Arts & Entertainment » Movies

By Jayne Freeborne

I just didn’t care.

I wanted to, though, I really did. I went into Killer Elite looking for what I had heard was an enjoyable, well crafted action movie (thank you, Roger Ebert). What I found was an incomprehensible and self-serious excuse for grizzled men to drive boxy 1980s cars, blow things up and shoot each other, all in ...

By Jayne Freeborne 

The phrase ‘epic on a human scale’ gets bandied about fairly often in the film world. Or at least it did until someone realized it’s exceedingly pretentious and makes no sense. I suppose, however, that it can be the only colloquialism to truly describe Ben Sombogaart’s Bride Flight. Set in New Zealand in the 1950s, 60s and the ...

By Brian Engelsma

Nearly 16 years after its release, The Lion King continues to entertain generations of youth. Conventional wisdom has long held that the evil Scar, jealous of his new nephew Simba, usurped the monarchy and established a tyrannical rule based on authoritarian tendencies. But just how accurate is this interpretation of the film.

The character of Scar is far more ...

By Brian Engelsma

That’s right folks, it’s that time of year again. Oscar season has come in full force, and I’ve been busy the last few months handicapping the field and preparing for that night when James Franco and Anne Hathaway lead us through the last year in film. Below I’ve made my picks for many ...

By Audra Foster

A ballet may not seem like the most appropriate setting for a psychological thriller, but in the tenuous reality of Black Swan, it is the perfect breeding ground for dangerous obsession, throbbing sexual tension, and layers upon layers of hidden psychosis.

Everything starts with the naïve Nina Sayers, played by the incomparable Natalie Portman, as she auditions for and ...

By Liz Williams

Last weekend, CAB held its first movie night of the year, screening The Social Network on Friday and Saturday nights in The Junction. Directed by David Fincher, the 2010 film tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and co-founder of Facebook, as he developed and launched the wildly popular online social network during his time at Harvard.

College students ...

By Colleen Cable

When a piece of literature is interpreted into film, there are always inevitable grumblings of dissatisfaction and accusations by the fans of misinterpretation by the filmmakers. Howl suffers from this dichotomy more so than a novel-turned-film because it is based on a poem, which is much more open to interpretation and lacks the architecture of narration and plot ...

By Elizabeth Elliott

This past weekend I journeyed to the Gateway Theater to see the hottest movie of the Halloween season, Paranormal Activity 2. The film smartly features the two things people hate to have bad stuff happen to: dogs and babies.

Despite being a person who is somewhat desensitized to the horror genre (I used to beg my parents to put on ...

By Audra Foster

(Or, Every Movie I Saw  in Theaters This Summer in Fifty Words Exactly.)

Iron Man 2

Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as crack-addled detective—no, a white-man-turned-black—no, a heroin addict—no—does it matter? He brings the same dysfunctional genius he always brings to his role as iron-clad hero Tony Stark, and it makes up for the sequel’s otherwise lackluster plot and ...

By Audra Foster

Despite the pseudo-sexual undertones in the title, How to Train Your Dragon was perfectly kid-friendly, with enough spice to appeal to an older crowd (although I admit I may have been the oldest in the theater, not counting harried parents). It was also, in my eyes, a perfect movie. I could have watched it again immediately after I ...