A Good Day to Die Hard is not Die Hard; it’s also not good and mostly takes place at night. So really, the whole title is a lie.]]> The fourth film in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn: Part 1 reveals a flash or two of real filmmaking (mostly in a suggestively grotesque birthing sequence), enough to save it from pure lousiness. But a significant number of its 117 minutes do seem like hours, and whenever certain actors take the lead and set the pace of the dialogue, time itself begins to crawl backward and the breaking dawn begins to feel like yesterday’s breaking dawn, or last Tuesday’s. How did this happen?]]> Somewhere in a Ukrainian cave, the film crew for No Place on Earth switched off their headlamps.]]> Jack Reacher, the hero of Jack Reacher (in case you were confused), is a drifter with nothing to lose. We know this because that is exactly what Tom Cruise says he is while yelling at a bad guy on the phone, Taken-style.]]> needs a friend. His mom has just died in a traffic accident. His dad, Paul, has withdrawn into a haze of tranquilizers and group-therapy blather. His grandma is kind but housebound. The school bully likes pushing him facedown onto urinal cakes.]]> With Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, director Brad Bird makes his live-action feature debut, having made a name for himself and a few hundred million for Disney/Pixar with The Incredibles and one of the freshest comedies of the last few years, Ratatouille. It’s obvious but probably needs restating: Live action is a different beast from animation. ]]> There’s no good reason why '2 Days in New York' even exists, let alone anything that would explain how it came to be pretty fantastic.]]> It seems nerve-wracking. Showing more than 50 films over four days at numerous venues in one small city. Hosting world-class celebrities including Oliver Stone and James Franco. Organizing a mostly volunteer staff of almost 300 people.]]> Though it offers plenty of larky scenes, such as Vince Vaughn and Kevin James man-dancing together at the Green Mill (the popular Chicago jazz club) or taking in a Blackhawks game, it's darker than any of the ads suggest.]]> Jackie Chan's newest film, The Spy Next Door, is positioned as a sort of kung fu version of Kindergarten Cop, where the running shtick is that he’s a superspy, but his cute neighbor Gillian (Amber Valletta) and her kids think he’s a bumbling salesman. The kids are puzzled by why Gillian is dating Bob Ho (Chan), as are we viewers, because there’s absolutely zero chemistry between them.]]> I’m sick of the sparkly, romantic vampires that are haunting popular cinema, which is why I really enjoyed the historical mashup Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.]]> It takes a certain sense of humor to enjoy a horror comedy film like Zombieland, but if you can laugh at graphic violence and can see the humor in parody, then this is a great movie for you to catch.]]> Albert Casals’ version of travel is the equivalent of doing a solo ascent on K2 without oxygen and wearing only your underwear. It’s adventure travel without map or net.]]> GI Joe: Retaliation’s script is so horrible, it should be in MoMA. Just like some people can’t stop staring at the world’s ugliest dog, this screenplay is fascinatingly hideous blather.]]> If “director Baz Luhrmann” and “restraint” have ever appeared in the same sentence together, they were the word-bread creating a sandwich around the phrase “has absolutely no.”]]> You know the moment. It’s that split second when your mouth sprints right when your brain comes up lame. Suddenly, an average argument about one thing, one time, is now an argument about everything, every time.]]> The 2000s signaled a new day in television. Gone were the mushy family sitcoms of yesteryear, as new, sarcastic comedy took their place. The hour-long, tear-jerking dramas were replaced by gritty, hard-edged realism while sentimental characters were consumed by a perpetually flawed, and sometimes downright rude lead. Still, the 2000s arguably produced some of the best television writing and acting the small screen has ever seen. Before you get your underwear in a bunch over the list, all of these shows began airing in 2000 or later (so sorry, no Sex & the City, Sopranos or South Park). Let the great debates begin.]]> Ted is a film about a foul-mouthed teddy bear and a 30-something Bostonian with a hot girlfriend and the maturity of, well, a 35-yearold guy who lives with a stuffed animal. I found Ted to be quite hilarious, even as it was easily one of the crudest and most crass films I’ve seen in the theater so far this year.]]> A virtuoso on the kit, Baker was an absolute mess of a man, running through and neglecting multiple wives and children as he compulsively tore through life. ]]> Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is pretty much insane. And maybe it’s supposed to be.]]>