A short-film festival is a lot like Mark Twain’s quote about the weather in New England: If you don’t like what you’re seeing, just wait a few minutes and it will change.
Christopher Lawrence
Christopher Lawrence is the movie critic for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
clawrence@reviewjournal.com … @life_onthecouch on Twitter. 702-380-4567
You expect something called “The Lego Movie” to sell toys. You just don’t expect it to do so while offering up a subversive indictment of mindless consumerism. And you’d certainly never expect it to be so goofily, out-of-left-field, guffawing-in-spite-of-yourself entertaining.
OK, so that’s probably not going to happen. But the new animated offering is polling as high or higher than every current best-picture nominee at Rotten Tomatoes.
With a cast toplined by writer-director George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray and John Goodman, it’s the “Ocean’s Eleven” of regular-guys-trying-to-save-priceless-works-of-art-from-Nazis-and-Russians movies. So why isn’t “The Monuments Men” more fun?
Three of February’s four weekends boast new movies featuring members of the Crawley family in key roles.
Matthew Gray Gubler never set out to be an actor. Now, the 33-year-old Las Vegas native is about to enter rarified air by starring in one of very few series to reach its 200th episode.
Your girlfriend/wife/mistress will want to see this movie. You will not. But pay attention to the pie scene.
With little fanfare “Gigolos” kicked off its fifth season on Showtime featurinf Brace bonding with a dummy. Insert your own joke here.
Thankfully, the author never introduces himself as Fleming, Ian Fleming.
It’s not as surprising as, say, George Foreman’s transition into the grill-hawking star of a family sitcom, or Mike Tyson’s reinvention as a Broadway song-and-dance man.
Vanessa Hudgens and Ann Dowd star as Agnes “Apple” Bailey and Kathy DiFiore in “Gimme Shelter,” which is more a celebration of real-life DiFiore’s work than Agnes’ story.
Producers softened many of the drama’s rougher edges. But there are still plenty of ways to tell Keegan Deane is someone you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with in the real world.
You don’t need to have poor communication skills to get a bad tattoo. But it sure does seem to help. An August profile of A&E’s “Bad Ink” and its stars generated several dozen emails from readers begging for help with their own bad ink.
The action-comedy that’s light on both elements finds Ben (Kevin Hart), a high-school security guard who’s just been accepted into Atlanta’s police academy, trying to impress James (Ice Cube), a celebrated detective and the overly protective brother of Ben’s girlfriend, Angela (Tika Sumpter).
“Her” is a love story that’s sad and funny and touching and overflowing with every bit of the inventiveness you’d expect from the visual visionary Spike Jonze.