They’re still a big, overwhelming family and Greek to the core

It took Nia Vardalos 14 years to get brave enough to follow up on her sleeper hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding. No wonder. The sneaky big popularity and box office success of that one lifted the novice screenwriter and actress into a major spotlight, including an Oscar nomination for her script and a Screen…

Woodley works hard to keep allegiance to Divergent franchise

Even the followers of the novels of Veronica Roth had to be wondering what Tris Prior and her band of never-very-merry followers would find on the other side of that wall around Chicago in the latest installment of this dramatic action franchise. And those who come to this third part unread of her YA work,…

Sacha Baron Cohen lands extreme gross out with Brothers Grimsby

Here’s a list of the obviously warm and fuzzy elements in The Brothers Grimsby, in order of significance: Love of family. Devotion to friends. Conviction to beliefs. Connection to community. Here’s a list of the potentially offensive segments of the latest installment in the career of Sacha Baron Cohen: Gratuitous sex. Forced sex act with…

Tina Fey’s serious side wins the battle in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Kim Baker sits in a news meeting cracking wise when her producer asks the single and childless around him who volunteers to be shipped for war coverage duty in Kabul. Better than breaking into tears like one of her peers, you can see in the eyes of Tina Fey as she sets the scene for…

Eddie the Eagle won’t win history medals, but nails the landing anyway

By all accounts, writers Sean Macauley and Simon Kelton took a lot of liberties while crafting the story that director Dexter Fletcher brings to the screen in Eddie the Eagle. And they had a lot to work with to begin with, the way plucky but cash-poor Brit non-athlete Michael “Eddie” Edwards absolutely refused to give…

Sharing the layers to Jesse Owens’ Race to Gold

The legend of Jesse Owens has long and sadly been relegated to history text books, grandfathers’ knees and the occasional sports talk show. At best. And so it was with great pleasure that this former sports editor saw the seats full when my dear wife Karen and I walked into the biggest of the Regal…

A comedy about being single that feels right

Hollywood loves to mess with the heads of folks still playing the find-the-right-one game in life. Such as releasing the latest in a long line of romantic comedies, How to Be Single, on Valentine’s Day weekend. And they dig playing on the shoved-in-the-closet bad memories in us all, too. Everybody squirmed some while swimming in…

Hail, Caesar! pictures Hollywood in its glorious past

Envision Hollywood as it was in the 1950s, with big stars in the middle of epic historical remakes, comedies and musicals all the while embroiled in dodgy personal lives sure to draw the interest of the best gossip columnists and the American public at large, all of it keeping studio officials on their toes to…

Natalie Portman puts her boot print to the Western in Jane Got a Gun

A couple of cowboys at the center and the woman they fancy. Rifles, pistols and the bullets they shoot to eliminate threats. Bad guys and good guys. The flask and its healing liquor. Dusty trails and horses to navigate them. Jane Got a Gunsurely carries the signs of the trusty western. But this long-awaited release…

It’s hard to get past De Niro’s big stink in Dirty Grandpa

This sort of sleaze-in-comedy-clothing you expect from Zac Efron, having slinked down Eeew Lane just two years ago with Neighbors. (Sorority house sequel with Seth Rogen coming soon, trailer in theaters now, beware!) But sitting through each of the sex-crazy 102 minutes of Dirty Grandpa in a pretty-packed late Friday afternoon showing in the Regal…