As a critic it’s important to remember that there have always been bad movies. While Godard was at his peak and Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty were making "Bonnie and Clyde," Hollywood was unrolling horrible Cold War spoofs and beach blanket movies. The bad fade. The good last. It gets really hard sometimes. I tried to keep that in mind while suffering through "Guardians of the Galaxy," the latest Marvel Comic books adaptation.

If “Blood Ties” by Guillaume Canet hits all the right notes it’s probably because the partition is a familiar one: an Italian-American family drama based in New York, the gangster’s life, one final hit before I retire. This is a genre in itself.

Starring in no particular order Mila Kunis, Zoe Saldana, Marion Cotillard and Billy Crudup, “Ties” also include Clive

“Not black enough.” That’s the argument being leveled at the […]

“The Words” is a nested film with three intertwined stories about writers and as such will be followed with rapt attention by any writer in the audience. Whether anyone else will be interested in a movie filled with good intentions but whirring on empty, I’m not sure. For starters, Montreal once again trying to pass off as Paris once again feels off. But then, the entire movie—by first-timers Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal—feels off. It

[jwplayer config=”Default-Post-Player” mediaid=”6280″]

In the many early raves for James Cameron’s Avatar, one […]