As an artist, Baz Luhrmann frightens me. He has shown a history of taking complex ideas and concepts and boiling them down to a pudding-like mess, robbed of all substance. Add in a rapid-fire style of presentation designed to overwhelm the senses, and Luhrman is representative of many of the problems with contemporary filmmaking – using film as an overwhelming assault on viewers without utilizing... 

Iron Man is, please excuse the pun, the steel foundation of Marvel’s Avengers series. If the first film hadn’t done well, they would have had little to build upon to lead into the collective picture. Iron Man 2 went a long way to laying the groundwork for all of the heroes to finally team up, unfortunately to the detriment of Tony Stark’s individual story. Iron Man 3 shows us that, while Stark’s... 

It was my intention, like many other film buffs out there, to prepare for A Good Day to Die Hard by revisiting the highs and lows of the previous Die Hard films. Between a hectic schedule and early buzz that the latest John McClane chapter wasn’t so good, I wound up passing on watching the other films in the 25-year-old franchise. It turns out that may have been one of the best things I could... 

Jason Bateman has been a comedic force worth noting for decades now, popping into the spotlight and fading back into obscurity. Thankfully, his post Arrested Development era seems to be full of more successes than failures. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that, over the past few years, he’s really cemented his ability as a frustrated straight man, worthy of sitting alongside Bud... 

Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) is the wife of Martin (Channing Tatum), an inside trader who has just finished his four-year prison sentence. Despite the return of her beloved, Emily is feeling symptoms of depression, which eventually results in her attempting suicide by driving her car directly into the concrete wall of a parking garage. Emily survives and is taken to the hospital where psychiatrist Jonathan... 

Over the past few years it’s become the “in thing” to revisit old fairy tale stories and give them a gritty contemporary edge. I would almost call it the anti-Disney approach, if the House of Mouse wasn’t responsible for one of the better iterations of the genre with their series Once Upon a Time. Consider Grimm, Red Riding Hood, and last year’s dueling Snow White retellings, and you’d... 

Warm Bodies takes place eight years after the start of a zombie plague that turned the world into a desolate wasteland. Our main zombie character only known as “R” (Nicholas Hoult) is living out his undead life by wandering an abandoned airport, occasionally grunting with his fellow zombie friend “M” (Rob Cordry) and wondering (through interior monologue) whether or not he can come out of this... 

The year is 1949 and Los Angeles is under the thumb of Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), a former boxer who climbed the mobster ladder to become the ultimate crime ruler of the western United States. He kills at will, takes any dame he likes, and has paid off the majority of the LAPD to follow his every word. Enter Sergeant John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), a cop and WWII vet who, after a meeting with Chief Parker... 

From the moment I saw Les Misérables unfold on stage over a decade ago, I became enamored with Victor Hugo’s story. I’ve seen the musical adaptation on tour several times (including the first time when I went back the next day and snuck around backstage to see the behind-the-scenes workings of the production), I’ve attacked Hugo’s original work several times (although finishing... 

Set in America just two years before The Civil War, Django Unchained starts with the titular slave Django (Jamie Foxx) being “bought” (through excessive violence and murder) by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a former dentist turned bounty hunter who needs Django to identify a target from his former plantation. Following said bounty and a discussion about Django’s enslaved wife Broomhilda...