“Today is the day that everything changes one way or another.”

That sentiment leads escaped convict Nick (Sam Worthington) onto the ledge of the 21st floor of a New York hotel in the new thriller, “Man on a Ledge.” The former inmate is trying to prove his innocence in front of the police and a national media watching his every move. The concept sounds like “The Fugitive” on a skyscraper. but the film is so mundane and lifeless Dr. Richard Kimble himself might have asked for an autopsy.

Paul Rudd is hardly an idiot. He’s a sly combination of leading man and comic goofball, but there’s nothing Rudd can do to salvage the 2011 comedy “Our Idiot Brother.” The film surrounds Rudd with comedy heavy hitters who take turns striking out for 90-odd minutes.

“Brother,” available this week on home video, tees up a story laden with comic potential. A lovable slacker (Rudd) imposes himself on his three dysfunctional sisters, all of whom could learn to embrace life as their ne’er do well brother does.

The film doesn’t play the “Idiot” card for all its worth, nor do we get the kind of droll humor indie films so often supply. Instead, it’s a predictable yarn that all but abandons both its star and terrific supporting players.

(more…)

Not all horror films are created equal.

That’s an understatement in a genre teeming with impoverished acting, stale dialogue and atrocious direction. For every classic like ‘The Shining’ or ‘The Omen,’ there’s a dozen ‘Saw’ sequels to make horror fans want to run and hide.

AMC is currently running its second annual Fearfest programming, a horror movie marathon meant to scare us silly right through Halloween. It’s a wonderful gimmick, but you’ll need to be wary of the clunkers littering the lineup.

So, here’s a handy guide to help you make the most of this grisly movie marathon. Treats are always better than tricks this time of the year:

(more…)

For years, pundits have been trying to connect violent movies and video games with actual crimes.

The arguments typically end up more theoretical than reality based. In one famous instance, the 1994 Oliver Stone film “Natural Born Killers” supposedly inspired a young couple to kill a person and leave another paralyzed.

More recently, celebrities like Elizabeth Banks, Roger Ebert, Patton Oswalt and Michael Moore twisted the blame game for partisan reasons, using their Twitter accounts to accuse Sarah Palin of inspiring the Tucson shooter without a shred of evidence.

Now, we have a direct tie between an anti-war film and the murder of two U.S. soldiers. So … will the media cover the story? Will it change how the film industry treats the subject matter? And will Miss Banks and co. rush to Tweet their condemnation of the movie in question?”

Yes, I’m being rhetorical on all three fronts, but let’s plow on all the same.

“Redacted” by Brian de Palma (“The Untouchables,” “Scarface”) cast U.S. soldiers as racist, violent thugs. The film flopped in spectacular fashion, earning $65,388 for its entire theatrical run. Apparently, audiences weren’t too keen on seeing the men and women of the Armed Forces smeared.

But “Redacted” impacted Arid Uka, a Balkan Muslim who saw the film and went on to kill two U.S. Air Force servicemen in March. Uka told a judge this week he was inspired by “the movie’s graphic depiction of U.S. soldiers raping a girl in Iraq,” says The Daily Caller citing a BBC report.

(more…)

“Our Idiot Brother” lives down to its title. The new comedy tells the story of a dysfunctional family dealing with their pot-smoking sibling, who stumbles through life thinking everyone should be as brutally honest and carefree as he is. Paul Rudd, who was great in 2009’s “I Love You, Man,” is completely wasted in this new film that may be one of the worst of 2011.

—–

Early on in “Brother,” Ned (Rudd) is arrested for selling marijuana to a police officer. The police officer is fully-uniformed and openly asks Ned about buying the illegal drug. I’m not sure why a police officer would try to sell drugs to someone while wearing his uniform but this officer believes that Ned is stupid enough to sell him pot.

He’s right.

After being released from prison, Ned starts living with family members. His ex-girlfriend has broken up with him and stolen his dog so he has nowhere else to go. Of course, Ned is more upset about losing his dog than his girl. He eventually moves in with his mother but later moves in with each of his sisters as well, who each have their own homes. One of his sisters is a married Mom (Emily Mortimer). Another one is a lesbian (Zooey Deschanel) living with her girlfriend, and his third sister (Elizabeth Banks) is an aspiring journalist who lives with a male roommate. The sisters share little in common except for their love for their dimwitted brother. Ned eventually becomes involved in each of their personal lives causing friction in their relationships with loved ones. Ned is brutally honest and as with other movies of this type, his honesty helps create issues for the people he loves.

(more…)

Most film critics start off each year with a list of their top 10 movies for the year before, an act of timing that often masks the fact that the first week of a new year is used to dump on an unsuspecting public the absolute worst garbage produced. This year is no exception, with the godawful-looking “Season of the Witch” coming out on Friday.

And so it is that I’ve taken a look back over the more than 100 movies I’ve seen in 2010, picking my 10 personal favorites. I won’t presume to say that they’re objectively the 10 best — I would have had to see more than 250 films last year to give an honest assessment of that. And while I know “The Social Network” is great filmmaking and appears to be the unanimous favorite for this year’s Best Picture Oscar, I think it’s too easy to simply agree with the pack. So, instead, I’m offering up 10 flicks that moved me, made me laugh, or thrilled me the most. Many of them were underrated and little-seen, but they are well worth renting now.

1. “Cyrus.” This indie film came out in July and served up what appeared to be the most unusual love triangle ever: Marisa Tomei as a lonely single mother, John C. Reilly as the even lonelier guy who is saved by her love, and Jonah Hill as her grown-up son, Cyrus, who seems way too close to his mom. Thankfully, nothing is as it first appears, and this crazily funny and surprisingly touching film winds up being my favorite gem of the year. (more…)

The same degenerate mainstream media that spent three entire days feasting off the corpses of the dead in Tucson in the hopes of destroying Sarah Palin and turning the Right into something that will raise its hand for permission before criticizing ObamaCare, obviously had zero evidence of any kind of connection between political rhetoric and an individual who, if found guilty, can’t be executed quickly enough. No political maps marked with bullseyes were found in his pockets, no Glenn Beck posters on the wall, no Sarah Palin action figures. Nope, just craven left-wingers and their allies in the media exploiting a national tragedy in pursuit of the worst kind of political opportunism. And the permanent damage they have done to themselves with this political witch hunt makes me smile like the words “Rather” and “Gate.”

And some in Hollywood, like Roger Ebert, Michael Moore, Elizabeth Banks, John Legend, Jeff Wells, Jane Fonda, Michael McKean, and Piers Morgan,  jumped right in with both pedicured feet. Let’s call these witch hunters the Hollywood 8.

There is news on this front to report now. Interesting news. According to those who know the suspect, we now know that Jared Lee Loughner (must it always be three names?) absolutely loved the punk band Anti-Flag. The Incredible Shrinking L.A. Times informs us, that Anti-Flag is a ”radical leftist punk band whose music focuses on themes of corporate greed, U.S. foreign policy and opposition to war.” We’ve also been told that Loughner was “driven over the edge “by a film called “Zeitgeist” – a conspiracy theory documentary that touched on subjects as diverse as 9/11, currency, and religion.

Music and a movie. How about that?

(more…)

About a decade ago, Russell Crowe was on a career roll that was almost unprecedented in Hollywood history, scoring Best Actor Oscar nominations three years in a row for 1999’s “The Insider,” 2000’s “Gladiator” and 2001’s “A Beautiful Mind,” while taking home back-to-back trophies for the latter two films. He may be Australian, but he had built a persona beloved worldwide as both a cinematic chameleon as well as an Everyman extraordinaire, able to slip into seemingly any kind of role – from a doughy corporate whistleblower to a Roman warrior to a schizophrenic yet sensitive genius – with sympathetic aplomb.

—–

But aside from the vastly underrated “Cinderella Man” five years ago, Crowe has slipped off the rails a bit. He made several missteps that proved largely unappealing to the masses of moviegoers, only starting to rebound this year with the $100 million-grossing yet still disappointing “Robin Hood” (full disclosure: looking back, this is the one positive review this year that I regret givin, as the film has not held up well in memory due to its overly ponderous tone). But in his new film “The Next Three Days,” Crowe digs deep and pulls off his most appealing performance in years. Working under the always-masterful Paul Haggis (“Crash,” “Million Dollar Baby”), who fills the shoes of writer and director in this one, Crowe plays John Brennan, an English professor at a Pittsburgh community college who has a young son and an incredibly sexy and supportive wife, Laura (Elizabeth Banks).

He’s content with his lot in life, but Laura hates her boss so much that when the boss winds up murdered, she gets pegged as the prime suspect and is railroaded into a 20-plus year prison sentence. As months and then years tick by and John sees their son growing up ever more distant and alone, he is frustrated by the fact that all types of appeals have been exhausted and nothing legal will ever appear to get her out. (more…)

The movie business is not generally kind to women when they pass the age of 40, and Julia Roberts (now 41) is learning that lesson the hard way. The former Pretty Woman has returned to the big screen this weekend in Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity (Universal), and one prominent blogger wrote this headline:

Duplicity soft: Julia’s Comeback? Audiences Say Go Back

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen star in the fun, smart DUPLICITY, from writer/director Tony Gilroy

Roberts’ last starring role was in 2003’s Mona Lisa Smile ($63.8M domestic), and since then she has become a full-time Mom. Overall, she has 8 movies on her resume that have reached $100M in the US with her as a lead (I’m not including the Ocean’s Eleven franchise). Her most successful string of movies started in 1997 with My Best Friend’s Wedding ($127.1M cume) and ended with her Oscar winning performance in Erin Brockovich ($125.6M cume). During that span, she starred in 6 movies, generating an average of $115M in domestic box office.

(more…)

Liam Neeson is officially a full-fledged action star. The Irish-born actor has often played heroes, whether it was Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece Schindler’s List, the wise Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace or determined sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in 2005’s biopic Kinsey, Neeson has always had a knack for playing the earnest-but-flawed good guy. In his new movie Taken (Fox), writer/producer Luc Besson and director Pierre Morel have turned him into a Dad with the “mad skills” of a super-spy – think Mike Brady crossed with Jason Bourne.

The result is a well-reviewed (56% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) action film that will help to satisfy blockbuster-hungry audiences waiting for Warner Bros’ Watchmen (due March 6). Taken has scored big on its opening weekend. After grabbing an estimated $9.4M, the movie surged on Saturday to $11.62M (up almost 24% from opening day) and, despite today’s Super Bowl, the film could reach $24.62M according to studio estimates. That will be more than enough to win the Super Bowl 3-day, and positive word-of-mouth could get this one into the $70M-$75M range domestic.

(more…)