movie buzz

It’s enough to ruin your whole day. You’re zipping through the afternoon perfectly ignorant of the depths of depravity to which humanity can descend, and then it lands in your email inbox: a press release, though it’s more like a grenade. The deal? The Weinstein brothers are continuing their rampage through cinema with a new … more…

I’m having the worst luck with movies lately. I missed the screening of American Gangster that I was supposed to attend last week — damn MTA conspired via nonexistent buses and sloooooow subway trains to make me late for the screening, and I absolutely refuse to go into a movie after it has already started. … more…

Resident Evil: Extinction Zombies want to eat your brain. Or something. And Milla Jovovich will kill them for you. But they don’t stay dead: they keep coming back in endless sequels. Someone kill me, please. (Not screened for critics, but I’m seeing this on Friday afternoon; if you don’t hear from me, call out the … more…

If we’ve just wrapped up the summer season of dumb movies, it must be time to start talking about the next one. And sure enough, the spies at Ain’t It Cool News have been sneaking into test screenings of next spring’s bit of nonsense from Roland Emmerich, 10,000 B.C., scheduled to open in March. And … more…

I initially misread the poster for Michael Clayton [opens limited October 5; expands wide October 12] — I thought it said “The truth can’t be trusted.” Which could be a tagline for a fascinating movie, too. I don’t know much about the flick except that it’s George Clooney playing a corporate lawyer, a “fixer,” who … more…

The Brave One Jodie’s got a gun. Jodie’s got a gun. What did New York City do? What did it put her through? It jacked the little bitty baby, the place has got to be insane. But now that Jodie’s got a gun, it ain’t never gonna be the same. (my review is here) Dragon … more…

I started off pissed, and now I’m scared. Seriously. Look: I’ve been kinda psyched for the upcoming Beowulf, opening November 16, because it’s cowritten by geek god Neil Gaiman and directed by Robert “Back to the Future” Zemeckis and because, well, it’s Beowulf, one of the greatest stories ever told and one of the wellsprings … more…

There are so many movies opening this autumn, it exhausts me just thinking about it. Thirteen movies open this weekend, eight on each of the following weekends. Thirty-nine movies are opening in October. This is insane. It’s almost as if the studios are setting up at least some of these movies to fail. And it … more…

3:10 to Yuma Christian Bale and Russell Crowe saddle up in the Old West. Ironic, ain’t it, that we’re reduced to importing all-American Marlboro Men from Wales and New Zealand? All overseas outsouring should be this rugged and manly. (my review is here) Shoot ’Em Up They’re not kidding with that title. Seriously: cartoonish gunplay … more…

I loved Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction book Into the Wild, about a privileged young American man who was precisely the wrong combination of book-smart and real-world-naive who pulled a Thoreau and withdrew from the modern world in remote mountain Alaska. Now, Sean Penn has made Into the Wild, the movie [opens wide September 21], starring the … more…