Review: "Under the Skin"

There's a long line of science-fiction/horror films that feature the predatory female using man's sexual desire against him. In Under the Skin, Scarlett Johansson portrays such a character, prowling the streets of Glasgow, Scotland for unsuspecting single men to lure to her lair. What happens to them when they get there, well... it might make you think twice about jumping into the Prisoners van with Black Widow for a little bow-chicka-wow-wow.

Review: Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

It's safe to assume that any filmmaker with a recognizable stamp on their work is going to have both avid fans who connect with the way they tell stories and vehement detractors who don't. For Wes Anderson, the man behind Moonrise Kingdom, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Rushmore, each new film seems to widen that gap between the extremes, and it's easy to understand why. As someone who enjoys all of Anderson's work, even I would agree that his films are becoming more elaborate and his style more pronounced.

His latest feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, is the delightfully manic tale of a hotel concierge who is framed for murder. Of course, nothing that simple could adequately explain the plot of a Wes Anderson picture, or its cast of characters and caricatures, so we begin in 1985, as a writer (Tom Wilkinson) is recording an interview about his book, "The Grand Budapest Hotel." Insisting that the book is based on real events, the writer begins to recall how, in 1968, his younger self (Jude Law) was regaled by the story, which came directly from the hotel proprietor, Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham). While we spend very little time in 1985 -- a section whose purpose will only come into focus at the very end of the movie -- the 1968 portion lovingly lingers, and is periodically returned to throughout the picture. Law and Abraham have an easy chemistry, and Jason Schwartzman, an Anderson regular since he made his debut in Rushmore, shows up for a spell in this section also.

Review: "Robocop (2014)"

Anytime a filmmaker sets out to reboot a franchise, it's an uphill battle, and they must be willing to accept a healthy amount of skepticism from fans of the original. In the case of the new Robocop, director José Padilha (Elite Squad) isn't simply battling the overall quality of the 1987 Paul Verhoeven film, he's also contending with the biting social commentary and ultra-violence that made it an instant classic. Unfortunately for Padilha, the PG-13 rating that the studio wanted, and he agreed to deliver, automatically put him into a big hole with many fans, one that would be difficult for any filmmaker to climb out of.

Now, I enjoy a well-made, super-violent action picture as much as the next guy (or girl), but I reject the assertion that Robocop needs to be R-rated to be good. At its core, Robocop is the story of a half-man, half-cyborg who fights crime and battles big robots. That sounds cool. That sounds FUN. The thirteen-year old in me wants to see that movie, and there's no reason why the right filmmaker couldn't take that basic concept and turn it into an entertaining movie that reaches a wider audience.

Review: "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit"

There is a very good sequence in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, that begins with a fight in a hotel room, continues with a frantic phone call, and ends with two men on a park bench making sense of the events. At the end of that sequence, Jack Ryan (Chris Pine), a CIA analyst with serious back problems and very little field training, is handed a gun and upgraded to "operational." In that moment, Paramount Pictures effectively reboots the character as an action hero who shoots and punches his way to victory.

Now, I'm a complete sucker for secret agent movies, but in a post-9/11 world -- a fact unnecessarily emphasized in the very first scene -- where films like Zero Dark Thirty and Showtime's original series Homeland have proven that audiences still crave intelligent espionage stories, it seems silly to roll with the Bonds and the Bournes of the movie world, especially when you have a character who has always been distinguished by his intelligence. But, that's their hook. Like it or not.