Why did I hate the 4th Transformers? Let’s start with …

As I walked to my seat in the Destiny USA Syracuse theater for the “Transformers: Age of Extinction” Friday matinee, I noticed a whole lot of parents with young kids sitting on both sides of them. I couldn’t help but keep noticing as I settled in for the four, five, six, seven trailers. The little…

I miss James Gandolfini, ‘Enough Said’

The characters played by James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus sure did look happy and comfortable together after those uncomfortable first date moments in “Enough Said.” I wanted to see the romantic comedy when it came around a year ago, but it opened against something more pressing, and in the one-a-week film blogger world that I’m…

’22 Jump Street’ lets Jonah, Channing be silly still

I pretty much got what I expected from “22 Jump Street.” Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are undercover cup buddies who get sent to college to unravel the circumstances behind a drug-related death. In a funny, silly, just-above-dumb, slapstick-ish way. It’s summer, everywhere except for on the calendar, and even that changes come Saturday. Anyway,…

Two young stars shine brightly, and love conquers cancer

The first time I saw Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort together, they were playing a futuristic and quite different brother and sister in “Divergent.” OK was my reaction. About them individually. Collectively. The movie. Saturday I saw the two young actors star as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters in “The Fault in Our Stars.”…

‘El Jefe’ feeds the soul of father, son, audience in ‘Chef’

There is no such thing as dabbling in social media. Or fatherhood. Or running the menu of an L.A. restaurant. So learns Carl Casper, the very hard way, in the movie “Chef.” It’s a total creation from Jon Favreau, producer, director, writer, star, and it’s quite fabulous, a little movie that’s hugely satisfying. When you…

Sandler and Barrymore let us know all is well

Adam Sandler can play a goofball, all right, 10 times over. I mean, I still laugh when I see him rolling around on the ground fighting Bob Barker in “Happy Gilmore.” Sometimes, though, for my fellow Brooklyn native and I, it’s a swing and a miss. I need only go back to last summer’s “Grown…

These ‘Neighbors’ didn’t have to get this nasty

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Zac Efron’s frat boy character is goofing on Seth Rogen’s married guy character even though think-I’m-still-cool clueless man doesn’t really realize it as he gulps down mushrooms and compares favorite movie Batman leads. There’s a likable cross-generational chemistry going on pretty quick. But then things in this budding relationship go…