Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, July 12,2012

People struggles to find its footing

There’s an earnestness to Alex Kurtzman’s People Like Us that’s admirable. You can tell the cast is doing its best to give life to the writer/director’s words and is trying to

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, July 12,2012

Drift bouyed by new characters

By Chuck Koplinski

Inexplicably, the cartoon crew from the Ice Age films has avoided extinction and proven as resilient as a cockroach, that is, as long as they continue to bring in big bucks for 20th Century-Fox. That

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, July 5,2012

A conflicted Spider-Man

By Chuck Koplinski

By their very nature, reboots invite added scrutiny. So it is that Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man will be compared to its predecessor(s), Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man series which began in 2

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, July 5,2012

Magical Moonrise a romantic delight

By Chuck Koplinski

The problem I’ve had with Wes Anderson’s recent films is that he’s been trying too hard to be Wes Anderson. The quaint, eccentric vibe that made Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums so

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, July 5,2012

No superheroes in sight

Films featuring real-life humans

By Chuck Koplinski

While the span from May to Labor Day has become the prevue of big-budget superhero movies and action epics as well as sequels and remakes that have been given a good buff and polish, there are still f

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, July 5,2012

Summer movies

By Chuck Koplinski

Ah summer…the days are long, picnics are taken, the drive-ins are packed and superheroes, aliens and animated films take over the multiplex. As the saying goes, “You’ve got to make

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, June 28,2012

World a beautiful look at the end

By Chuck Koplinski

There’s much to admire about Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, the most pleasant surprise of the summer movie season. It’s very smart in the way it looks a

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, June 28,2012

Tepid story undercuts Brave’s dynamic visuals

By Chuck Koplinski

By first appearances, Pixar Studios has a winner on its hands with Brave, a pseudo-fairy tale that follows the template of the Disney animated princess classics. Like Sleeping Beauty, The Little Merma

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, June 28,2012

Lincoln delivers bloody alternate history lesson

By Chuck Koplinski

While you might think you know what you’re getting with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, director Timur Bekmambetov and writer Seth Grahame-Smith seem bound and determined to defy any expectatio

Film - Chuck Koplinski | Thursday, June 21,2012

Bernie, a morality tale

By Chuck Koplinski

In 1996, the citizens of Carthage, Texas, refused to believe that Bernie Tiede (Jack Black) had murdered Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine). While they agreed that if anyone had it coming, it was Nuge