Yearly Archives: 2014

Captain America: The Winter Soldier review

For once, the marketing language about "the studio that brought you" is actually appropriate. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo Written by Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, based on comics by Ed Brubaker, Joe Simon, and Jack Kirby Been really looking forward to this, the ninth superhero movie in Marvel's current world-dominating series—one Hulk, three…Read More

CTV Morning Live, April 4, 2014

I am… THE GESTICULATOR! The good folks at Halifax's CTV morning show had me on again today. I chatted with the always charming Heidi Petracek about Captain America: The Winter Soldier (a full review to come soon on this site), Le Week-End (ditto), Noah and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Go here to watch the clip.Read More

Noah review

Directed by Darren Aronofsky Written by Aronofsky and Ari Handel This isn't your daddy's Biblical epic. That was my first thought as I waded into Noah, the $125 million blockbuster from the indie director of Black Swan, The Wrestler, The Fountain and Requiem for a Dream. For awhile Aronofsky was attached to The Wolverine—imagine what that…Read More

The Grand Budapest Hotel review

Directed by Wes Anderson, Written by Anderson and Hugh Guinness, inspired by the writing of Stefan Zweig A new Wes Anderson film is always an event. The Texas-born filmmaker may be too precious for some, but show me one of his peers with such a distinctive, irrepressible visual and thematic style, a sweet-sad combination of nostalgia…Read More

Divergent review

Directed by Neil Burger Written by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor, from the novel by Veronica Roth It's been a while since I've had such aggressively ambivalent feelings about a movie. While I felt the premise and many of the plot details were ridiculous and poorly thought-out, I really enjoyed the feature's execution: The direction,…Read More

Veronica Mars review

Directed by Rob Thomas Written by Thomas and Dianne Ruggiero By the will of Veronica Mars fans—"Marshmallows"—everywhere, we have a Veronica Mars movie. I love that crowdsourcing turned a low-rated but cult-beloved TV series that couldn't stumble past three seasons into a full-fledged feature film. Well, let me tell you with not a little bit…Read More

300: Rise of an Empire review

Directed by Noam Murro Written by Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad, adapting the Frank Miller graphic novel Xerxes To prepare for the sequel to Snyder's 2006 hit movie about the 300 Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae, I went back and watched the original 300 one more time. My feelings about it were deeply ambivalent,…Read More

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu) review

Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki If this is to be Miyazaki's final film with Studio Ghibli—which, despite many false retirements, he says it will be—a romantic, historical drama about an engineer is an unorthodox subject matter to go out on. That said, it still has plenty of the fantastic and surreal whimsy he's become…Read More