If it works the first time around, why not repeat it again and again until it doesn’t work anymore? That is the singular philosophy driving modern Hollywood, and it has been all-too-apparent during this past year of sequels, many of which failed to deliver at the box office. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.  People love movies that take gambles and explore fresh terrain. Iron Man was a standard superhero vehicle, but it became grand entertainment under the direction of Jon Favreau, who elicited a career-rejuvenating turn out of his leading man, Robert Downey Jr. The actor…

Like any tool in a filmmaker’s arsenal, 3D is not interesting merely on its own terms. It takes the imagination and craftsmanship of a true artist to make pop-out visuals rise above the level of mere gimmickry. Thanks to the combined efforts of master filmmaker Martin Scorsese and veteran cinematographer Robert Richardson, Hugo is undoubtedly the best-looking live action film I’ve ever seen in three dimensions. Instead of using the extra depth to simply ricochet objects off viewers’ heads, Scorsese surrounds and immerses the audience in the snow-covered beauty of 1930's Paris, while …

The idea seemed utterly impossible. After nearly two decades of big screen misfires and increasingly underwhelming TV specials, could the long-waning Muppet franchise be successfully rebooted by the creative team behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall?  Could screenwriters Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller nail Jim Henson’s trademark mixture of self-reflexive humor and warmhearted humanity? Could director James Bobin (of Da Ali G Show and Flight of the Conchords fame) somehow manage to capture the late Muppet master’s imaginative and un-cynical approach to crowd-pleasing entertainment? The answer, I…

Say a word long enough and it starts to lose its meaning. The word “genius,” for example, has been misused to an excessive degree. So has the word “Hitler,” which is often uttered by political pundits to describe their reviled foes. And in the days following 9/11, “terrorist” has taken on a wide variety of definitions. It has been branded upon everything from religious zealots and environmental activists to the President of the United States. For FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the magic word was “communism.” He freely attached it to people who didn’t live up to his warped moral standards, and …

Back in 2007, I had the honor of attending the Cannes Film Festival. I was in the presence of many towering figures in the film industry, some of which told me stories about their brilliant careers. Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Stephen Frears, Malcolm McDowell, Michael Moore and Robert Duvall were a mere sampling of the people I encountered on this trip. Yet perhaps the most memorable words of all came from Brett Ratner, the self-aware Hollywood hack best known for helming the Rush Hour trilogy. In a room full of college students, Ratner was remarkably candid about his own career. He …

With Occupy Wall Street protestors filling the streets and making headlines around the world, it’s clear that the class divide has become wider than ever. In a country where anything, even the government itself, can be bought and sold to the highest bidder, the best interests of the people always take a back seat to those of the corporations. The top 1 percent can bask comfortably in their wealth without ever having to fulfill their duties as citizens. No wonder why the lowly 99 percent have decided to fight back. Since the rich are so rarely brought to justice, films and TV shows depicting …

No matter what day it is on the political calendar, election season is never far away. The instant a politician is elected to office, the next party seems to kick off simultaneously. How does one maintain their sanity, let alone their integrity, in the midst of such madness? How long does it take for a fresh-faced idealist to become an embittered cynic? And how much is one willing to compromise in the name of a cause? These are the questions lying at the heart of Beau Willimon’s acclaimed play, Farragut North, which loosely based its sordid tale on the 2004 campaign of Howard Dean. The Ides …

There is simply no actor in modern American cinema more likable than Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He has what Heath Ledger had: An inherently magnetic appeal, a complete disinterest in star-making marketability and a thirst for taking risks with projects he truly believes in. Though these risks have gotten him involved in a few misguided messes, they have nearly always paid off.  It would be easy to claim that Gordon-Levitt’s portrayal of a 27-year-old fighting cancer in 50/50 is the best of his career. Yet the truth is that ever since he left “3rd Rock From the Sun,” the actor has been turning in …

At the end of the day, it’s all a money game. Political campaigns, movie productions and sports teams all operate on the same basic principle. Talent is bought and sold to the highest bidder, yet what if talent was confused with mere popularity and appearance? What if the entire system that judged marketable success was entirely misguided? These are the questions asked by Oakland Athletics manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) in the opening scenes of Moneyball, which marks the third feature-length directorial effort of Bennett Miller (Capote). After being ordered by his superiors to accept his …

What a great year for Ryan Gosling. Hot off the heels of his Oscar-worthy performance in Derek Cianfrance’s overlooked masterpiece, Blue Valentine, Gosling has starred in one of the summer’s most enjoyable comedies (Crazy, Stupid, Love) and will soon be featured alongside several of America’s most respected leading men in George Clooney’s political thriller, The Idea of March. Yet no film has ever solidified the 30-year-old actor’s movie star status quite like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive. Action junkies expecting a Transporter-style lark are going to feel cheated by the misleading ads. …

Though adult audiences have often felt ignored by mainstream Hollywood, the recent box office success of character-driven dramas such as Tate Taylor’s The Help and Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion should not go unnoticed by studio executives. These are pictures that have garnered strong viewership during the early days of September, when children head back to school and movie attendance tends to dwindle. What makes Contagion such a highly unusual wide release is the fact that it lacks any trace of sensationalism. There are no action set pieces or bloodthirsty zombies to be found in this moody …

When a new mainstream blockbuster isn’t screened for critics, it’s usually a sure sign that the studio has no confidence in the film’s merit. Apollo 18 has all the earmarks of being the sort of mediocre time-waster relegated to the quality dumping ground of early September. One can imagine the filmmakers reciting their pitch for the producers at Dimension Films. “It’s Paranormal Activity in space!”  And yet, Apollo 18 is one of the most pleasant surprises in recent months: a genuinely effective thriller that’s unlike anything audiences have seen before. Instead of copying the styles of past …

What scares us at a very young age tends to fester in our subconsciousness well into our adulthood. For 9-year-old Guillermo del Toro, no film was more nightmare-inducing than John Newland’s 1973 TV movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. That film starred Kim Darby (aka Mattie Ross in 1969’s True Grit) as a woman terrorized by malicious goblins inhabiting the mansion she inherited from her grandmother. The picture was in the classic tradition of haunted house thrillers that exploit audiences’ fear of unknown noises emanating from shadowy corners of a seemingly empty room. Seen today, the dated …

The visceral effect of a good old-fashioned tear-jerker can be as overpowering as the jolts and jitters produced by a horror flick. One of the reasons people go to the movies is to bond with strangers through a shared experience, and One Day succeeded in dissolving its predominantly female audience (at the Friday night screening I attended) into a pool of tears. I haven’t witnessed this much sniffling since 2002’s A Walk to Remember. Of course, a film doesn’t need to be a work of great cinema in order to manipulate audiences. In the case of romantic melodrama, characters must be relatable and…

“Please, save your money,” begged cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) in the trailers for Glee: The 3D Concert Movie. “This thing sucks.” Turns out Sue’s words weren’t far from the truth. Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say the film “sucks,” it isn’t worth the inflated price of admission. Unlike Michael Jackson’s posthumous documentary, This Is It, this feature-length advertisement for the Fox Network’s hit show doesn’t seem like it will extend past its limited two-week engagement in theaters. Though I’ll confess that I’m not an avid watcher of Glee, I was fortunate enough to …

Everyone loves a good underdog story. It’s impossible to resist rooting for a protagonist who triumphs over adversity by standing up to a system that intends to crush him. In terms of summer blockbusters, this formula often pits humans against an endless assortment of foes, many of whom are decidedly alien.   But like James Cameron’s Avatar, Rupert Wyatt’s ungainly titled franchise reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes requires audiences to root for the downfall of mankind. Both pictures are cautionary works of science fiction featuring motion capture heroes created by Weta Digital, the New …

It might’ve happened exactly like this. Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis were in the midst of shooting one of their steamy scenes in Black Swan when they decided to make a bet. What if their characters’ inherently competitive nature continued after filming? What if Portman and Kunis branched off and made the exact same romantic comedy to see which one would fare better with audiences? This gamble might sound intriguing on paper, but it is proven to offer middling results on film. Portman’s romantic comedy vehicle, No Strings Attached, was released in January, while Kunis’s nearly identical …

The greatest franchise in movie history comes to a smashing conclusion in an eighth and final installment from David Yates, a director of character-driven TV flicks who once seemed to be the unlikeliest of choices to be at the helm of a big-budget, special effects-laden opus. Yates' underdog story is merely one of many that have added to the phenomenal success of author J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard in the realms of literature and cinema (the seven previous movies have earned more than $2 billion in ticket sales just in the U.S for Warner Bros. (WB) Studio). Read More: To check out previous movie…

As an embodiment of everything that is wrong with modern American society and culture, Transformers: Dark of the Moon succeeds spectacularly. To dismiss it as mindless entertainment is to miss the point entirely. Like Passion of the Christ and The Blind Side, this is the sort of mega-blockbuster that attracts viewers who don’t often attend movies. Its status as a cultural phenomenon should inspire film scholars to investigate precisely why it has connected with such a large section of the American moviegoing public.  If Transformers is a reflection of its audience, it is a depressing one …

Since 1995’s game-changing masterpiece, Toy Story, Pixar Animation Studios has had one of the most extraordinary track records in cinema history, producing one unforgettable gem after another. The superior quality of its inventive animation was nearly always equaled by the ingenuity of its scripts. Yet in the last few years, Pixar’s once immaculate reputation has begun to tarnish ( the company became part of the Disney empire in 2006). I wasn’t a huge fan of Up, the seismically overrated fantasy from 2008 that paired a cantankerous widower with a precocious Boy Scout. The setup held enormous …