Una LaMarche
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Recent Articles
What to Expect When You’re Special-Effecting
This blockbuster season brings manly sequels, vibrating inventions and Channing Tatum’s rippling pecs
May 10th, 2012
The summer movies are stampeding into Las Vegas theaters like drunken, pool party-bound tourists, leaving dollar signs and crushed popcorn in their wake. Over the next three sweltering months you’ll be subject to a nonstop onslaught of 3-D, CGI-stuffed action and spectacle, tempered with a few broad comedy bunts, arthouse indies and the requisite buzzy horror flick (Chernobyl Diaries, out May 25, from Paranormal Activity writer/director Oren Peli). But looking over the season’s roster, it’s hard to miss a few unmistakable patterns:
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Beasts of All Kinds
From vamps to blondes to Victorian sleuths, winter movies offer an entertainment menagerie
November 17th, 2011
The fact is that except for New Year’s Eve (Dec. 9), Garry Marshall’s follow-up to 2010’s Valentine’s Day that seemingly stars every single actor in Hollywood with a SAG card, November and December are nearly schmaltz-free. Instead, they’re full of Oscar bait and big-budget franchises.
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Contagion
(R) ★★☆☆☆
September 15th, 2011
If you’ve ever wanted to see Gwyneth Paltrow die a horrible death, you’ll love Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion ... for the first 10 minutes, anyway.
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Ante Up!
Picking the winners for TV’s biggest night.
September 15th, 2011
The 63rd annual Emmy Awards ceremony—those magical three-plus hours of television during which you stop watching regular TV shows to watch people who appear on TV shows looking nervous while wearing industrial-strength Spanx—airs on Sunday, and I couldn’t be more excited.
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Going Viral
Contagion’s pandemic panic is deadly but dull
September 8th, 2011
Much like the deadly virus central to its plot, I suspect that Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion will cause a ripple effect through the population.
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Think Inside the Box
Fall premieres bring female leads, couples’ capers, high-concept dramas and a few Mad Men clones
September 1st, 2011
It seems like just yesterday that I was bemoaning the summer TV drought, resigning myself to three long months of watching people wearing helmets and their last remaining scraps of dignity bounce painfully off of giant rubber balls. But hallelujah, brothers and sisters; salvation has arrived, for September is upon us.
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His Neighbor Really Bites
There’s no real fright in the new Fright Night, but it’s vamp-camp fun nonetheless
August 25th, 2011
Quick: What do you do if your next-door neighbor’s a vampire who happens to look like Colin Farrell? This dilemma is at the heart of Fright Night, a fun, frothy, Las Vegas-set remake of the 1985 camp horror classic.
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Idiot-Proof Performance
Paul Rudd expertly plays a naïf who ruins his three sisters’ lives. Hilarity ensues.
August 25th, 2011
Ever since he broke out in the 1995 Jane Austen-goes-to-the-Valley romp Clueless, earning teen idol status for the somewhat questionable act of kissing his underage onscreen stepsister, Paul Rudd has carved out a niche for himself in Hollywood as the go-to hapless everyman.
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Rise of the Planet of the Apes
(PG-13) ★★☆☆☆
August 18th, 2011
This prequel to the classic 1968 sci-fi stars James Franco as a genetic scientist whose Alzheimer’s drug gives primates dangerous brain power.
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Same Time Next Year?
One Day’s gimmicky love story starts out perky but can’t keep it up
August 18th, 2011
Telling a love story that spans many decades is no small feat, especially on film, where it takes more than a few shakes of baby powder and artificial neck folds to convincingly age an actor. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan pulled it off in When Harry Met Sally, aided by a variety of wigs and a bevy of Nora Ephron-provided bon mots.
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