With "Argo" taking away the Best Picture win at the 2013 Academy Awards, it only proved that Hollywood can, and will, churn out the real-life dramas that can only be real in their inexplicable insanity.
This year’s real-life drama is "Captain Phillips," based on the 2009 cargo ship hijacking of the Maersk Alabama and the kidnapping of Captain Richard Phillips by the crew of Somalian pirates.
The film shows both sides of the story, opening to both Phillips departing home for a plane to Oman, and the Somalian pirates picking their crews to go in search of a ship.
The weekend of October 4-6 was a special weekend for geeks in the Dallas area, and further. Like in May with Dallas Comic Con, C2 Ventures, Inc. organized Dallas Comic Con: Fan Days.
This event, the largest in the immediate region of Oklahoma and Texas, brings in some impressive names in the pop culture industry.
With the arrival of the fall season comes a season of equal importance, when movies striving for awards love start releasing in droves.
The movies of smarter caliber are released closest to when ballots for awards like the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards start being drawn up, so to be fresher in memory than those from earlier in the schedule.
This year has an abundance of Benedict Cumberbatch and movies based on real events, and if last years record-breaking box office for these films is any indication, these films are a draw for audiences as well as critics love.
It’s not often that the awkwardness which sometimes happens in everyday life is portrayed as anything but corny in modern cinema. Such is the not the cause with Fox Searchlight’s “Enough Said.”
This somewhat unconventional romantic comedy is the product of writer/director Nicole Holofcener.
Holofcener may be familiar to some in the indie crowd for her earlier films, 2006’s “Friends with Money” and 2010’s “Please Give”.
During the past few years, the key to a successful computer animated film has been the balance between humor aimed at kids and jokes meant for adults.
As with any formula that is part of movie making, sometimes this balance is achieved (see Pixar’s “Toy Story”) and other times it is not (see Pixar’s “Cars 2.”)
This “humor balance” as I like to call it is important me as a viewer because I want the movie to be on my level.
Comedian Lewis Black has decided to make his performance at Rose State Performing Arts Theatre at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27 a benefit show to provide relief for the victims affected by the recent tornadoes that devastated the cities of Newcastle, Shawnee and Moore along with other cities throughout Oklahoma.
“As soon as the tornadoes ripped through Oklahoma this summer, I decided that whatever I made that night would go to assist those who were in their destructive paths,” Black said. “I have always kept a place in my heart for the good people of Oklahoma, as my father graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Wednesday, September 25, 2013
I’m not a race care fan and by that I mean in general I don’t watch sports related films but this Ron Howard directed flick hit me bang on.
The movie is based on facts of the racing rivalry of two Formula 1 drivers, James Hunt a British racer, and his opposite Niki Lauda an Austrian race car driver.
The film is set across 1970 to 1976 and the soundtrack, costumes and backdrop all take you back very convincingly.
I’m always up for a comedy (romantic or otherwise) that tries to flip the script and offer something new to the genre. When I first read the description of Fox Searchlight Pictures’ “Baggage Claim”, I was cautiously optimistic.
The film follows the tale of flight attendant Montana Moore (Paula Patton) as she tries to find a date in time for her youngest sister’s wedding.
I’ve always been a fan of black comedy seen it as a British specialty, with films like “Keeping Mum” and the original “Death at a Funeral,” among other notables like “Dr. Strangelove” and “A Clockwork Orange.”
American black humor has always seemed a bit more violent than thoughtful, so when trailers for ‘The Family” started popping up, I was intrigued, yet skeptical.
“The Family” is based on the French book “Malavitas” or “Badfellas” in English.
Vin Diesel is back in theaters this weekend as the title character in this third part of the Riddick series.
This one is just called “Riddick.” It appears to be an effort to continue the chronologically confusing titles of the first two installments, “Pitch Black” (2000) and “The Chronicles of Riddick” (2004).
‘Riddick’ features our anti-hero stranded alone on a harsh, desolate planet in a galaxy far, far away.
The film follows the tradition of the series as Riddick soon finds himself battling hoards of alien creatures.
As a music lover, any time you visit a festival there is bound to be something worth remembering.
In the case of the Gentleman of the Road stopover in Sept. 6 and 7 at Cottonwood Flats in Guthrie, memories were being made left and right.
The festival-like event, which debuted in 2012, is the brainchild of English alternative rock/folk group Mumford & Sons. The two-day event drew an estimated 35,000 fans to the Guthrie, Okla.
The headlining Mumford & Sons brought the house down once they reached the stage around 8:30 Saturday night. Within a few moments, the quartet had launched into fan favorite “Little Lion Man.”
Despite the fact actor Simon Pegg did not intend his final installment to the Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy to serve as a parody, "The World’s End" nonetheless serves to do just that, as it manages to poke fun at the apocalyptic genre that is a wild favorite in the early 2010’s.
"The World’s End" is about five men who return to their hometown to finish The Golden Mile, a twelve-pub crawl requiring a drink at each location, ending at The World’s End. Gary is the man-child of the group who has managed to not grow up since high school in 1990. His pals, Andy, Steve, Oliver and Peter, are drug along on Gary’s quest to finish the crawl, despite the robot invasion of their hometown.
At first glance, Focus Features’ "Closed Circuit" could be Law & Order: UK gone big screen. All of the elements are there: the opening crime, the police and the legal system. However, such a summation would miss the subtleties of the film.
Director John Crowley (Boy A) does a solid job of bringing screenwriter Steve Knight’s script to life. Knight, the Eastern Promises penman offers an array of engaging characters. Most of the characters are well acted and keep you guessing to the end about their motivations.
The film opens in a crescendo as on an early morning, a busy London market is devastated by an explosion. In quick sequence, a lone suspected terrorist cell member survives and is arrested for the crime. His name is Farroukh Erdogan (Denis Moschitto), who is arrested and jailed. Preparations begin for what promises to be the trial of the century.
Hollywood is still in search of its next phenomenon. Despite the success of "The Hunger Games," with the new installment due out in November, the movie mill is churning out young adult book adaptations left and right, with seeming little success since "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" ended.
Sadly, the trend seems to have continued with the adaptation of "The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones," released Aug. 22.
The film follows Clary Fray, a seemingly normal girl until she sees a group of teenagers kill another boy. Or what she thought was a boy.
Much like the earlier summer hit "Now You See Me," the Relativity Media release of "Paranoia" wasn’t on my radar until well into the summer.
It hit my list of must-sees with a starring cast of Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman and Liam Hemsworth and a potentially thought provoking commentary on the current have’s vs. have not’s makeup of our world.
Set in New York City, the film features the rivalry between two tech-giant owners, Nicholas Wyatt (Oldman) of Wyatt Corp. and Jock Goddard (Ford) of eikon.
The man caught in the middle of this corporate battle is Adam Cassidy (Hemsworth) as Goddard and Wyatt compete to be the first out with an industry changing product. Wyatt is willing to do anything, even stealing trade secrets, to get the product that was envisioned by Goddard’s firm, eikon.
It took three years for the sequel to "Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief" to finally arrive in theatres.
Based on the bestselling Rick Riordan books, the series follows Percy Jackson as he discovers he is the son of the god Poseidon, a demi-god, and all the perils that come with the title.
"Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters" is set after Percy (Logan Lerman), Annabeth (Alexandria Daddario) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) successfully saved Olympus from Luke (Jake Abel), the son of Hermes.
When Thalia’s Tree, from which the barrier protecting Camp Half-Blood is sickened, the three set off again, accompanied by Tyson (Douglas Smith), Percy’s Cyclops half-brother.
Their goals are to retrieve the Golden Fleece from Polyphemus and save the camp.
Based on another comic series, this one by Steven Grant, what ‘2 Guns" provides to the summer movie season is a breath of fresh air.
The movie stars Mark Wahlberg as "Stig" Stigman and Denzel Washington as Bobby Trench. What neither knows about the other is that they both work for a separate government agency, each with an ulterior motive for the operation the pair are running.
The film opens to Stig and Bobby preparing to rob a bank that they believe contains money from the Mexican cartel. After robbing the bank of the unexpected amount of cash, it’s only downhill for the pair from here. Stig’s Navy superiors want the money to fund an off the books war on the cartels and Trench’s DEA agency wants the cash as evidence in Papi Greco, the head of the cartel’s, trial.
Beyond the scope of well-known Marvel and DC comics, there are the smaller ones mined to keep audiences entertained until the next big film. The weekend of July 19 saw two of these adaptations, one with some fair anticipation and another on track to be added to the list of big budget flops piling up this summer.
Retired Extremely Dangerous 2
In 2010, between "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises," DC Entertainment made "RED," and brought the older action stars, and some not so, to play on the big screen. Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Mary Louise Parker returned for the 2013 sequel that really wasn’t necessary.
Following much of the premise of the first, the team is being hunted down for reasons attached to a mission from their past. Where the first "RED" was much a domestic tour film, "RED 2" is a foreign guidebook as they travel from France to London and to Russia in pursuit of a nuclear device more powerful than ever imaginable.
Just five years after the last installment of Sam Raimi's "Spiderman" series, Sony has set out to re-establish the web slinger in theatres.
"The Amazing Spiderman" opens May 3 and stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spiderman and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy. Sally Field and Martin Sheen play Aunt May and Uncle Ben and Rhys Ifans plays the conflicted villain Dr. Curt Connors and his counterpart, the Lizard.
Zero 2 Sixty sets itself apart from packs of other cover bands by putting its own spin on arrangements, tinkering with its set list of songs from the sixties, seventies and eighties, according to lead-guitarist/vocalist John Carnuccio.
"Well, a lot of cover bands play exactly like the recording," Carnuccio continued.
However, Zero 2 Sixty doesn't abide by this convention, he said.
And tonight from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., the group Zero 2 Sixty plays a free show at Joe B. Barnes Regional Park in Midwest City, as a part of the Midwest Twilight Concert Series, put on by Midwest City's parks and recreation department.
