Latest film reviews
Comedy
‘The Hangover: Part III’
"The Hangover: Part III" is seriously unfunny, more likely to cause hangovers for series' fans who quite rightly expect raunchy gags and hearty laughs. Neither is to be had in this curious and almost melancholy wrap — or so the filmmakers … [More ... ]
‘Love Is All You Need’
Danish director Susanne Bier, coming off a series of intense dramas including her Oscar-winning "In a Better World," "Things We Lost in the Fire" and "After the Wedding," shifts gears with "Love Is All You Need." As the title suggests, she is … [More ... ]
Indie Films
‘Black Rock’
A weak feminist-driven venture into "Deliverance" territory turns into a "Please-deliver-us" exercise in midnight-cinema formula filmmaking without rhyme or reason other than a few grisly money shots in a bloody climax. Whether the … [More ... ]
‘Arthur Newman’
The director of "Arthur Newman," Dante Ariola, an award-winning commercials director making his feature debut, says his film has met with mixed reactions on the festival circuit leading up to its opening this week. I can see why. Things … [More ... ]
More movie reviews
‘Midnight’s Children’
Early reviews of Deepa Mehta's adaptation of Salman Rushdie's masterpiece, "Midnight's Children," have obsessively focused on the issue of the book-to-screenplay adaptation — once believed to be a near impossibility in this instance The teeming cross-currents of characters and events from that boisterous novel, according to these critics, either … [More ... ]
‘G-Dog’
There are few genuine heroes in American life these days but few would doubt that East L.A's Father Greg Boyle -- or G-Dog or simply G as he is called -- is among them. Known certainly to many in Los Angeles and even across the country thanks to TV appearances on "Dr. Phil" and "Tavis Smiley," this Jesuit priest has devoted a quarter century to … [More ... ]
‘Oblivion’
Joseph Kosinski's original idea for his sci-fi'er "Oblivion" was a 12-page story. Instead of becoming a movie — this was in his pre-"TRON: Legacy" days, you understand — the idea turned instead into a trial-balloon graphic novel that has only now become a BIG DEAL Tom Cruise movie. Yet when you encounter this mystifying film that proudly … [More ... ]
‘Olympus Has Fallen’
The "money shot" in Roland Emmerich's alien-invasion movie "Independence Day" — the moment displayed in the film's trailer that told everyone they just had to see this movie back in 1996 — came when the White House blew up. A new action movie from director Antoine Fuqua, "Olympus Has Fallen," extends that shot for nearly the entire … [More ... ]
‘Oz The Great and Powerful’
Disney's pre-release publicity for its high-stakes, very large budget "Oz The Great and Powerful" notes that L. Frank Baum, who wrote 14 novels set in Oz, his great land of fantasy, never fully portrayed the wizard's background. Such backgrounds, of course, are what Hollywood likes to call "origin stories." These are a backdoor into the … [More ... ]
Kirk is a longtime professional movie reviewer. He's best known as the former chief film critic for the Hollywood Reporter.