Transformers 3: Dark Of The Moon
Plot Summary: “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” features Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) taking his first tenuous steps into adulthood while remaining a reluctant human ally of Optimus Prime. The film centers around the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the USA, suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet’s most dangerous secrets.... Continue »
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of...
You know you’re not worth saving when the House of Mouse gives up on you. Disney never turns down a chance to make money, but they threw in the towel after the substantial returns for their first outing in C.S. Lewis’s apparently beloved Chronicles of Narnia series (The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe) failed to continue through the... Continue »
The Next Three Days
Life seems perfect for John Brennan until his wife, Lara, is arrested for a gruesome murder she says she didn’t commit. Three years into her sentence, John is struggling to hold his family together, raising their son and teaching at college while he pursues every means available to prove her innocence. With the rejection of their final appeal, Lara... Continue »
Stone
Name the last great Robert De Niro role. Not so easy, right? Scan the actor’s IMDb page and you’ll find a recent glut of insignificant, unchallenging parts for a performer who once bared his soul in films like Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings, Cape Fear, and Raging Bull. Projects of that stature have been replaced by Hide and... Continue »
Hereafter
Halfway through Hereafter, the latest film directed by Clint Eastwood, Marie LeLay (Cécile de France) sits at a table and encounters a situation that Eastwood himself has probably encountered in some form. She speaks to a large publishing house in France about the first three chapters of a book she is writing. She had originally agreed to write a... Continue »
The Town
Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) is an unrepentant criminal, the de facto leader of a group of ruthless bank robbers who pride themselves in stealing what they want and getting out clean. With no real attachments, Doug never has to fear losing anyone close to him. But that all changed on the gang's latest job, when they briefly took a... Continue »
Megamind
DreamWorks Animation presents this satirical take on the superhero genre focusing on a down-and-out supervillain (voiced by Will Ferrell) who has to learn how to get his groove back when he's left without an arch nemesis in this comedy from directors Cameron Hood and Kyle Arthur Jefferson. Tina Fey and Jonah Hill fill out the rest of the toplined... Continue »
Red
Frank (Bruce Willis), Joe (Morgan Freeman), Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) used to be the CIA’s top agents – but the secrets they know just made them the Agency’s top targets. Now framed for assassination, they must use all of their collective cunning, experience and teamwork to stay one step ahead of their deadly pursuers and stay... Continue »
The American
Alone among assassins, Jack (George Clooney) is a master craftsman. When a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, he vows to his contact that his next assignment will be his last. Jack reports to the Italian countryside, where he holes up in a small town and relishes being away from death for a... Continue »![600full-the-expendables-artwork[1]](http://www.topplayedmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/600full-the-expendables-artwork1-123x100.jpg)
The Expendables
Sylvester Stallone gears up for a men-on-a-mission film with the Nu Image/Millennium Films war picture The Expendables. Jason Statham and Jet Li co-star alongside the brawny filmmaker as a group of mercenaries who undertake a near-impossible operation to overthrow a dictator in South America. Continue »
Dark Shadows (2012)
Fans of the Dan Curtis cult classic need to proceed with caution. This is not your — or your parents’ – Dark Shadows. Oh sure, the cast of characters appears to be the same and the storyline still centers on the cursed Collins clan, but for the most part, director Tim Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (the scribe behind... Continue »
Bernie
After making so many films about basically decent people, it’s good to know that Richard Linklater had some Hitchcock in him. In his deft comedy Bernie, Linklater brings not just the winsome touch that’s made his lighter work like The School of Rock so broadly appealing but also a more acidic and satirical tone that darkens the shade under... Continue »
I Wish
Artists who try to understand the minds of children are hardly ever successful. The usual tendency is to err on the side of the simplistic (wide-eyed wonder of the innocent) or unbelievably complex (the child who acts like a miniature adult). In his bright-eyed and wispy-light comedy I Wish, Hirokazu Kore-Eda doesn’t fall prey to either cliched manner of... Continue »
Where Do We Go Now?
Filmmakers run all kinds of risks when they try to update the classics; for all the universality of some of the great dramas, they can fail miserably when downloaded into new and sometimes incompatible formats (witness what happens when studios try to dress up Austen and Shakespeare as candy-colored high school comedies). This risk is even more prevalent, though,... Continue »
The Exit Interview
Well, folks, this is a Very Special Column, and to make that point, I am going to interview myself about it. So, everyone, meet Interviewer Me! Hello, everyone.Let’s get started, shall we? Right then. To cut right to the chase: Rumor has it this is your last science fiction film column for Filmcritic.com. Is this true?Indeed it is. I... Continue »
Andre 3000 to Play Jimi Hendrix in...
After much speculation, it has finally been confirmed that Andre 3000 will take on the role of rock legend Jimi Hendrix in an upcoming biopic titled “All Is By My Side.” According to IFTN, the movie will cover the time Hendrix spent in England preparing his debut album; and filming — which will take at least six weeks —... Continue »
“The Avengers” $200 Million Weekend...
“Hulk, Smash!” is what Captain America tells the Incredible Hulk to to in “The Avengers” … and the Marvel Comics superhero movie did its own smashing this weekend! When it comes to box office records, that is. According to weekend numbers, “The Avengers” broke U.S. box office records with a $200.3 million debut, shooting past the previous record of... Continue »
How Actresses Can Save the Movie...
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison is not the first person I think of when it comes to advice for women, but this one rang true. Women, we know, are not afraid to work. But often, particularly in the film industry, women function as support staff. They... Continue »
100% The Day He Arrives
A film director who no longer makes films, Seongjun, arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn’t show up, Seongjun wanders the city aimlessly. He runs into an actress he used to know, shares a drink with some film students and… Continue »
The Avengers
It’s one thing to join a bunch of standalone superheroes in the comics and quite another in the movies. Superheroes are attention hogs, so commanding of the myopic spotlight that a single specimen can carry multiple films all on his/her own. In the comics, a writer has the freedom to develop origins and individual tangents, allowing each major character... Continue »
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
It’s familiar fish-out-of-water meets nutty oldsters in the latest from Shakespeare in Love‘s John Madden. The premise finds British pensioners of all archetypical makes escaping to India because it’s cheap and unusual. Hopefully, in the far off mystical East, they won’t be treated like government/social/familial burdens. Our collective includes a man who was raised in “the Colony” (Tom Wilkinson),... Continue »
Guess Who?!: Working at Foot Locker for the Day to Promote New Movie
Guess what rapper/actor decided to throw on a Foot Locker uniform this week to promote his new movie at a store in New York City’s Harald Square? Hint: He’s said in the past that he wants his career to match that of a much older, seasoned rapper turned actor’s. IT’S BOW WOW! The rapper turned actor, who has said... Continue »
Guess Who?!: Working at Foot Locker for...
Guess what rapper/actor decided to throw on a Foot Locker uniform this week to promote his new movie at a store in New York City’s Harald Square? Hint: He’s said in the past that he wants his career to match that of a much older, seasoned rapper turned actor’s. IT’S BOW WOW! The rapper turned actor, who has said... Continue »![thelastexorcism[1]](http://www.topplayedmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/thelastexorcism1-123x100.jpg)
The Last Exorcism
Dear wannabe horror filmmakers: Don’t promise what you have no intention of delivering. Nothing angers the genre fanbase quicker than a preplanned bit of shocker bait and switch. Case in point — the Eli Roth produced effort The Last Exorcism. Using the first person POV found footage motif made popular by such previous hits as The Blair Witch Project,... Continue »
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Voldemort's power is growing stronger. He now has control over the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts. Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide to finish Dumbledore's work and find the rest of the Horcruxes to defeat the Dark Lord. But little hope remains for them, so everything they do must go as planned. Continue »
The American
Alone among assassins, Jack (George Clooney) is a master craftsman. When a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, he vows to his contact that his next assignment will be his last. Jack reports to the Italian countryside, where he holes up in a small town and relishes being away from death for a... Continue »
A Film Unfinished
In the early years of World War II, before the unholy machinery of extermination was fully engaged, the Nazis massed nearly a half-million Jews into the Warsaw Ghetto’s three square miles, which is memorably described in Yael Hersonski’s piercing documentary, A Film Unfinished, as “the holding pen before the Final Solution.” What sets Hersonski’s film apart from many other... Continue »
Piranha 3D
Before Alexandre Aja gets down to the business of Piranha 3-D, you’d be forgiven for thinking that maybe the horror director is trying his hand at porn. Not because so many breasts are on display — though there are some, to be sure, and far more than the average horror remakes of amped-up violence and clamped-down sex — but... Continue »
Tron – The Legacy
The Master Control Program is booted back up in this revamped Tron continuation that sees the return of original star Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, the brilliant computer programmer whose disappearance leads to his son, Sam, Garrett Hedlund to search for him in and out of the computer world. Continue »
Takers
TAKERS takes you into the world of a notorious group of criminals (Idris Elba, Paul Walker, T.I., Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen and Michael Ealy) who continue to baffle police by pulling off perfectly executed bank robberies. Continue »
New ABC head says he won’t change...
AP – The new head of ABC says he won’t shake up the TV network’s schedule on the brink of the fall season. Continue »
