“What, are you telling me The Green Goblin here can’t afford to buy us more food?”

Basing any feature length film on what was previously a short film is almost always a dubious proposition. What works well for thirty or so minutes often ends up feeling padded when transitioned into the ninety-plus minute range. I’ve never seen Jay & Seth Versus the Apocalypse, but it always sounded like a premise that would have been funny for a few minutes.

When it was announced that Seth Rogen was going to co-write & co-direct a feature length version of this film, I was filled with dread over what would likely be the end result, a two hour film with twenty minutes of laughs in it. As much as I loved bragging about being right on the money with my initial prediction for last week’s The Purge, I am similarly pleased to report that I was equally wrong with my prediction for This is the End. 

“Well, I hope you all had a grand time tonight.”

When I first saw the trailer for the new “horror” film The Purge, I was immediately intrigued by its premise: In the near future, The United States has made all crime legal for one night a year in order to provide people with a release of all the anger & hatred that’s built up inside them. It sounds like the kind of B-movie premise you’d find in a grindhouse theater in the 1970s. 

The most nagging issue brought up by the trailer was the fact that it looked as though the film was going to turn out to be nothing more than a home invasion action/thriller that would merely use that premise as a springboard for some sort of pseudo-intellectual take on the perils of Libertarianism. But could it possibly pull off the seemingly impossible feat of having a cool premise and not bating the audience into falling for whatever ham-fisted moral lesson the filmmakers really wanted to impart? Read on to find out…

“I need a time out… there’s too many French people in the room.”

Too many times I’ve been fooled into thinking that a great cast will automatically equal a great movie. I’ve been lulled into a false sense of security too many times by the likes of Troy, Mystery Men, America’s Sweethearts, and All the King’s Men. When the trailers first started appearing for this summer’s magician bank robbers movie Now You See Me, I began to get flashes of the same dread. Could a film with a premise that sounds this preposterous really be populated by so many talented actors? Well, like any great magician, this cast was at least two steps ahead of the audience, because this is far and away the best film I’ve seen so far this summer…

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writers: Gary Whitta (screenplay), M. Night Shyamalan (screenplay), Will Smith (story)
Cast: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Zoe Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, Glenn Morshower

A getaway that was meant to strengthen the relationship between father and son quickly turns into a fight for survival when their ship crash-lands on Earth, 1,000 years after humanity was forced to leave. 

Director: Todd Phillips
Writer: Todd Phillips, Craig Mazin, Scott Moore, Jon Lucas
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, John Goodman, Melissa McCarthy, Jeffrey Tambor, Heather Graham, Mike Epps, Sasha Barrese, Jamie Chung

The wolf pack are gathered again for one last adventure, but this time there’s no wedding or bachelor party. Nothing could go wrong, right? With the wolf pack, nothing is certain.

Director: Justin Lin
Writer: Chris Morgan (screenplay), Gary Scott Thompson (characters)
Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Gina Carano, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Elsa Pataky

Hobbs enlists the aid of Dom, Brian and their team of drivers to take down a ruthless ex-special ops agent who has been doing jobs with his team of mercenary drivers across Europe. In return, they have the promise of full pardons and the return of a friend they once thought was gone. 

“Moist is what we do.”

Blue Sky Animation Studios is a solid anomaly in the animation world. Like the number five pitcher in your rotation, they never seek to surprise or keep anyone on their toes, they just want to deliver something that goes right down the middle of the plate. They rely more on stunt casting & crowded, busy composition than they do on creative voice casting or innovative storytelling (the hallmarks of the better animation studios in the industry).

Therefore, it’s hard to be too critical of their latest animated feature, Epic, as it has no real ambition beyond getting kids to sit down and shut up for ninety odd minutes. Don’t get me wrong: there’s lots of things to nitpick and pull apart in this film, but because it took no real risks, it’s virtually impossible for me to look down my nose at the film.

Maybe I’m just getting soft, but judged solely on its ambitions, Epic achieves more or less exactly what it set out to achieve.

“Enough with the metaphors… That’s an order.”

In 2009, Paramount handed the reigns to one of its most successful franchises, Star Trek, to their in-house wunderkind, J.J. Abrams. The film that Abrams delivered was a fun throwback to the Trek of old, with plenty of action thrown in to hold the attention of viewers not used to the more leisurely pace of Gene Roddenberry’s creation. The film was a surprise hit that summer, and expectations could not be higher for the follow-up, Star Trek Into Darkness.

So could the film live up to those expectations? Read on to find out…

“I wish I had done everything on earth with you.”

The quintessential high school English teacher’s go-to novel for nearly the last century, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has received no fewer than five film adaptations and an opera. So why on earth did we need another film version of this masterwork? The honest answer is, we didn’t, but it’s more likely that none of the previous adaptations have been wholly successful in bringing the novel to life.

So how did director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) & executive producer Jay-Z fare on their version of Gatsby? Read on to find out…

Director: Shane Black
Writer: Shane Black (screenplay), Drew Pearce (screenplay), Stan Lee (comic book), Jack Kirby (comic book), Don Heck (comic book), Larry Lieber (comic book)
Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltorw, Don Cheadle, Sir Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, William Sadler, Paul Bettany, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau, Stephanie Szostak

Hit the break for a special audio review of Iron Man 3!

“You can call me a hobo, ‘cause I’ll do work. You can call me homeless, ‘cause right now that’s true. But if you call me a bum one more time, I’m gonna teach you a lesson your daddy didn’t.”

Writer/director Jeff Nichols created one of the more interesting films of the last few years with 2011’s Take Shelter. As a matter of fact, now that David Gordon Green has moved on to almost exclusively direct stoner comedies these days, Nichols has become the premiere Southern gothic filmmaker. His latest film Mud, in addition to being his best film yet, continues the year long winning streak of its star Matthew McConaughey, that started with last year’s Bernie.

So why and how is it his best film yet? Read on to find out…

Director: Robert Redford
Stars: Lem Dobbs (screenplay), Neil Gordon (Novel)
Cast: Robert Redford, Shia Labeouf, Stanley Tucci, Anna Kendrick, Susan Sarandon, Brendan Gleeson, NIck Nolte, Terrence Howard, Julie Christie, Chris Cooper, Richard Jenkings, Brit Marling, Sam Elliott, Stephen Root, Jackie Evancho

A journalist looking into the background of a former Weather Underground Activist — who surrendered herself to authorities — discovers the identity of one of her cohorts, forcing him to go on the run.

Director: Michael Bay
Writers: Christopher Markus (screenplay), Stephen McFeely (screenplay), Pete Collins (magazine articles the story is based off)
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry, Rebel Wilson, Ken Jeong, Michael Rispoli, Par Baly

Based on the true events surrounding Florida’s Sun Gym Gang in the mid-90s, who kidnapped, extorted, tortured and murdered wealthy victims for their money.

“Francis? I mean, who’s named Francis? A talking mule?”

I became aware of Rob Zombie, as I think most people of my generation did, when his band White Zombie’s video for “Thunder Kiss 65” appeared on Beavis & Butthead. Like most other people, I wrote him off as a novelty musician, but then his career took a strange turn when he directed House of 1000 Corpses in 2003. While I didn’t love that film, I recognized that he was very savvy behind the camera, and clearly knew what he was doing as a director. His follow-up film, The Devil’s Rejects, was one of my favorite movies of the decade, combining a love for the gritty exploitation films of the 70s with an uncanny ability to combine music and images.

Zombie took a turn into commercial territory with his Halloween films, which I wasn’t crazy about, but is now back on firmer ground with his latest film, The Lords of Salem. The film is an original story by Zombie, and the film’s trailers seemed to indicate he was headed into new territory. So did he succeed? Read on to find out…

Director: Joseph Kosinki
Writer: Joseph Kosinki (screenplay & comic), Karl Gajdusek (screenplay), Michael Arndt (screenplay), Arvid Nelson (comic)
Cast: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Melissa Leo

Jack Harper is one of two human survivors tasked with overseeing the extraction of natural resources on a devastated Earth. When he discovers another human survivor on the planet, he begins to question his mission and all that he knows.