Tag Archives: Jennifer Lawrence

X-Men: Days Of Future Past review

Directed by Bryan Singer, written by Simon Kinburg from a story by Kinburg, Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn I never really understood why 20th Century Fox chose to prematurely conclude the X-Men franchise.  Fox officially called it quits as a trilogy, with Brent Ratner's limp X-Men: The Last Stand back in 2006. Yes, Singer's beneath-the-skin understanding… Read More

American Hustle review

Directed by David O. Russell, written by Russell and Eric Singer Russell likes to tell his stories on an edge. That's what I like about him and his movies. It feels like his tales could fly apart at any minute, become total, unwatchable messes, but he always manages to keep it together just this side… Read More

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire review

Directed by Francis LawrenceWritten by Simon Beaufoy and Michael Ardnt, from the novel by Suzanne CollinsOne of those rare sequels that genuinely extends the territory claimed in the original, Catching Fire has just a touch of The Empire Strikes Back about it, which is a compliment in almost every way but one: as the middle… Read More

The Oscars 2013 postmortem

Question One: Why do the Golden Globes work while the Academy Awards so frequently don't?I really enjoyed the Golden Globes this year. You know why? Because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association really knows how to do it. They don't try and reinvent the wheel. They put on a party where celebrities drink and eat and… Read More

Silver Linings Playbook review

Written and directed by David O RussellSelfishly, I think it's great to see talented writer/director Russell pick up his pace. The first movie of his I saw was the brilliant, anxious comedy Flirting With Disaster (his earlier, first feature film, Spanking the Monkey, remains unseen by me). FWD was in 1996. In '99 came Three… Read More

The Hunger Games review

Directed by Gary Ross Written by Ross, Billy Ray and Suzanne Collins, from Collins' novel Do I need to explain the plot of this movie? As I write I'm seeing the box office totals come in, and it's larger than even the generous predictions made three days ago: $155 million is a lot of samolians.… Read More

X-Men: First Class review

Directed by Matthew VaughnWritten by Ashley Miller, Zach Stentz, Jane Goldman and VaughnX-Men: First Class is a bit of a surprise. At this point in the X-Men franchise, we'd been put through the Brett Ratner third movie, X-Men: The Last Stand and the X-Men Origins: Wolverine spin-off, neither of which lived up to the promise… Read More