Earlier this week, we did a feature on excuses grown-ups could use to justify going to see the much buzzed-about teen vampire flick Twilight this weekend, and do you know why we did that article? Because even though most people we’ve talked to over the age of 25 have ...Read More

  If you take Pixar out of the equation, the current state of movie animation is pretty dire. With a few exceptions (Monster House, Meet the Robinsons), the boom in CGI technology has taken the drive out of storytelling. Walt Disney and the other pioneers who always saw the form as ...Read More

A Christmas Tale is not your standard dysfunctional family drama. There's not only a lot more to it than the predictable cliches that the genre usually delivers - don't expect a heartwarming ending - but also it's never once intended to be about a "traditional holiday experience.” Yes, you will ...Read More

Sigh... it's going to be a rough time at the multiplex for anyone old enough to legally drink this weekend. The last pre-Thanksgiving movie releases are always typically family-friendly, but, this year, there are only two real choices if you want to see a new movie (and have already seen ...Read More

  There's just something vampirism and adolescence that makes for a perfect fit. If you think about it, the legend of the vampire has always been one of the outcast, the count in his castle who can never find love because he's only going to outlive his mortal beloved or end ...Read More

  It's been an unusual year for Wong Kar-Wai fans. First, there was My Blueberry Nights, a film that caused quite a stir at Cannes, most of which was not positive. The highly edited version of Nights that ended up stateside feels like the least essential film in the WKW filmography ...Read More

As long as there have been James Bond films (nearly five decades now) there has been some degree of anticipation of the new James Bond theme with each new theatrical release. While the series stumbled early on in terms of theme songs (Dr. No didn’t even feature a song – ...Read More

  If Casino Royale was an earthquake that shook the world of twenty-first action movies and rearranged the landscape, Quantum of Solace is the aftershock. It may not have the direct, unexpected impact of the original tremor, but it still has enough power to knock you on your ass. The first direct ...Read More

  Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire is so many movies blended into one film - a nearly perfect film - that it's almost impossible to accurately put into words what this masterful director has accomplished with one of the best movies of the year. Just see it. The comparison that keeps coming ...Read More

There's been a lot of talk about how movies end lately, particularly with the news that Baz Luhrmann was forced to reshoot the ending of his upcoming Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman epic, Australia, to give it a more uplifting ending (beware spoiler-heavy news items on that one - they reveal ...Read More

  Some movies vacillate between good and bad.  Certain films can start off interesting and fall apart as they progress, while others may grow on you as they unspool (although it's a lot rarer for a failed project to save itself than for a quality to flick to go south). Unless ...Read More

  And you thought Charlie Kaufman's earlier movies didn't make sense? The brilliant writer's first foray into direction produces his least easy-to-define film to date, a movie that turns in on itself so many times that it somewhat loses its way. The best cast of the year and one of the ...Read More

  David Wain's Role Models is a great set-up for a movie with a fantastic cast, but the talented comedian behind the great and underrated Wet Hot American Summer forgot the follow-through. The first half hour of Role Models is as laugh-out-loud funny as practically anything in this great year for ...Read More

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas will undoubtedly pull many a heartstring and make many an audience member shed a tear, but, with a premise and execution this hollow and manipulative, I beg you, don't fall for it. Don't give into filmmakers who know that children in peril and Holocaust ...Read More

Fans were shocked this week by the sudden death of Michael Crichton, the award-winning writer and producer who was best known as the godfather of the techno-thriller genre as well as for Hollywood's big-ticket film adaptations of his novels. For a large portion of the 1990s, a new Crichton movie ...Read More

We here at MovieRetriever.com have (please forgive the pun) a bone to pick with the film industry. The disturbing trend of remaking or recycling classic or popular films and/or properties into vehicles designed to appeal solely to a target demographic has really got us annoyed. More often than not (and ...Read More

The long journey to Election Day is finally ending, and the campaign has been the topic of much discussion around the MovieRetriever.com offices - in between, you know, arguments about the relative merits of Superman Returns vs. Spider-Man 3 (lesser of two evils battle) and Dark Knight vs. Iron Man ...Read More

Halloween is a great time to curl up and watch a scary movie or two with someone you love, or perhaps even by yourself. But, we wouldn’t recommend going solo – who are you going to send to the kitchen to get more popcorn? – after all, there could be ...Read More

 It seemed inevitable that the Judd Apatow-verse and the View Askew-verse headed by Kevin Smith would eventually merge. Smith himself has even credited Knocked Up with showing him not just that Seth Rogen was MADE to star in a film co-starring Jason Mewes but that the ceiling on his brand ...Read More

 Hollywood doesn't really understand what scares you anymore. I honestly don't believe anyone over the age of fifteen is scared by the Saw movies. They're action movies or, more accurately, exercises in the twisted human desire to watch people get tortured. The fact is that most modern horror movies aren't ...Read More

 Lance Hammer's highly acclaimed Ballast is a painful, depressing experience. In fact, some could easily argue that it borders on audience torture. Ballast is not only bereft of a single laugh, there's not even a crack of a smile. It's about people who are no longer physically able to look ...Read More

 Sometimes movies seem to come out of the personality of the stars at the center of the film. It can be something as simple as how John Wayne's movies seemed to be written around The Duke's persona or the fact that a lot of Al Pacino flicks seem to have ...Read More

 What the hell happened to Guy Ritchie? Sure, it's easy to point a finger at Madonna (and the cynical side of me thinks that all the press lately surrounding their miserable marriage is just publicity for Guy's new movie), but it's truly shocking how drastically this once uber-promising writer/director has ...Read More

Chances are - unless you live in a fundamentalist, anti-technology commune in Utah or unless all your friends are vigilant about keeping a swear jar - someone you know is a fan of Kevin Smith. Even if you missed the original indie firestorm created by Smith's low-budget debut, Clerks, ...Read More

 Critics constantly overuse phrases like "gut-wrenching" and "heartbreaking" when it comes to writing about emotionally devastating films, almost to the point where those words don't even mean much anymore. They certainly only begin to capture what you feel when you’re stuck trying to review a movie that honestly did leave ...Read More

This weekend, High School Musical 3: Senior Year made over $42 million at the box office, shattering the record for highest grossing movie musical ever and surprising absolutely NO ONE under the age of 15. Maybe it’s a generational thing, maybe we’ve missed the Disney Corporation’s subliminal mind rays ...Read More

 We received a pained phone call from our theatrical critic this week, asking (as polite as he could) whether we wanted him to pay out of his own pocket to see Saw V. You see, certain movies tend not to hold critic screenings before they're released and, generally, those ...Read More

  The best Clint Eastwood films typically deal with people caught in complex, morally gray situations. The heroes of Unforgiven, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby are all faced with tough decisions and questions without easy answers. The man who made his legacy playing violent heroes in spaghetti westerns understands that ...Read More

  My mother once asked me if I was a "generally happy" person. I'm still not sure of the answer, but I'm fascinated by the question. What does that mean? Who is without sadness at times? And who can say for sure if the balance makes one "generally happy" or "generally ...Read More

  How do so many talented people go so far awry? Edward Norton is usually very smart about the projects he picks (even The Incredible Hulk was a smart movie and the failure of it was not his fault) and Colin Farrell has shown signs of life in the past with ...Read More

Holiday weekends are always big for movie-going. Families spend Thanksgiving evening going to see Harry Potter (well, they were going to), Christmas Day perusing the Oscar hopefuls, Memorial Day helping people like Michael Bay break the bank, and the Fourth of July worshipping at the altar of Will Smith. But, ...Read More

“The one constant through all the years…has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past…. It reminds us of all ...Read More

 What is Oliver Stone's W.? The previews made it seem like it would be a satirical slice of presidential life. How else to explain the use of "What a Wonderful World" over footage of the nightmare of the last eight years? But the final product itself is more (and kind ...Read More

 Isn't it amazing how we can easily spend 20 hours or more of our lives playing great video games, but 90 minutes of the same franchise in movie form can be nearly unbearable? Quick - you've got two hours to kill, will you watch movies like Doom, Resident Evil, or ...Read More

 Go to an underage drinking party in any college town across the country and you'll see basically the same thing - horny, drunk kids acting like idiots. From coast to coast and keg to keg, the parties are nearly identical, only the names, faces, and levels of alcohol poisoning change. ...Read More

Loyal readers of this blog will no doubt remember the Hound’s list of Ten Truly Underrated Horror Films. That list got us thinking here at the MovieRetriever.com offices (which we do from time to time – contrary to what some of you may think) about films that get maybe ...Read More

Every year around Halloween, movie fans around the world turn away from Oscar nominees and Judd Apatow comedies and begin browsing video stores for something really, honest-to-God scary. And that's not an easy task. While horror movies, on a whole, have a big fan-following thanks to their visceral thrills and ...Read More

  What is a wedding? Unless there's a shotgun, mail order bride or a prearrangement going on, it's usually a celebration of love. Now, imagine a woman who thinks she has fallen so far out of humanity that she states in an AA meeting that she believes she is unworthy of ...Read More

  Gil Kenan's Monster House was a pleasantly surprising shout-out to the kind of kids’ adventure movies they don't make that often any more. The film was clearly the product of a man raised on movies like The Goonies, Explorers, and Monster Squad. Kenan's highly anticipated follow-up, City of Ember, also ...Read More

  We realize that Bond, James Bond wasn't the first spy in the history of fiction - heck, James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Spy came out in 1821 - however, Commander Bond still remains at as the reigning alpha super-spy of the modern world. Yes, we're aware of the works ...Read More

 "It's like The Departed with Arabs instead of the Irish mob!" That might sound simplistic, but it's a shockingly apt way to describe Body of Lies, Ridley Scott's moderately successful journey into the labyrinthine world of intelligence operations in the Middle East. Once again, Leonardo DiCaprio plays the poor, sure-to-be-tortured ...Read More

 As someone who grew up idolizing the movies of John Hughes and kind of wanting to be Lloyd Dobler, I definitely long for more movies like The Breakfast Club and Say Anything. It’s not just nostalgia. It’s that, except for the rare Superbad, modern teen movies suck. After being relatively ...Read More

 You know Bill Maher was sitting in his massive home theater watching movies like Sicko and Super Size Me and thinking, "I could totally do that." To prove it, Maher teamed with Borat director Larry Charles to make Religulous, a pseudo-comedy-documentary that purports to be one man's search for faith ...Read More

 For the first time since Pollock, Ed Harris steps behind the camera again to direct an old-fashioned Western in the mold of 3:10 to Yuma and Open Range. With Appaloosa, Harris is clearly shooting for the timeless quality of the genre, the one that makes it feel like this film ...Read More

 Flash of Genius is an incredibly frustrating film, a movie with a great central performance, excellent design, and an entire team whose heart is in the right place, but it's also a movie with a screenplay that never gets to the true heart of this fascinating story. One of the ...Read More

Kung-Fu Panda wasn't a bad movie. Not in the slightest. There were some great vocal performances, fun action, and cool animation, but, we'll admit, it wasn't the animated sequel news we've been waiting for. In our world where the next 10 chapters of Shrek have already called dibs on their ...Read More

The Hound is a busy dog – this week he’s pouring over his vast collection of Paul Newman movies and reacquainting himself with the work of one of cinema’s greatest actors – so he doesn’t always have the time to write 2,500-word opuses on the latest two-disc special edition or ...Read More

One of the final living legends of movies passed away on Friday night and the world is a much sadder place. Paul Newman has died of cancer at the age of 83 at his home in Westport, Connecticut. Many, many outlets have already given the career of Paul Newman ...Read More

 Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you should make a movie about it. The abysmal Eagle Eye attempts to take modern-day paranoia about the intrusive nature of technology and turn it into an action movie. The result is an unqualified disaster, an unbelievable, unrealistic, and simply un-enjoyable barrage of noise ...Read More

 Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna is a puzzler, a film that isn't just traditionally bad, but features some of the most baffling filmmaking decisions of 2008. It's a head-scratcher that makes you wonder just what sort of movie the people involved thought they were making, because it is very ...Read More

 Chuck Palahniuk has long been obsessed with bodily expulsions, an obsession that, arguably, the author explored to its furthest depths in one of his best novels, Choke. The fourth novel from the man who wrote Fight Club and Haunted is about all those things we push out of our body ...Read More

 The Duchess is this season's "painted cinema." All the colors are there and it's never hard to look at, but it's ultimately as two-dimensional as a trip to the art gallery. A lovely score by Rachel Portman, nomination-worthy costume design by Michael O'Connor, an intriguing supporting performance by Ralph Fiennes ...Read More

 I know it’s an easy play on the title, but The Lucky Ones are the folks in the theater next door to Neil Burger’s heartfelt but deeply, deeply flawed drama about three Iraq soldiers on a bizarre road trip across America’s heartland. Despite a heart that’s clearly in the right ...Read More

On Wednesday, the Walt Disney Company hosted an event in Hollywood to preview their upcoming film slate and possibly the two most noteworthy announcements were that indie-actor turned film-franchise-fixture Johnny Depp will be playing the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's upcoming 3D version of Alice in Wonderland and that Depp ...Read More

Pundits were shocked this week when hackers announced that they had broken into Governor Sarah Palin's Yahoo email account and posted images of her correspondence on the internet. While this invasion of privacy raised many eyebrows in Washington, apparently, the 2008 Presidential candidates did not move quick enough to further ...Read More

  The racial and social tension that used to be solely the product of the “urban drama” has moved to the suburbs in Lakeview Terrace, an interesting-but-flawed thriller from the once-controversial Neil LaBute. The famous playwright and director of In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things has long ...Read More

There's a phenomenon in the entertainment industry known as the "sophomore slump," a terrifying condition (much worse than the "freshman fifteen") in which a movie director finds unparalleled success with their debut effort only to stumble (and, in some cases, crash and burn) with their follow-up project. It happened to ...Read More

 To some, Righteous Kill may have been the long-anticipated reunion of two acting titans (Al Pacino and Robert De Niro). Those same people may probably have even been looking forward to this new offering from director Jon Avnet (who, the last time I checked hadn’t really scored since Fried Green ...Read More

 One of the oldest archetypes in screenwriting is that of the "lovable loser." It's a character model that's been a major part of the medium from Charlie Chaplin to Ben Stiller, and the Coen Brothers are very familiar with that special kind of comedic hero that can’t quite get his ...Read More

Film is not necessarily a subtle medium and, as if to prove that point, there are certain movie directors who've made careers of taking subtlety, covering it in gunpowder and diesel, and igniting it with the tailpipe of a nitro-burning funny car. (Looking at you, Michael Bay.) And while we ...Read More

There's a lot to like about the modern film industry - the Coen Brothers winning Oscars, halfway-decent Batman movies, mercifully few Dane Cook "comedies" - however, there are certain age-old traditions that Hollywood has abandoned lately, and we're here to say enough is enough. Specifically, we're here to petition for ...Read More

Does anyone else remember when Nicolas Cage mattered? Does he? When he was not only an A-list actor but someone who had an unpredictable screen presence and charisma that was indefinably unique? The Cage of the 1980s and 1990s has become a caricature of his former self, appearing in by-the-numbers ...Read More

We've had a massive response to last week's feature on Ten Truly Underrated Sci-Fi Movies, a response that's taught us two things - 1). People have a true, hardcore passion for talking about their favorite sci-fi films and 2). People effing HATE Aeon Flux. (We knew it was going ...Read More

What is it about sci-fi movies that always make us give them the benefit of the doubt? Case in point - this week's pathetic-looking Vin Diesel vehicle, Babylon A.D., which (surprise, surprise) isn't screening for critics. (Never a good sign.) Diesel plays Toorop, a futuristic mercenary charged with protecting ...Read More

You've got to hand it to the Children's Leukemia Foundation of Michigan. Not only do they do provide a staggering level of much-needed comfort and support to families of children and adults affected by leukemia, lymphoma, and other related blood disorders, but they also know how to throw one heck ...Read More

  If you're considering seeing Death Race this weekend, send me ten bucks and I'll personally come to your house and punch you in the face instead. It will be more dramatically rewarding. How about a more practical idea? You see that trailer above this review? Plug in your headphones. (Others ...Read More

  There’s much irony in the fact that it took a female director to finally successfully bring the sometimes misogynistic Philip Roth to the big screen. Based on a short story by the masterful writer called The Dying Animal, Isabel Coixet's Elegy is one of the more interesting dramas of the ...Read More

  Hi Jim, Hey, we read the interview you did about Avatar, your long-gestating sci-fi epic, in the Hollywood Reporter two weeks ago, and, we'll admit, we're getting very, very excited about the project. [Editor's note - For those of you who don't know, Avatar - which is slated for a ...Read More

  I've been trying all day to think of an album equivalent to The Rocker, but I can’t come up with a record title that’s widely recognized as being only half-worthwhile. Here’s the best way to put it – think of a musician or band that you really consider talented and ...Read More

  We're not exactly what you'd call "design-obsessed" here at MovieRetriever.com. We don't believe in feng shui, we don't follow fashion, and, even if you put a gun to our heads, we'd be hard pressed to distinguish a Frank Lloyd Wright house from a Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles. (Roscoe's ...Read More

  It’s undeniably hard to make a movie about faith and miracles with grace and subtlety, but couldn't director Mark Pellington and writer Albert Torres have put a little effort into it? About as subtle as a prayer revival meeting tag-teamed by Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton, the awful Henry Poole ...Read More

  Woody Allen had to go to London to find his edge again with the brilliant Match Point, and, apparently, he had to go to Barcelona to find his softer side. Allen's best comedy in over a decade, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is another gem from the living legend, one of the ...Read More

  Do you remember when George Lucas left so much to thrive in his viewer's imaginations? Just the fact that The New Hope was the fourth installment in a reportedly nine-part series always left fans of the original Star Wars trilogy the right to dream. We could imagine what happened in ...Read More

  The Trans-Siberian rail line through Asia is still one of the most fascinating in the world. From Beijing to Moscow, travelers face an odd dichotomy between the inherently claustrophobic nature of traveling by train, with its small beds and cabins, and the wide-open expanse of a vast barely-populated, snow-covered landscape, ...Read More

Tropic Thunder is star/co-writer/director Ben Stiller's big middle finger to the critics who have noted that his career trajectory has turned pretty lame since he started doing family-friendly, lowest-common-denominator fare like Meet the Fockers and Night at the Museum. Sure, they made Ben billions, but where was the daring performer ...Read More

If you're planning on seeing Vicky Cristina Barcelona, prepare yourself for a surprise. It's not a third-act twist and Javier Bardem definitely isn't a ghost or anything, but, if you've been following the movie's ad campaign, you might be very, very surprised to know that Vicky Cristina Barcelona is actually ...Read More

The folks behind MovieRetriever.com are raising money for the Children's Leukemia Foundation of Michigan this summer and would like to ask for your help. First, a little back story to set the mood....Every year, the MovieRetriever.com Team participates in the Hollywood Nights Movie Marathon - 24 hours of ...Read More

If you've never heard of Joss Whedon, then you obviously don't watch TV or movies, you probably don't go on the internet that much, you definitely don't read comic books or blogs, and you probably don't know any men or women between the ages of 18 to 35. Now ...Read More

 The title of the latest Apatow-verse comedy, Pineapple Express, refers to a particularly rare and potent blend of marijuana, a miracle buzz that only a few lucky people can get from the right dealer. It seems appropriate subject matter for a comedy that is itself a unique blend of action ...Read More

What was it about the 1980s that inspires so much nostalgia nowadays? Was it the eight years of Reaganomics? The collapse of East European communism? New Coke, parachute pants, Thriller, Pac-Man, two separate-but-equal Teen Wolf movies? (Don't laugh. The first Teen Wolf is much, much worse than you remember.) Who ...Read More

 With a title that reads like a Mad Libs contest winner for stupid action sequels (other failed-but-equal entries might have been "Crypt of the Monkey King" or "Pyramid of the Lizard Master"), The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor takes the already-mediocre reputation set by the first two Mummy films ...Read More

 A pair of awkward couples head to a cabin in the middle of nowhere after attending an independent film festival. The indie feature "We Are Naked" has inspired the foursome to believe that they can make a great film on their own with basically the money in their pockets and ...Read More

 In this most vitriolic of political seasons, it makes sense that a studio would release a film that tries to bring peace to this increasingly divided country. Who better to unite us all than the everyman character that Kevin Costner has worn over the years like a comfortable pair of ...Read More

It seems funny, given the current box office dominance of The Dark Knight, that, just three weeks ago, Batman publisher DC Comics was having a high-level summit with its sister company Warner Brothers to come up with a more consistent strategy for bringing DC's wide catalog of superhero properties to ...Read More

Here at the MovieRetriever offices, we're usually more than willing to give a movie, any movie, the benefit of the doubt. You never know when you're going to find a diamond in the rough, when something that sounds like an insanely stupid idea - a movie based on a Disney ...Read More

 Anticipation breeds expectation. Sure, the last few seasons of The X Files wrote a terrible final chapter for a once-amazing show, but the prospect of the reunion of Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and Chris Carter made the fanboy in all of us, well, to quote the title, want to believe. ...Read More

Just the fact that they've made another Brideshead Revisited after the universally beloved BBC mini-series is somewhat remarkable in itself. Or stupid. It depends on who you ask. At the very least, it had to be daunting to look at that epic book and the complexity of the highly acclaimed ...Read More

 Will Ferrell and Adam McKay turned Pearl, a trash-mouthed toddler, into a superstar with a hilarious clip on their website Funny or Die. Step Brothers seems like a natural extension of that clip. You can almost picture Ferrell and McKay asking, "What's funnier than a baby who says bitch?" "Eleven-year-olds ...Read More

Around the MovieRetriever offices, we've taken to referring to this week's big-screen X-Files sequel as X-Files: I Want to Believe That This Movie Will Be Good, But, Honestly, Did You See How the Series Ended? What the Hell was Chris Carter Thinking?  But can you blame us for not wanting ...Read More

 Like a prisoner who eventually starts to hum along to the Metallica song his captors have been pounding into his head for days, Mamma Mia! nearly broke down my defenses. There are SO many things wrong with this big-screen adaptation of the hit play that it's hard to know where ...Read More

 A few weeks back, I marveled (pun intended) at the critical and commercial success of the truly mediocre The Incredible Hulk, even going as far as to suggest a settling in our expectations of the superhero genre. Had utter crap like The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Ghost Rider dulled us ...Read More

Now that the long, agonizing wait is over and The Dark Knight is finally being released this week, we at MovieRetriever.com find ourselves faced with a difficult situation. For months, we've been debating, arguing, and geeking out over what we wanted from Christopher Nolan's sequel to Batman Begins and, now that ...Read More

The Hound is a busy dog – camping out for Dark Knight IMAX tickets one night, hosting a Kurosawa retrospective the next – so he doesn’t always have the time to write 2500-word opuses on the latest Miramax or Girls Gone Wild DVD. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico With his Spanish-language features, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro proved that he has the skills to make dreams (or, more accurately, nightmares) come to life. He's not just fascinated by the things that go bump in the night, he wants to make puppets ...Read More

  Review by Brian Tallerico "I wish I'd read the book." It's rare, but, every once in a while, a character in the movie you're reviewing writes the review for you. Those six simple words are spoken by Sean (Josh Hutcherson), a PSP-loving, adult-hating 13-year-old who goes on a break-neck adventure with his ...Read More

OK, 2008, it's time for a little tough love. Since we're such big film fans, the MovieRetriever staff has been trying to give 2008 the benefit of the doubt, but, now that the year is officially half over, we've finally got to say - this is one of the worst ...Read More

Welcome to Part Two of MovieRetriever's Picks for the 15 Upcoming Contenders for the 2008 Best Picture Oscar! To read Part One, click HERE: ***** Movie: The Soloist    Director: Joe Wright Screenwriter: Susannah Grant Cast: Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jr., Catherine KeenerTentative Release Date: November 21, 2008      What's it About:  A true ...Read More

The Hound is a busy dog – flying down to Argentina to see the newly-discovered uncut version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis one day, perfecting his homemade Hellboy costume the next – so he doesn’t always have the time to write 2500-word opuses on the latest Criterion or National Lampoon DVD. ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico Do you cheer for the player who swings for the fences even if he hits a foul ball? What if he grounds into a double play? How about if he strikes out with the bases loaded? Pick your baseball metaphor and apply it to Hancock. No matter ...Read More

The Hound is a busy dog – giving Guillermo Del Toro notes on his Hobbit script one day, updating his Brangelina fan site the next – so he doesn’t always have the time to write 2,500-word opuses on the latest Sony Pictures Classics or "Masters of Horror" DVD. But that ...Read More

Now that our critic at large, Brian Tallerico, has given his opinion on The Love Guru, we here at MovieRetriever.com thought you might enjoy an additional perspective from a VideoHound editor on the film. So, without further adieu, here is the opinion of... Turk182: While The Love Guru has its ...Read More

Review by Brian Tallerico The guilty pleasure of the year has finally arrived. The movie that you'll be slightly ashamed to admit you secretly love - and that you'll probably end up watching on cable long after the "bigger" movies from Summer '08 have faded from memory - is called Wanted, ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico There's almost always something negative that can be said about a movie. Even some of the best in Hollywood history were "a bit too long" or had a performance or two that didn't totally work. Show me a classic, I'll show you something wrong with it. I’m ...Read More

The Hound is a busy dog – filming a cameo for Soderbergh's Che one day, cataloging his collection of Shannon Tweed production stills the next – so he doesn’t always have the time to write 2500-word opuses on the latest Picturehouse or "Corey Feldman Presents" DVD. But that doesn’t mean ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico Someone needs to be punished. The Love Guru isn't just your average bad movie. Smoothly limbo-ing below already low expectations, this "alleged" comedy is the kind of cultural and comedic offense that audiences should demand retribution after seeing. And just giving them back their money won’t do. ...Read More

Review by Brian Tallerico Do you think it took this long to bring Get Smart to the big screen because producers knew the potential for title-based anti-quotes was just too easy? Just let me get this out of my system - "'Get Stupid' is more like it!" "There's nothing 'Smart' about ...Read More

To honor the release of the big screen adaptation of Get Smart (with apologies to the earlier Don Adams vehicle The Nude Bomb), we’ve decided to compile a list of some of the movies based on much-loved television shows that probably would have been best left in development. We’ll hope ...Read More

Review by Brian Tallerico I've got good news and bad news. The Incredible Hulk isn't nearly as awful as its previews made it out to be, but it also isn't nearly as good as it could have been. If anything, Hulk is further proof that the superhero genre has entered its ...Read More

 Occasionally, certain movies inspire so much critical debate that it's necessary to have more than one critic weigh in on the issue. Keeping that in mind, we here at MovieRetriever invited two of our editors to weigh in on the new M. Night Shyamalan thriller, The Happening, which hits theatres ...Read More

This was originally supposed to be a compilation of the best adaptations of Marvel Comics. But when we realized the list would be limited to Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, and Iron Man, we felt that would be just a bit too obvious. So, we here at MovieRetriever.com ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico There's been an interesting trend in CGI animated films over the last few years - they've become commonplace. The "wow" factor has worn off as each summer has seen more and more throwaway animated films like The Ant Bully, Open Season, and Surf's Up. Despite occasional advancements ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico More than anything else, You Don't Mess With the Zohan is proof that Adam Sandler can get anything he want green-lit. Seriously, can you think of another actor who could go to a studio with the story of an Israeli soldier who wants to be a hairdresser, ...Read More

   Review by Brian Tallerico Workplace comedies are a dime a dozen. The fact is, for every instant cult classic like Office Space, there are a dozen Mad Moneys. Steve Conrad's directorial debut (his screenwriting credits include The Weather Man and The Pursuit of Happyness) is a confident and clever character study ...Read More

Review by Tom Burns  Despite how you feel about the final product, you have to admit that The Foot Fist Way, a long buzzed-about indie comedy about a strip-mall Tae Kwan Do sensei, has a pretty damn original marketing campaign - a campaign that basically boils down to "Very funny people ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico To put things in context and fend off any accusations of my gender rendering me incapable of competently appraising the film version of Sex and the City, a caveat is required - I've seen every episode of the landmark HBO series. Not only did I watch the ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico Tarsem Singh's The Cell (2000) was a visually sumptuous but incredibly hollow theatrical experience. Despite its shortcomings, the film heralded the debut of a cinematic painter who needed only to marry his original eye with a more consistent voice to become a very interesting director. Six years ...Read More

Review by Brian Tallerico The Strangers is the most surprisingly effective thriller of the year to date. While the genre has turned to exploitative junk or gratuitous violence in the last few years, Bryan Bertino's debut film works largely because of what it doesn't do, as much as what it does. ...Read More

Welcome to MovieRetriever.com! To celebrate our arrival on the Web, we’re giving away three copies of VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever 2008 every week until July 6, 2008. Because we want you to have fun on our site and not be assaulted with countless rules or be forced to jump through a never-ending series ...Read More

Acclaimed director Sydney Pollack died Monday, May 26, at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles. He was 73. Although best known as a director of such films as Out of Africa (for which he won a Best Director Oscar), Tootsie and They Shoot Horses Don't They? (both of which ...Read More

It's no secret that the Hound has a big, big man-crush on Uwe Boll, a film director who could alternately be described as either the P.T. Barnum or Ed Wood of our generation. Though Uwe has built up a wide canon of video game-based movies (House of the Dead, Alone ...Read More

Review by Brian Tallerico Hide the women and children. Uwe Boll has made a comedy. Actually, hide the men and old folks too. The man who has made several unintentional comedies over the last few years actually goes for laughs in Postal and, to no one’s surprise, comes up incredibly short. ...Read More

Now that our critic at large, Brian Tallerico, has given his opinion on the new Indiana Jones film, we here at MovieRetriever.com thought you might enjoy some additional perspectives from the VideoHound editors on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. So, without further adieu, here are the ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico  Since Harrison Ford first cracked a whip in one of the best movies of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark, countless imitators have stepped forward to try and take the action/adventure throne away from Indiana Jones. The Mummy and National Treasure franchises are the most blatant ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico  Following the pattern of The Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is significantly darker than its predecessor. How dark you may ask? While it never reaches the blackness of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End's pre-title hanging of children, ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico  At first, Redbelt might seem like a departure for David Mamet. “A martial arts movie from the man who gave the world Glengarry Glen Ross? What is this? Never Back the F**k Down?” Mamet has always written about people who use words as weapons (all those f-bombs ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico  When I asked one of the child actors in Monster House about how old he thought audience members should be to see his darker-than-most children's film, he brilliantly responded "if you're old enough to have jumped off a roof." Men everywhere remember that age - the age ...Read More

It's a sad fact that "buzz" - the ethereal spectre of public opinion, either good or bad - can very often make or break even the most well-funded Hollywood blockbuster. This should be particularly troubling to the Wachowski Brothers, since the buzz surrounding their big-screen Speed Racer adaptation is, for ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico  It either takes nerves of steel or a brain of pudding to make a family film that's 129 minutes long, but no one ever said the Wachowski Brothers played by the rules (or even by common sense). Forget the fact that Speed Racer is a kid’s movie. ...Read More

Since Iron Man has launched the summer movie season with superhero bravado and a surprisingly hefty Rotten Tomatoes rating, the Hound thought it fitting to revisit those comic book-inspired movies that would have probably been best left to the funny book. Don’t get us wrong, in theory, we love super heroes ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico  A film festival could already be formed around the documentaries made about the U.S. involvement in the Middle East under the Bush administration. (You could make one with the narrative films too but, based on the critical and commercial returns of films like Rendition and ...Read More

 Review by Brian Tallerico It has a lot to do with the strength of the source material, but there’s a rule that you can follow when it comes to superhero movies - trust the “man." Batman, X-Men, Spider-Man - with the exception of a bit ...Read More

Toss a bone down the street every morning, and the Hound will come running back with his favorite news stories from the Hollywood trades and beyond. It's a lot easier than paying for subscriptions. Guillermo del Toro has been announced as the director of The Hobbit and its sequel which ...Read More

Cut the ribbon, pop the champagne, and put down some newspaper, VideoHound has finally made it to the internet with MovieRetriever.com! For those of you unfamiliar with us, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever has been around for almost 20 years, featuring over 28,000 movie reviews and the coolest, funkiest, and paws-down ...Read More

The Hound is a busy dog – jetting to movie premieres in Prague one day, operating a boom mike in an Albert Pyun vampire movie the next – so he doesn’t always have the time to write 2500-word opuses on the latest Criterion or Full Moon Pictures DVD.  But that ...Read More

Toss a bone down the street every morning, and the Hound will come running back with his favorite news stories from the Hollywood trades and beyond. We don’t understand it either. Maybe we should get him a shock collar.Comics guru Frank Miller (he of 300 and Sin City Fame) is ...Read More

We're feeling a bit nostalgic this week at Movie Retriever, wistfully remembering those heady days of 2007, back when gas only cost $4 per gallon and we hadn't yet seen The Bucket List (damn you, Meathead). To crave our yearnings for those earlier, simpler times, the Movie Retriever editorial ...Read More

As most of the world has already heard, Australian actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on Tuesday, January 22. He was 28 years old. For such a young man, Ledger developed a beyond-impressive film resume, working with some of the best filmmakers of his generation. While ...Read More

Now that the low-budget Cloverfield broke all January box office records, you can expect two things from Hollywood — a flood of new movies told from first-person POVs (romance movies recorded on cellphones, crime movies filmed on ATM security cameras, and so on) and a big, big resurgence in ...Read More

Anyone's who been to the Hound's head office knows how much the MovieRetriever staff loves — and we mean, unabashedly LOVES — director Uwe Boll. And we're not being ironic hipsters or anything, we honestly, truly love both the man and his films. Why? Because if Monty Python and Judd ...Read More

Even though (not surprisingly), there are a fair number of old school comic book nerds on the MovieRetriever payroll, we're really conflicted about the recent news that Warner Brothers has shelved their formerly fast-tracked Justice League movie. According to Variety [http://www.variety.com/VR1117979189.html], "Warner Bros. let the options lapse ...Read More

Many thanks to the excellent Best Week Ever blog [http://www.bestweekever.tv] for putting John Boorman's 1974 classic Zardoz back on the Hound's radar. One of the things we miss most about the 1970s — aside from Mummenschanz and Billy Beer — is how the success of 2001:A ...Read More

As a loving tribute to the American holiday industrial complex, here are some MovieRetriever staff picks of our favorite holiday movies of all time. Read, enjoy, and come back often! MovieRetriever's Staff Picks for Our Favorite Holiday MoviesVideoHound Editor: Turk182Movie: A Christmas Story (1983) Why: The traditionalists can have ...Read More