I work with journalists in a journalism school; I’m privileged to know many journalists. So, I certainly followed with fear and then sadness the story that unfolded over January and February of 2002 about the kidnapping and eventual murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.

Stardust is a charming and fresh movie. It is a fantasic fairy tale for people of all ages, and even though it is a good family film, it is really more of an adult fairy tale. Watching this film was a really good two hours spent. Films are about being drawn into the fantasy world and this film did that so successfully. You can’t wait to see what is going to happen next and you become completely in...[Read More]

"King of Kong" is the story of Steve Weibe, a man who seeks to scale the ranks of the competitive video gaming world by earning the top score in Donkey Kong. Why, you ask? Because of the perfect storm of calamity in his life that caused him to wash ashore of the small and fiercely competitive island of the pentultimate video game nerds. This movie is a perfect glimpse into the cutthroat, tragicall...[Read More]

A misunderstood film. That's what you can say about Blade Runner. Now why do I say this? First and foremost, when the movie was released people assumed that it was an action film. Considering that Ford was just coming off of the Star Wars success and that he was already popular through Indiana Jones he had been pinned as some involved in a bit of action, not drama. So when movie goers went to see ...[Read More]

Come on, you know you’ve been wanting to see Mega Man and Mother Brain together in the same production.  Well, now you can, in the senseless-yet-one-of-a-kind Captain N and the New Super Mario World.  In case you didn’t fit the demographic back in the early nineties when these shows first aired on television, they were once quite a hot topic amongst elementary- and middle-schoolers across the nati...[Read More]

With Mr. Woodcock, New Line Home Entertainment tries to combine the slapstick comedy and ironic portrayal of macho-sports mentality seen in DodgeBall with the sadistically menacing and traumatic main character of Bad Santa. In order to realize this goal, Billy Bob Thornton was appropriately cast to play essentially the same cold, fear-inspiring adult male figure that he played in Bad Santa, only h...[Read More]

It is revealed in one of the special features that it was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who approached Disney with hopes of making an inspirational family sports film in the tradition of such Disney films as The Rookie or Miracle. The result of his efforts was The GamePlan.

Family Guy is an odd creature. After being cancelled by FOX, the show gained a level of cult popularity through syndication and DVD sales, which prompted FOX to revive the series. Since then, the series’ popularity has soared. And, apparently, as the series proliferated, the number of allusions to Star Wars also proliferated, which, in turn, prompted the Family Guy legal team to suggest that the w...[Read More]

I avoided seeing Becoming Jane when it was in theatrical release, and I regret that decision now. I’m a big Jane Austen fan (she’s the Jane in question), and I thought this was an overly fictionalized treatment of part of her life. After watching this film and doing a little checking, I know now that there’s a fair amount of fact underlying this story, and it’s taught me things about Jane I didn’t...[Read More]

I can’t decide how I feel about this twist on a classic genre piece, and I think that’s a good thing, as it seems like one of the film’s goals is to leave viewers frustratingly conflicted. Unfortunately, I don’t feel I can hash through my inner conflicts regarding the movie without revealing too much of the story. However, The Brave One is a well-developed and thought-provoking movie, and, despite...[Read More]

There are a few somewhat unsettling trends that were reaffirmed by viewing Gone Baby Gone:

For a more family-oriented perspective of Disney’s Underdog, you might find Nathan Stevens’ review of the Blu-ray edition more useful, and a bit more complimentary. This review, however, you will find to be rarely complimentary, so I will at least try to keep my criticisms to a minimum.