‘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…

MJ dances, Paul Walker drives and Elmore Leonard delivers plot

First-class entertainment these days indeed goes on past the graveyard. And so I weave the images of Michael Jackson’s hologram dancing, Elmore Leonard’s novel scripting and Paul Walker’s canned footage being added upon in this week’s installment of my movie news interpretations for my Syracuse New Times blog. If you’d like to read my post…

What the future holds for Batman and Emma Stone

Gotcha with that headline? Maybe lady Emma will cross superhero lines now that her Spider-Man liaison (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” yet and don’t want to break down in tears right here and now) ended so swiftly and cruelly with death this spring. That’s not in movie news this week,…

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…

Bernie may live in Richard’s garage

Wait until you hear who the Bernie and Jack are that I’m talking about in the headline. Combing the web for odd and/or interesting news about movieland for the weekly Thursday edition of my Syracuse New Times blog, I discovered on cinemablend.com that famous film-maker Richard Linklater went to court to vouch for convicted murderer…

Here’s to another 500

Big wheels keep on turnin’, Proud Markie keeps on churnin’ … Rollin’ on the WordPress. I received the Big Blue 500 this morning. My story about Syracuse veteran guitarist Mark Doyle got me to that nice, round number. Not bad for a writer who pushed the button for his first markbialczak.com piece — “Yeah, I’ve…