26 May 2014

Quicksilver Takes the Gold: "X-Men: Days of Future Past"

By Mike Schulz

Hugh Jackman and James McAvoy in X-Men: Days of Future PastX-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

Director Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past opened this past weekend, and generally speaking, I liked it. At random moments throughout, I even loved it. And in one glorious, exquisitely crafted sequence about 40 minutes into the picture, I even fell madly in love with it.

03 Mar 2013

Fee-Fi-Fo-Fumble: "Jack the Giant Slayer," "Phantom," "21 & Over," and "The Last Exorcism Part II"

By Mike Schulz

Nicholas Hoult in Jack the Giant SlayerJACK THE GIANT SLAYER

It happened to Hansel and Gretel. It happened to Red Riding Hood. It happened to Snow White. (It happened to a couple of Snow Whites, actually.) And now it's Jack, of "... and the beanstalk" fame, who's getting a pricey, kitschy, effects-filled makeover, serving as protagonist for director Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer. At the rate this trend is going, I can hardly wait for the inevitable big-budget updating of The Pied Piper with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, and Harvey Fierstein taking on the role of a lifetime in The Frog King.

05 Jun 2011

Generation X: "X-Men: First Class"

By Mike Schulz

Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy in X-Men: First ClassX-MEN: FIRST CLASS

If you had told the 10-year-old me that Hollywood would one day release a series of big-budgeted, serious-minded films based on the X-Men comic books, he probably would've done cartwheels for about a week. And if you told that same mini-me that he'd one day grow almost completely apathetic toward this film series, he probably would've laughed in your face.

07 Jan 2009

Star Wars: "Doubt," "Valkyrie," "The Reader," "Bedtime Stories," and "Marley & Me"

By Mike Schulz

Meryl Streep in DoubtDOUBT

Based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, writer/director John Patrick Shanley's period drama Doubt - set in 1964, and concerning a nun who suspects a priest of sexual misconduct with an altar boy - isn't much of a movie. Shanley's previous directorial effort was 1990's Joe Versus the Volcano, and it's a shame he wasn't able to get in more practice over the last 18 years; in an attempt to gussy up the visual blandness that accompanies most theatrical adaptations, Shanley opts for a series of high- and low-angle shots and symbolic thunder, lightning, and wind effects that oftentimes make Doubt resemble a satire of a low-budget horror flick. And it's still visually bland.

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