Entertainment Maven

Men In Black 3 (2012) Starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jemaine Clement, Alice Eve and Emma Thompson. Written by Etan Cohen Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld Will Smith returns after a decade to the role that cemented him as a mega-star, that of Agent J in Men In Black. Having come out a [...]

Chernobyl Diaries (2012) Staring Devin Kelley, Jonathan Sadowski, Jesse McCartney, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Dimitri Diatchenko, Nathan Phillips and Ingrid Bloso Berdal. Written by Oren Peli, Shane Van Dyke and Carey Van Dyke Directed by Bradley Parker Back in 2007 writer/director/producer Oren Peli scared up massive box office returns and multiple sequels with his creepy little [...]

Hysteria (2011) Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy and Jonathan Pryce Directed by Tanya Wexler Until the late nineteenth century hysteria was a medical catch-all for ailments particular to women and thought to be caused by disturbances of the uterus. Indeed, hysteria is “a plague of our times”, insists Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) upon learning [...]

INSIDE OUT 2012 (Toronto) Bullhead (2011) Directed by Michaël R. Roskam Out of all the movies that were nominees or contenders from last year’s Best Foreign Picture Oscars, Michael R. Roskam’s Bullhead is my ‘holdout’. I use that word because there have been waves of those movies being released starting with TIFF and after that, [...]

Fright Nights at the Projection Booth Viscera Short Film Festival, May 15th 2012 For Kelly Stewart’s May presentation of Fright Nights at the Projection Booth in Toronto he decided to do something different. Hooking up with Curio Media and Director/Producer Karen Lam, Kelly was able to bring the Viscera Film Festival to Canada for the [...]

Marley (2012) Starring Bob Marley, Ziggy Marley and Jimmy Cliff Directed by Kevin Macdonald For many of the younger generations with the advent of the internet and the iPhone/iPod that are permanently installed in everyone’s ears, music has become a bit of a shapeless and valueless commodity.  Despite the disposability of a lot of today’s [...]

Three months in France and 10 days in Italy; I can’t even remember the last time I had an opportunity to see a new release in a movie theatre that wasn’t the victim of a coldly indifferent dub job. Luckily, Rome seems to be a little more conscious of preserving film experience, and this past [...]

Dark Shadows (2012) Starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earl Haley, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Christopher Lee Directed by Tim Burton MINOR SPOILERS Tim Burton, the great visionary behind Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, and many other films is at the helm of an adaptation of one of [...]

Battleship (2012) Starring Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgård, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Tadanobu Asano and Liam Neeson Written by Erich and Jon Hoeber Directed by Peter Berg After a brief hiatus I have returned with a review that has had my head spinning. How do I talk about Battleship? Quite possibly the loudest and most annoyingly inconsequential [...]