an all-nighter makes you remember the times when they were young, and performance-wise nothing has changed. Pacino is Valentine, released on parole after a 28-year stint at the slammer. Walken plays his buddy, Doc who picks him up and the two goes on a night out on the town. But Doc is at a difficult position, forced to do something against his morale. The two then rescues another buddy, Hirsch (played by Alan Arkin) from the elderly home . It's like the old days once again, when the three of them used to work for the mob. Seeing Arkin so full of energy here makes you wonder why he did not win that Oscar for ARGO. The jokes are hila...

Ever since Donnie Yen stepped into the shoes of Ip Man, everybody joined the bandwagon. Wong Kar Wai's THE GRANDMASTER, however is a respectable addition to the lot, and Tony Leung Chiu Wai with his unmatched cool, plays Ip Man handsomely. Long gestating in the mind of WKW, THE GRANDMASTER is his second action movie (after ASHES OF TIME) and his first movie in five years (after 2007's MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS). Kar Wai is known for taking time during production, and his crew during filming of 2046 reportedly joked that they will wrap up filming by year 2046. Nevertheless, WKW's fans patiently wait for the auteur's next project to come out.  Common in WKW's films are themes of unrequited love and the painful aftermath of time, and they are not absent in THE GRANDMASTER, where a historical tale featuring slick martial arts choreography by master Yuen Woo Ping contains elements of a romantic angle. Ip Man (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Gong Er (Zhang Zi Yi) started ...

I remember from way back, not sure if it was from a movie, or a TV show, or a conversation with a friend this question: what separates Superman from the rest of the superheroes, say Batman, or Spider-Man? The answer of course, is that Superman was born Superman, and Clark Kent is his cover identity, unlike Peter Parker who acquired powers through a spider bite, or Bruce Wayne who has to wear rubber nipples (I swear the joke originated from Tilda Swinton!).  So what, say you? So he really is a SUPER hero. He is great in the greatest sense of the word, because he defends the human race even though he is not one of them (arguably, if you're going to point out technicalities).  MAN OF STEEL works as a SUPERMAN movie, and as a reboot movie for that matter because it has  the element also present in IRON MAN 3 and CAPTAIN AMERICA and THE DARK KNIGHT- its heart in the right place, a matter most absent in THE GREEN LANTERN and SUPERMAN RETURNS. Zack Snyder a...

We all knew what we are getting into once we bought a ticket to see this movie. Movies like THE HANGOVER PART 3 exist so we can postpone too much analysis, like on recent more serious fares like TRANCE, and SIDE EFFECTS, and remind ourselves we can still laugh every once in a while. Perhaps not as funny and inventive as the first movie, but also not as unfunny and as culturally insensitive as the second one, THE HANGOVER PART 3 still manages to deliver plenty of sidesplitting humor and a few surprises, too (watch out for the hotel balcony scene!).  Part 3 is basically Alan's (Zach Galifianakis) story trying to get it together. Like in the previous movies, Chow (Ken Jeong) is the main cause of everybody's misfortune, this time because a mob boss (John Goodman) is out to settle a score with him. If it were me I'd kill Chow already, but as the movie progresses, I realized Chow was badly needed to make the plot work. Chow represents the black sheep in our families, or ...

Shia LaBeouf gives us the journalist character we'd love to hate in THE COMPANY YOU KEEP, and not since Hayden Christensen went lying his way to fame in SHATTERED GLASS had we an onscreen  antihero journalist so riveting. As ambitious newspaper reporter Ben Shepard, LaBeouf is chillingly effective. Nosy, narcissistic, and seemingly devoid of human emotion, he pursues the story wherever it may lead, and he's not coy of squeezing all his assets to stay ahead of the game.  When a shot at a national news coverage breaks out following the FBI arrest of wanted militant Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) after 30 years of hiding, Ben is hot on the trail, exposing Solarz' fellow Weather Underground member Nick Sloan (Robert Redford), who is hiding under an alias Jim Grant, and practicing as an attorney near Albany, New York. With that, Ben is catapulted to instant stardom, meanwhile Sloan has to quickly leave his hometown and protect his young daughter.  At the same time...

Martin Taylor (Channing Tatum) is finally released after serving four years' time for insider trading. He goes home to his wife Emily (Rooney Mara), a now distant, depressed and suicidal woman. After Emily intently drives her car against a wall, a psychiatrist- Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) is assigned to her care. Banks fears for her safety, and he should because for the entirety of the movie, Emily is a walking time bomb. Mara perfectly captures the psychological state of an unstable woman, and writer Scott Z. Burns and director Steven Soderbergh takes us on an uncertain ride filled with double twists and role reversals.  The shit hits the fan when Banks allows Emily to take a new prescription drug called Ablixa to cure depression, after a recommendation by Emily's former psychiatrist Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones). The depression is cured, and Emily finally recovers her sex drive, but the pill has many dangerous side effects. By the first half of th...