Movie Reviews: Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2014) and The Lego Movie (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

With one unorthodox animated feature (discussed at the end of this post) capitalizing on parental nostalgia at the box office, it's expected that another more conventional one would try and do the same. And Mr. Peabody and Sherman is that... conventional. Admittedly, it is funny, with many of its jokes sailing over younger heads and right towards the hearts of their gen-x parents. But they aren't anywhere near as dryly hilarious as the one-liners which seemed to fly out a mile-a-minute in the "Peabody's Improbable History" segments of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (1959-1964).

The Rainmaker or: A-Coppola-pse Now Redux

The Reinvention of Francis Ford Coppola

by Tony Dayoub

The whup-whup-whup sound of helicopters filled the Egyptian Ballroom at Atlanta's Fox Theatre Monday evening, as the opening strains of The Doors' "The End" played over the opening image of 1979's Apocalypse Now. More scenes from that film were followed by sequences from other films, from The Rain People (1969) to Tetro (2009) in random order, until it all built to the emotional crescendo of Michael Corleone closing the door on his wife Kay at the end of The Godfather. Then a door adjacent to the stage opened and out strolled out the filmmaker responsible for all of these films, Francis Ford Coppola.

Movie Reviews: Kids for Cash (2014) and The Wind Rises (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

A first glance at Oscar weekend's new theatrical releases might be misleading. Though most of the movies look like they lack any kind of heft—whether we're talking about substance or even just plain, old entertainment value—here are two films worth your time.

Movie Review: In Secret (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

Think The Postman Always Rings Twice in period costume and you'll instantly get what In Secret is all about. It is based on Émile Zola's novel, Thérèse Raquin, a kind of proto-noir. Elizabeth Olsen stars as Thérèse, an illegitimate cousin to the sickly Camille Raquin (Harry Potter's Tom Felton), who earns her keep as his sort of nurse. Camille's overprotective mother, Madame Raquin (played by the 1981 Postman's femme fatale, Jessica Lange) thinks she is doing all a favor by proposing a marriage between the two cousins. But Camille comes up short in the sexual heat department. Enter Laurent (Oscar Isaac), Camille's horny, hunky, childhood pal. It's not hard to figure where this is going from there.

Catching Up with Unseen Best Picture Oscar Winners

by Tony Dayoub

If you follow me on Facebook, you might have read most of the following reflections already. Earlier this month, the Online Film Critics Society began sending me a string of ballots for a vote we were taking in order to rank every Best Picture Academy Award-winner from best to worst. I haven't put much stock in the Oscars since I was a kid. But, like all lists, the list of Best Picture winners serves as a great introduction to amateur film buffs who might want a sampler of some of the best films ever. It turns out there were a slew of these I still hadn't seen. Maybe most of these viewings confirmed why I had skipped a lot of these in the first place. But a good number were also reminders that even film critics haven't seen all the great works of cinema.

RIP Shirley Temple Black

by Tony Dayoub

"I class myself with Rin Tin Tin... At the end of the Depression, people were perhaps looking for something to cheer themselves up. They fell in love with a dog and a little girl. It won't happen again."

-Shirley Temple Black, modestly summing up her legacy.

Recommended Films - Little Miss Marker, Bright Eyes, Curly Top, Wee Willie Winkie, Heidi, The Little Princess, Kiss and Tell, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, Fort Apache