Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." However, young people growing up today with high-quality cameras and social media platforms in their pockets have taken this to a level that Socrates couldn't have imagined. Combine this with the popularity and pervasiveness of reality TV stars who are...

On Tuesday, I was happy/relieved to see that Wim Wenders' film Pina was nominated for 2012's Best Documentary Oscar -- even if it didn't make the cut for Best Foreign Film, though that was always a long shot. Pina is a tribute to Pina Rausch, a German choreographer who pioneered...

Director Steven Soderbergh's new action thriller Haywire stars real-life mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano as Mallory Kane, a former Marine turned special ops contractor who goes rogue to find out why her employers framed her and tried to have her killed. One character in the film tells...

You probably remember those few extremely good-looking people from high school, who you spent hours gazing at from across a classroom or quad, fantasizing about a perfect future together and wishing that they would see all the wonderful things about you. So strong was the spell of their beauty that,...

In my opinion, to call the three-year track record of recent 3D films "mixed" would be extremely generous. With the exception of James Cameron's Avatar, I'd go so far as to say that the added dimension has made practically every 3D movie I've seen worse or, at best, was largely...

As movies have become more expensive to make and market, big studios have become more risk averse, which is why more and more films are remakes, sequels, or are based on popular previous works. The thinking is that fans of the original work may see a film based on nostalgia...

The ability of star power to reliably generate box office dollars used to be one of the truisms of the film industry. Add a megawatt star to even the lamest of scripts and a decent return was all but guaranteed as audiences would surely turn out to gaze upon Hollywood...

You probably haven't heard of The Artist (it's playing in very limited release), but critics and film buffs have, evidenced by the film's soaring 96% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a string of wins and nominations at film festivals, including a nomination for the Palme d'Or at...

With the Christmas marketing juggernaut in full swing, many parents find themselves in the annual battle for the soul of Christmas. Will children see Christmas as a celebration of charity, family, good will, and peace on earth, or as a rare opportunity for sanctioned (and even sanctified) greed, where getting...

In 2004, I had an amazing, unique experience at the movie theater, as I watched a stoner comedy about two best friends who embark on a pot-fueled quest to find their favorite hamburgers. While stoner movies are hardly new, what was so remarkable about this one was that the two...

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Great Recession officially began in December 2007. But for many Americans (and most of the world), the recession truly began in September 2008 with the spectacular collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers. It was the largest bankruptcy in...

In my mind, few films have told the complete soldier's story from enlistment to deployment, then past the homecoming parades and into the difficult process of returning to civilian life. But Heather Courtney's fantastic documentary Where Soldiers Come From does just that as it follows three young men from Michigan's...

I'll start by saying that I never saw the original 1984 Footloose, though I have good memories of the titular pop single by Kenny Loggins and its great music video. So in that sense, my objections to a remake of Footloose were not out of nostalgia, but from...

Cameron Crowe is sort of considered rock 'n' roll's director, especially with his years spent as a teenage Rolling Stone reporter -- an experience immortalized in one of Crowe's best films, Almost Famous. An unabashed music geek who features songs prominently in his films, Crowe would seem like the perfect...

Global cancer rates are on the rise, with the World Health Organization estimating that cancer rates could rise by as much as 50% by 2020 unless governments and healthcare providers start more aggressive campaigns to promote healthier lifestyles. But you probably already know that cancer is on the...

I tend to enjoy baseball movies, especially ones that focus on the traditions and mystique of the game like Bull Durham and Field of Dreams. However, I find the actual sport of baseball to be incredibly boring. After all, it's a sport where virtually nothing is happening 99% of the...

If you've seen any of the ads for the new film Drive starring Ryan Gosling as a nameless stunt driver who moonlights as a wheelman for hire, you'd probably think Drive is a darker, more artsy installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise, with accomplished actors like Albert Brooks,...

Diseases can be tricky movie villains. They're invisible and could be carried by anyone, making them particularly insidious and unnerving, and we have an innate fear of illness, whether it's killers like the plague or AIDS or the yearly discomfort from flu season. But you can't fight a virus like...

The great "nature vs. nurture" debate rages on, with both sides periodically gaining or losing ground based on whatever new study has been released. The new comedy Our Idiot Brother wades into this discussion with the question: Are hippies born, or are they made?

If you look at the siblings...

The international best selling book One Day has been made into a movie starring Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway as Dexter and Emma, two British friends with possibilities whose friendship and romantic near-misses are followed over 20 years by checking in with them every July 15th. As you might've...