Stan Lee was active right til the end. In the clip above, he’s the subject of a 2015 Larry King interview where he talks about his career, how he got into comics and what he got out of his 20 movie cameos. What an unbeatable charisma, complete with that wonderful New York accent. Two days … Continue reading Stan Lee: A Marvel to Behold
WHERE WILL YOU BE, WHEN IT ALL ENDS? Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) crash-lands on Earth in time to let the other Avengers know that he and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) have just faced the formidable villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) and that he’s coming to find the rest of the all-powerful Infinity Stones. The third movie in the … Continue reading Avengers: Infinity War
NO HAMMER. NO PROBLEM. After being imprisoned by a fire demon, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) learns that Asgard is about to be destroyed and the one responsible will be his sister, Odin’s firstborn, Hela (Cate Blanchett). The third film in the franchise has Thor and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) colliding on a faraway planet and then teaming … Continue reading Thor: Ragnarok
REAPPEARING JUNE 10. The members of the Horsemen are still in hiding, but when they’re assigned a new case by the secret society of magicians that they’re now part of, everything changes. I have no idea why anyone would ask for a sequel to a rather anonymous heist thriller in the first place, but here … Continue reading Now You See Me 2
BREAK THE STORY. BREAK THE SILENCE. There’s a scene near the end of the film that will get the adrenaline pumping in any journalist. That’s when the Boston Globe printing presses start rolling and the scoop everybody’s been working on is finally published. The film takes place in 2001-2002, before the Internet started killing printed … Continue reading Spotlight: Breaking a Catholic Curse
A NEW AGE BEGINS. When a program devised by Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) called Ultron becomes unexpectedly sentient and immediately targets The Avengers as a threat that needs to be extinct, our superheroes are in for a huge challenge. The sequel to The Avengers (2012) is so firmly entrenched in the Marvel universe and … Continue reading Avengers: Age of Ultron
BASED ON THE SHOCKING TRUE STORY. “I think all comedians are dark”, said director Bennett Miller during a press conference at this year’s Cannes film festival, where his film Foxcatcher was screened. This is no surprise. After all, it’s only been a few months since Robin Williams committed suicide. Even those, perhaps especially those, … Continue reading Foxcatcher: Murderous Millionaire
TO WIN A WAR YOU HAVE TO START ONE. In 1981, New York City writer Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) talks to a physician (Julia Roberts) who’s doing research on what is then known as “gay cancer”; he also tries to get a gay New York Times reporter (Matt Bomer) to write about it. After turning … Continue reading The Normal Heart
4 AMAZING MAGICIANS. 3 IMPOSSIBLE HEISTS. 1 BILLION DOLLARS. THIS IS NO ILLUSION. Four brilliant magicians seemingly rob a bank in Paris during one of their Las Vegas shows and showers the audience with money from the vault; FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is assigned the case. Another heist movie with lots of tricks … Continue reading Now You See Me
NIC AND JULES HAD THE PERFECT FAMILY, UNTIL THEY MET THE MAN WHO MADE IT ALL POSSIBLE. It took forever, but then it all seemed to change in a few months. Suddenly, Americans adopted a more positive attitude toward the idea of rainbow families. President Barack Obama coming out in favor of gay marriage in … Continue reading Kids Are All Right: Moms, Meet Dad
UNLEASH THE POWER BEHIND THE ARMOR. Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has started to suffer from panic attacks at a time when the world is threatened by an international terrorist organization headed by the mysterious Mandarin (Ben Kingsley). The man who once wrote Lethal Weapon (1987) stepped into the directing chair for this one and … Continue reading Iron Man 3
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. Sometimes it is true that good things happen to good people. Joss Whedon may have had a few misses behind him, but Hollywood knows deep inside that this is the guy who made Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dollhouse work so well. He’s also a huge fan of “The Avengers” as a … Continue reading Avengers: The Smashing Six
SPEAK YOUR PEACE. This is undeniably an original way to tell the story of the Chicago Eight and their lawyers. Director Brett Morgen’s partially animated documentary portrays the chaos surrounding the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago where police and protesters clashed violently in Grant Park, but it also dramatizes the subsequent trial against some … Continue reading Chicago 10
