“The Hundred-Foot Journey” goes a surprising number of places for such a short trip. It’s a love story, a story about culture clash, an underdog success story, and a movie that celebrates food—albeit one that devolves into a food fight…
My wife summed “Into the Storm” up way better than I probably can, and she doesn’t write for this web site: “It’s sort of like part ‘Blair Witch,’ part ‘Jurassic Park’ and a whole lot of ‘Twister.’ I really liked ‘Twister!’” After…
In the predictably dystopian future of “Automata,” Earth’s ecosystem has collapsed, leaving only walled cities surrounded by radiation-blasted desert. The city inhabitants are served by a legion of robots, who are controlled by two primary protocols that prevent them from altering themselves.…
As much a barometer of contemporary political morality as a political or espionage thriller, the three films of the Worricker trilogy paint the town in various shades of gray. Bill Nighy stars as Johnny Worricker, a high-level analyst with the…
They had it all. They wanted more. While that may sound like the motto of America’s wealthiest 1 percent, it’s the tagline to “Satellite,” an indie film from writer-director Jeff Winner (“You Are Here*”). The film purports to be a contemporary fairy…
I love “Jersey Boys” the musical. I’ve seen it in San Francisco, Las Vegas (twice) and Portland, OR. And I would see it again. And again. I would take my parents, my wife, my in-laws, you name it. For my…
The ‘found footage’ horror film “The Taking of Deborah Logan” takes a questionable premise and quickly finds ways to make it even more regrettable. In this space, I have previously confessed my guilty-pleasure weakness for this style of herky-jerky, “cam-corder…
The revenge film genre is a relatively easy narrative to get viewers to buy into. It taps into most people’s fantasy world while keeping them a safe distance from getting into any real trouble. The reasons may differ but there…
I suppose if desperate times call for desperate measures, the place you might look for guidance is “Tammy,” which lands on Blu-ray disc soon. Given how disjointed a motion picture this is, however, you’re probably best not to let the lead character’s…
When Disney released “Planes” in 2013 and advertised that it was “from above the world of ‘Cars,’” they invoked Pixar’s highly successful animated auto-racing adventures. But, as I wrote in my review, while the flight plan may have been similar,…