I ‘present’ my top 10 films list for 2014

As you savor the mood of a post-holiday Friday, I offer you this gift. Over on the Syracuse New Times site is my Top 10 list of my favorite films from 2014. OK, I’ll give you No. 10. That would be “The 100-Foot Journey,” the pretty delightful Disney offering featuring Helen Mirren as the French…

When have you had enough in a movie series?

At the end of “Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb,” Ben Stiller’s character Larry looks out of the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan wistfully and thinks … And we think … To read my review of this third installment in this comedy franchise for my weekly Monday film blog review on the…

Now you won’t see ‘The Interview’ at a theater near you

The power play between the hackers and SONY Pictures went too far. The terrorists — and that’s what they made themselves — earlier this week said if the movie “The Interview” were screened today in New York City, bad deeds of 9/11 proportions would result. And then SONY Pictures had to pull the movie from…

A new meaning for the word Headquarters

Pixar will have a movie coming out next year. Now that I know about “Inside Out,” you bet I missed this company’s animation. In today’s edition of my weekly Film News blog for the Syracuse New Times site, I talk about the Cinema Blend story that reveals much about that movie. An important term is…

Do you 2 have a tale about Horrible Bosses?

As I regrouped after watching the comedy “Horrible Bosses 2” for my film blog review for the Syracuse New Times site this morning, I thought again about the bosses of my lifetime. I didn’t have to go past my first job, junior year of high school on Long Island. My friend Jim had talked his…

What do Will Ferrell, William Shakespeare, ‘Star Wars’ and Maine have in common?

I write about them all in my weekly Film News blog for the Syracuse New Times today, that’s what. And you can read all about it by clicking the link below. http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/will-ferrell-will-get-to-work-with-will-shakespeare/ What, you want a little nibble more? OK. Ferrell is said to star in a movie about Willie. There’s news about ANOTHER Star…

My animation weekend brings ‘Lego’ on HBO, ‘Penguins’ at the theater

I experienced some animation domination this past weekend. I caught “The Lego Movie” on HBO, and went to the theater to see “The Penguins of Madagascar” for my weekly Monday new movie blog review for the Syracuse New Times. One of them I liked a lot. One of them I liked a little. I did…

After watching ‘Selma,’ reviewer hears about Ferguson verdict

There are a lot of folks in Ferguson, Mo., who aren’t likely having a quiet and peaceful Thanksgiving today. The city outside of St. Louis has been in turmoil since Monday night, as the world knows, since it was announced that a grand jury did not charge the policeman who killed teenager Michael Brown. Protesters…

You can sit it in halfway hungry and fill up

I saw the first part of “The Hunger Games” series a year after the fact, on NetFlix. Not on my iPad or phone, thankfully. I watched the blockbuster hit on my living room flat screen. Still, the dystopian story didn’t really win my over. I didn’t gush, and I didn’t rush out to see part…

A story about the passing of longtime film critic gets me thinking about the art

Charles Champlin was a couple of letters, a few decades and the opposite side of the camera away from a film legend. Nevertheless, the man who shared an industry and initials with Charlie Chaplin earned major stories in the Hollywood Reporter and Los Angeles Times upon his passing at the age of 88 this week.…