Martin Sheen

Salinger Review

If there’s anything that would make J.D. Salinger turn over in his grave, Shane Salerno’s documentary Salinger would be it. The film presents a problematic view of the author—voyeuristic, highly manipulative and perverse—that's poorly disguised under its flurry of superficially impressive formal elements.

The New Old: The Good, the Badlands, & the Ugly

This week in archival DVD land, we take a look at new Blu-Rays for the Canadian classic sex comedy Porky's, Criterion treatments for Terrence Malick's Badlands and Fritz Lang's Ministry of Fear, and a Steven Seagal TV show that was re-edited into a movie with the hopes no one would notice.

The New Old: America’s Sweethearts

While sick, one of our film critics went through a bunch of re-releases from the 80s and 90s from the 20th Century Fox archives (now being distributed by Anchor Bay). Without rhyme or reason he watched Ghost in the Machine, Six Pack, Hear No Evil, Jack the Bear, The Pirate Movie, Quicksilver Highways, Tough Enough, a made for TV remake of Vanishing Point, and former NFL great Howie Long's first starring role in Firestorm. We don't fully know why he did it , either, but some of them were good!

The Amazing Spider-Man Review

The Amazing Spider-Man still faithfully tells the origin story of Marvel Comics’ famed web-slinger for the first half, but a stellar cast raises the material past the bar set by Sam Raimi’s franchise and the second half wisely becomes its own movie from that point onward, even if the more original second half has more problems than the part haters will probably unjustly dismiss as redundant.

The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer Hits the Web

Fresh off his directorial debut, Marc Webb takes a crack at one of Marvel’s most popular characters. No simple feat. Webb has the burden of taking over from director Sam Raimi, whose first two Spider-Man films won critical praise and set impressive records in terms of numbers and total gross. However, this trailer looks spectacular and should wash the taste of Spider-Man 3 out of the mouths of any disappointed fans.