All we need is more rockers like Tom Petty runnin’ down their dreams

Every time I hear somebody utter the hated phrase Rock is dead, I shake my head, sometimes my fist, and say, sometimes to myself and sometimes out loud, Not in my house. Not in my heart. So when my music-loving sis Sandra Bialdez from the forever-adored West Coast blog Square One Notes (not her real…

New version of Tarzan doesn’t want to swing through his Legend

In this version of Tarzan, we meet the man of the jungle as an aristocrat in jolly old England, happily married to Jane under the given name of the parents from which he was orphaned before those sympathetic apes raised him. And when a U.S. politico played by Samuel L. Jackson comes with the proposal…

I don’t care as much about the big, bad space ship testing our Independence Day again

The powers-that-be waited 20 years to take another swing at the big spaceship and battle to save our planet that was super-hit Independence Day. Hey, in two decades, movie technology has come so far. Director Roland Emmerich had four others take part in shaping his script, Dean Devlin, Nicolas Wright, James Vanderbilt and James A.…

The Rock shows Hart and smarts in Central Intelligence

The main guys in Central Intelligence sure were different 20 years ago, we see in the flashback that sets up the action comedy starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. The Rock as Robbie Weirdicht was the picked-upon high school doughboy dancing in the locker room shower until the Mean Boys pulled him out and slid…

Couple-up or it’s a mighty curious or-else in the wonderful The Lobster

Remember all that talk about your spirit animal a bit back? Well, Yorgos Lanthimos beats that animal kingdom by then-some in The Lobster, the writer and director’s first English-speaking film of his Film-Fest darling career. It’s a thoughtful satire on our society’s rush to pick somebody — anybody, really — to declare as The One.…

Me Before You Carries Much More than Romance to the Table

Love stories should come in all shapes and sizes. I’m glad when we get one that dares to stray from the oh-so-popular, inspired-by Nicholas Sparks and The Notebook formula, trickling down for 20 years now. Me Before You brings its share of stereotypes, yes. Scripted by Jojo Moyes from her own novel of the same name…

Taking a holiday from the movies

I took the three-day Memorial Day Weekend with my dear wife Karen seriously. I didn’t go to any of the Regal Cinemas around Syracuse to write our regular Monday movie review. Not Destiny USA. Not Shoppingtown. Not Great Northern. Not even the artsy Manlius Cinema. True confession: I didn’t feel like a movie by myself…

The Nice Guys are and they aren’t, but they’re always interesting

It’s 1977 in Los Angeles, and folks are having a fine time dancing their way through the smog, sort of, until a car carrying porno star Misty Mountains crashes down from the hills through the living room of a wide-eyed but somehow still respectful young teen. Thus start the mysteries of The Nice Guys, a…

With George Clooney, Julia Roberts hitting Jodie Foster’s marks, it’s easy to believe Money Monster

In true life on a slow day, one might hover over a cable network show such as Money Monster for a couple of minutes for sheer shock value. In the movie by that name, producer Patty Fenn seems fully aware of this notion. So the veteran show-maker allows host Lee Gates to ham it up…

Captain America: Civil War takes them from Avenging friends to astonishing rivals to probing film

Life’s tough when you’re an Avenger. The latest in the line of blockbusters from the Marvel Universe starts with more terrible turmoil for the gang of heroes who collect to save the world from bad stuff concocted by badder people. Then it gets worse. Yes, Scarlet Witch’s last-second mind-wave saves Captain America’s bacon. But it…