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| Friday was a good day, up until I left work. At 5 pm, I drove home, ate some food and did some dishes. At 8 pm, I finished watching the Disney movie Old Dogs, which was painfully bad. At 10 pm, I sat down in a sparsely populated theater to watch Tim Burton's new movie Alice in Wonderland. It's truly sad that Old Dogs was the more enjoyable experience. Read FilmJabber's full Alice in Wonderland movie review. |
| The world just wouldn't be the same without zombie movies. There's just something deliciously satisfying about them. And despite the fact that they routinely share the same plot and the characters experience similar fates, the last decade has provided audiences with a shockingly consistent level of quality - in fact, I'd go so far as to say that the zombie subgenre is the most consistent of them all. Read FilmJabber's full The Crazies movie review. |
| The number is 26. That's the amount of Oscar nominations the last three major films Martin Scorsese directed - which all starred Leonardo DiCaprio - earned. The movies also collected approximately $700 million worldwide. Needless to say, the Scorsese/DiCaprio combination has been a critical and financial powerhouse, which makes the prospect of a horror-thriller such as Shutter Island so intriguing. Read FilmJabber's full Shutter Island movie review. |
| A few years, several bottles of alcohol and an anti-Semitic rant later, Mel Gibson returns to theaters with the revenge thriller Edge of Darkness, directed by Martin Campbell - the man behind Casino Royale and Goldeneye. Though it has struggled at the box office, the movie is a blast, full of stinging dialogue, a gritty performance by Gibson and a satisfyingly bloody climax. Read FilmJabber's full Edge of Darkness movie review. |
| As the Harry Potter franchise heads toward its end, Hollywood is desperately seeking the next big franchise. 20th Century Fox apparently believes that the next big thing is Percy Jackson & the Olympians, a book series by Rick Riordan. Fox has hired Chris Columbus, the director of the first two Harry Potter movies, to kick off the franchise, and the result is about what you'd expect: it's good, but could have been better. Read FilmJabber's full Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief movie review. |
| It's been nearly ten years since we last heard from the Hughes brothers, but they're back with the religiously themed apocalyptic action-thriller The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington. The movie looks great and features yet another good performance from the A-list actor, but the movie gets bogged down by its lack of a strong plot. Read FilmJabber's full The Book of Eli movie review. |
| Though many people see Heath Ledger's brilliant performance in The Dark Knight as his last hoorah, the late actor has one more trick up his sleeve: an amnesiac performer in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. Sadly, the movie doesn't serve as an adequate send-off for the beloved man. Read FilmJabber's full The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus movie review. |
| Peter Jackson's latest film The Lovely Bones was supposed to be a heavy awards contender. Its release date set for early December, the movie was supposed to make a lot of money and garner several nominations throughout the holidays. And then a few lukewarm reviews appeared, followed by a couple of bad ones. Paramount panicked and pushed its wide release back a month, destroying much of its marketing buzz along the way. Did it deserve such treatment? No, as The Lovely Bones is pretty good. However, it still fails to live up to expectations. Read FilmJabber's full The Lovely Bones movie review. |
| America loves a comeback story, and sadly a lot of Americans love country music, which means the drama Crazy Heart should be an easy sell for audiences this January. A film by and large flying under the radar this awards season, Crazy Heart stars Jeff Bridges as a down-and-out alcoholic musician who discovers a second chance with his career and his life. The movie is good, but it's Bridges' performance that takes it to the next level. Read FilmJabber's full Crazy Heart movie review. |
| Each year, there are documentaries of all kinds: funny, emotionally personal, political, anti-business, environmental and more. The few that really hit home, however, are the ones that reveal massive tragedies few in the United States know about. Crude is one of those documentaries. Read FilmJabber's full Crude movie review. |
| The New Year begins with the fad that defined 2009 - vampires - as Daybreakers bites its way into theaters. The good news is that unlike Twilight: New Moon, Daybreakers features a clever concept and real, not-so-sparkly vampires; the bad news is that it's a poorly executed, hammy mess. Read FilmJabber's full Daybreakers movie review. |
| Few first-time directors come out of the gate with all guns firing, but Tom Ford appears to have done so with A Single Man, a superbly acted, emotionally intriguing and visually stimulating drama that is one of the year's best. Read FilmJabber's full A Single Man movie review. |
| From Scott Sanders comes Black Dynamite, a satirical take on 1970's blaxploitation films. With the look, feel and style of such films, Black Dynamite is a true homage to the genre, though whether you can sit through the whole thing is another matter. Read FilmJabber's full Black Dynamite movie review. |
| In Lars von Trier's most mainstream movie to date - which still isn't very mainstream at all - Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg star in what is easily the most twisted movie of 2009, Antichrist. Though its intent still eludes me, Antichrist is also one of the most captivating and visually engaging movies of the year.
Read FilmJabber's full Antichrist movie review. |
| In The Blind Side, Sandra Bullock pulls off her second box office feat of the year and writer/director John Lee Hancock exceeds expectations with one of the most satisfying drama-comedies of the year. The movie, about the story of NFL football player Michael Oher, is one the entire family can enjoy, even if none are fans of the sport.
Read FilmJabber's full The Blind Side movie review. |
| Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin star in It's Complicated, the latest comedy from the director of Something's Gotta Give and What Women Want. The movie - about a divorced couple who start having an affair with each other - has the concept and gimmick to be a huge hit, but unfortunately the best parts are shown in the previews. Read FilmJabber's full It's Complicated movie review. |
| Though Moulin Rouge showed that musicals could be cool again, it was Rob Marshall's 2002 Oscar winner Chicago that proved they could be critical and financial successes, too. In other words, Marshall is largely responsible for the wave of hit musicals that have hit been released over the last decade, and he's back with another star-studded adaptation with Nine. Read FilmJabber's full Nine movie review. |
| A contender for Best Picture this year is An Education, a smartly written, well-acted coming-of-age drama about an intelligent teenage girl who, while attempting to get into Oxford, falls in love with an older, more rebellious man who encourages her to question much of her beliefs. Unfortunately, the movie's lackluster ending keeps it from greatness. Read FilmJabber's full An Education movie review. |
| Guy Ritchie looks for the first breakout hit of his career with Sherlock Holmes, a funny, action-adventure take on the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle character. Having never attained mainstream appeal and after a long string of box office failures, Ritchie was a huge gamble for Warner Brothers to take - but the risk paid off. Sherlock Holmes is an entertaining, fast-paced action-adventure that is a must-see this holiday season. Read FilmJabber's full Sherlock Holmes movie review. |
| After five long years, Walt Disney returns to the traditional animation techniques that powered their classics for decades with The Princess and the Frog, a beautiful, entertaining and rich tale that will appeal to audiences young and old. Read FilmJabber's full The Princess and the Frog movie review. |
