In the new family film Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Jim Carrey plays Mr. Popper, a divorced New York real estate developer who inherits six penguins from his late father.   The picture, opening June 17th, also stars Carla Gugino as his ex-wife Amanda, Angela Lansbury as a prospective client, and David Krumholtz as Popper’s intrusive neighbor [...]

X-Men: First Class, a compelling character study disguised as high concept summer entertainment, is an origin story that should entice viewers to revisit the first three X-Men films.  To use that oft-quoted T.S. Eliot line, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of of all our exploring will be to arrive where [...]

It’s nightfall in Seattle, and and tightly wound hitman Jonas Arbor (Cuba Gooding Jr.) has just a bottle of booze and a crappy television set to keep him company.  The scars that adorn his back were earned by years of service performing covert operations for the government, but unfortunately Jonas has gone rogue.  Saddled [...]

I only wanted to see Thor for one reason:  Kenneth Branagh directed it.  I knew there was going to be dazzling costumes and big action set pieces, but what I wanted to find out is if there was going to be some substantial drama.  Many recent Marvel films were getting stale and predictable, and while [...]

Sniper lead Tom Berenger is nowhere to be found in the latest installment Sniper: Reloaded, but Berenger’s co-star Billy Zane, sporting a pretty sick mustache, returns as Richard Miller in the new direct to DVD/Blu-ray feature.

Relative newcomer Chad Michael Collins is Marine Sgt. Brandon Beckett, a soldier who believes facing his enemy is the proper [...]

Water for Elephants is a generic, glossy, Hollywood crowd pleaser, with the most captivating aspect being Jack Fisk’s always superb production design.  While the trailer showed signs of intrigue and pathos, we get very little of each while watching this film.

The main character Jacob (Robert Pattinson), a college dropout, gets swept up with a touring [...]

Water for Elephants is based on the bestseller of the same name that features a romance in the unusual setting of a circus.

Veterinary school student Jacob (Robert Pattinson) falls hard for Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), a star circus performer. They find beauty in the world of the Big Top, and actually come together because [...]

The Beaver, Jodie Foster’s third directing feature, is easily her most realized work to date, thanks in large part to Mel Gibson’s inspired and riveting performance as Walter Black, a toy executive whose depression consumes his life.  After a failed suicide attempt, Black finds a puppet in a dumpster and assumes the persona of [...]

The snug appeal of the previous Scream films does not rest on the Ghostface’s identity, or even the installment’s opening kill scenes, but rather the innate chemistry among the franchise’s three leads (David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Neve Campbell).  Director Wes Craven, in need of a hit after the lackluster reception for My Soul to Take, [...]

Rio is an animated feature surrounding the adventures of Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), a small town macaw who meets Jewel (voiced by Anne Hathaway), a worldly, independent bird. Jewel has a way with Blu and manages to coax him out of the house and on the road for a trip down to Rio de [...]