Did I mention that they had me from Aloha?
Aloha unwinds during Christmas time in Hawaii. Sun, lots of it, with blue water and pristine sand. Interesting myths from the islands mysterious past play out among the mountains and lush forest....
View ArticleIt’s OK when Pixar plays head games, Inside Out proves
Please do go with your kids to see Inside Out. I spent the pre-lunch hours of my Father’s Day delightfully with my daughter Elisabeth taking in the stark emotions of Joy and Sadness and the many shades...
View ArticleMinions makes me chuckle, but the yellow pills can’t get inside my head
The three little yellow dudes have a good sense of humor and all that, but I can’t say I’m in love with their sense of timing. Minions drew a decent crowd for the Saturday matinee in the Regal Cinemas...
View ArticleIn Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck, heart beats out rowdy
Amy Schumer’s comic mind surely worked overtime to come up with Trainwreck. The rising star wrote the script, as you probably know unless you’re living in one of the few places where they haven’t...
View ArticleNo Vacation from the National Lampoon-style humor
If you lived through the 1980s, you know it. If you sat through the 2000s, you know it. That wink-wink through lasviousness and lewdness paired with physical awkwardnes that made the National Lampoon’s...
View ArticleGrowing into a groove with Meryl Streep’s Ricki and the Flash
Meryl Streep and Rick Springfield are on stage in a bar, characters by the name of Ricki and Greg in band named the Flash, covering the song American Girl by Tom Petty. She sounds pretty cool. He...
View ArticleIf you need to see the street side, Straight Outta Compton hits hard
Back in the ’80s, when their rhymes and beats of great passion started rolling in from the west coast, I must admit the true grit of rap from N.W.A. greatly went in my ears more like a news story than...
View ArticleAmerican Ultra finally allows the haze to clear
At the start of American Ultra, a beat-up and bloody dude by the name of Mike is asked how he got to such a state by an authoritative figure. Wanting to be supportive, he starts to answer. Instead we...
View ArticleIn No Escape, a family man faces the worst
If you’re thinking about traveling to Asia, don’t see No Escape. If you’re about to take your family to a different country, don’t see No Escape. If you’ve just taken a new job and are about to...
View ArticleA Walk in the Woods doesn’t much rile Redford
At the start of A Walk in the Woods, travel writer Bill Bryson is being interviewed on a Boston morning TV show. The host is a silly man, sure, over-the-top in his pomposity and self-importance, but he...
View ArticleNext time a stranger offers to pay for that coffee …
Oh, her life looks so good. Big house on a beautiful street, with a slightly nosy neighbor who’s really just looking out for her. Great job, a decision-maker and rising star in a major lobbyist firm....
View ArticleIn Black Mass, Johnny Depp has evil down cold
Quite the block in South Boston that was that gave the world the Bulger brothers and John Connolly. Black Mass tells the tale with a deep and horrible chill. Directed by Scott Cooper by a script from...
View ArticleWho wouldn’t want to learn from a gentle DeNiro?
Ben Whittaker has done the travel thing, the exercise thing and the grandpa thing in his retirement world, and none of it is exactly making the 70-year-old widow from Brooklyn happy. Oh, he’s not...
View ArticleThe Martian takes Matt Damon to lofty places
Left behind on Mars as dead, astronaut Mark Watney isn’t. And so, faced with scant food rations, among his many woes, the American astronaut goes botanist bonzai, using his wits and intelligence to...
View ArticleYou can’t help but get pumped when he’s up on the wire for The Walk
When Philippe Petit is up there on his wire, I couldn’t help but love The Walk cowriter and director Robert Zemeckis made sure of that. The master of cool special effects made the most of the true tale...
View ArticleBill Murray finds himself taking a shot in Rock the Kasbah
There’s no doubt that agent Richie Lanz is playing among the lesser lights in the biz no matter how much he boasts about his connections and his past. He may have discovered Madonna at a hamburger...
View ArticleSandra Bullock doesn’t give a damn until she creates a Crisis
When Jane Bodine answers the door to the political operatives who want to win her sly services at the start of Our Brand Is Crisis, the campaign specialist is checked out, home alone “between two...
View ArticleThe Peanuts gang happily circles around Charlie Brown
The kids, a whole bunch of them piled into a Saturday afternoon matinée in the biggest and plushest of Regal Cinemas’ Syracuse theaters in Syracuse mall Shoppingtown, admired The Peanuts Movie enough...
View ArticleThe 33 allows you to root for the winner you know
If you had your ears open in 2010, you likely heard the tale of the miners stuck deep down in belly of that Chilean mine. It was the kind of event that moves the world’s talkers to tell all. The horror...
View ArticleIt’s over for The Hunger Games, and it’s epic
Talk about war and peace. Katniss Everdeen rests. The fourth and likely finale in the Hunger Games franchise that started with the girl who fired an arrow into the hearts of so many in 2012 landed in...
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