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…

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…

Ice Cube, Kevin Hart do more than Ride Along in 2

Ice Cube and Kevin Hart bring out the best in each other, for sure this time. And that makes Ride Along 2 better than its predecessor, which was a pretty good buddy movie in the first place. We find Hart’s Ben Barber and Cube’s James Peyton a week away from officially becoming brothers-in-law in this…

My worst movies of 2015, from 10 to 1

Hold your nose! At least when you get to the bottom of my list of my 10 worst films of the 52 first-run films I saw in the theater during 2015, one each week for my Monday online reviews. That’s where the real stinkers reside. I must admit, a couple that you’ll see a paragraph…

My top movies of 2015, from 10 to 1

When we flipped our calendars to 2016 and I made my way to a darkened theater, it marked my fourth year of once a week letting the wwwdot world know what I think of a first-run movie. Somebody’s got to do it. And every year I compile my Top 10 lists of bests and worsts.…

As Sisters, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler pass the big screen test

Anybody who’s ventured into the theater to see Sisters likely carries with them a torch for the TV work of stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler from their days on late night comedy mothership Saturday Night Live. At least a glance around the crowded smallish-theater for a New Year’s Day matinée at the Regal Cinemas’…