The Bling Ring

For a period of almost a year in 2008/2009, five LA County high school students broke in to the homes of several celebrities, netting almost $3 million dollars in ill-gotten gains. Oddly, however, the burglaries were not entirely financially motivated. Instead of targeting the most valuable items, the group focused on high fashion clothing and accessories in order to emulate the style of the celebrities they worshipped.

Sofia Coppola takes their story and turns it into a film that’s part heist movie, and part critique of today’s culture of celebrity worship, fame and materialism.

The 2013 Summer Movie Preview – Part 1

Summer is finally upon us! With this Friday’s release of “Iron Man 3”, the 2013 Summer Movie season officially begins!

The summer season is defined by big budget, high-profile releases, and this summer is no exception. We’ll cover what’s coming out in May and June today, and then look at July and August tomorrow. 

Click through to check out what the first half of Summer, 2013 has in store!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is an indie coming of age drama starring Logan Lerman as an insecure teen entering his first year of high school, and Emma Watson and Ezra Miller as the step-siblings with their own issues that he befriends. Together they struggle their way through a difficult social year, and learn to confront their personal demons.

It’s a solid teen drama, with some genuine emotional weight to it. It’s pervasively “indie”, but manages to set itself apart via a strong central character and solid performances across the board.

The 2012 Fall Movie Preview – Part I

With this weekend’s release of “The Expendables 2” and “ParaNorman”, the summer movie season is pretty much over. One weekend remains in August, and those movies wont have much room to run before school is back in session.

Nope, the season of the big blockbuster is behind us. It’s time to look ahead to the fall.

Not to despair, though, the fall brings sharp movies for the thinking movie fan. Movies which may have more selective box office appeal, but which may be some of the best movies all year.

So click through to take a look at the first part of this year’s fall preview. Today we’ll look at the last week of August, plus September, and then we’ll come back tomorrow with October and the first week of November. Together they’ll take us right up to the start of the Holiday movie season, and the November 9th release of Skyfall!

Now showing on cable: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I”

Premiering this weekend on HBO was the penultimate movie in the Harry Potter franchise, 2010’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I”.

When I think of the final two “Harry Potter” movies, the analogy I can’t resist is the 1998 movie “Twins”.

In it, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito play a couple of genetically engineered twins, separated at birth. The gag is, Ahnuld was spawned from the most desirable elements of the genetic code, and DeVito was created from the residual elements.

To me, that’s how I feel about the final two “Potter” movies. The second part is a nonstop explosion of action, character reveals, battle scenes and resolutions. It’s a phenomenal movie, a genuine big ticket movie.

This one? Not so much.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

I think that everyone here realizes that this is the finale chapter in a long running series and not just a stand alone movie. Thus it carries with it the burdens of expectations and anticipation, but it also benefits from pre-established characters, settings, backstory, etc. etc. The question to me going in was not so much how was this movie, but how well does this movie end the entire franchise?

The answer?

Freaking Awesomely. This movie was so explosively good that I have to retroactively increase my respect for the franchise as a whole. If I had known things were building to THIS? I’d have paid much more attention to “Harry Potter and the Stone Goblet of the Azkaban Phoenix.”