As the trailer, poster, and DVD cover make perfectly clear, Made in Dagenham is going to be an uplifting movie. There will be some lows, to be sure, but the collage of people smiling and laughing on the DVD box reassures us that plenty of cheer and good humor will be there to accompany them. The movie comes to us from director Nigel Cole, who is also responsible for such feel-good dramas as Calendar... 

When watching Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, about midway through, you’ll realize something is missing. There’s a vacuum, devoid of meaning and purpose. What is it? What can it be? It’s heart, emotion – Sucker Punch has no soul. Without that, there’s no connection to the characters, no investment in the plot, no payoff to the story. Snyder plays to his strengths, the visuals, the style,... 

I know the Diary of a Wimpy Kid franchise has a target audience. I also know that I’m not really in that target audience. While I’ve heard good things about the first movie, it really never inspired me to check it out. Now we’ve gotten a sequel, and while it is being received better than the other new release this weekend (Rodrick Rules has a 40% at Rotten Tomatoes, while Sucker Punch... 

If you were to take the explosive action of a Michael Bay movie, the girl-power themes of Joss Whedon’s work, and the quirky homages of Quentin Tarantino, and shove all of that in a blender on high, you might wind up with Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch. Then again, you might wind up with something better since Bay’s action isn’t as frenetic, Whedon’s message isn’t delivered in as exploitive... 

One can’t but help to think of the phrase “poor little rich boy” while watching Alexander Olch’s The Windmill Movie. It follows the struggle of noted filmmaker Richard P. Rogers and his life growing up in a wealthy society, but with the burden of a tragic family history. The film is essentially a documentary about another (unfinished) documentary, which Rogers spent years filming but... 

We know you’re busy and don’t always have time to check out written reviews, and our full-length hour-long podcast can be a bit hard to fit in for tight schedules. That’s why we’ve started providing video reviews: see what goes on during the podcast as Rafe reviews this week’s new releases, or just listen to hear his take on the new releases. Either way, it’s another... 

I’m sure the roots of unlocking the inaccessible portions of our brain or boosting intelligence predate Flowers for Algernon, but the Daniel Keyes novel tends to be the most memorable story with that plot device, and therefore becomes the yardstick to which other tales are compared. Limitless is no Flowers for Algernon. You won’t cheer on the protagonist in the same way you do Algernon’s Charly... 

I’m not a huge fan of courtroom dramas. To me the whole genre is as overcliched battle between good and evil, painting a glamorous picture of a reality that is nowhere near as black and white. Then again, I suppose the same could be true of teacher dramas, military dramas, and the like. Film paints in broad strokes when reality is much more subtle. The Lincoln Lawyer manages to bring a little subtlety... 

A long time ago, in a comic book convention far, far away…after attending the San Diego Comic Con, two British sci-fi fans, Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost) tour the southwest American landscape in a rented RV following a trail of alien-encounter hot spots: Black Mailbox, Area 51, Roswell. Along the way they encounter an actual alien named Paul (Seth Rogan) who is on... 

Beastly, a contemporary interpretation of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, is a feel-good film whose moral is as timeless as the story itself – true love is blind. Our stricken “beast”, Alex Pettyfer, doesn’t sprout fur or grow claws. He does not become an animal with a wicked temper or a rumbling growl. He isn’t frightening in the traditional sense. But as in the original...