Having just seen Disney’s Alice Through the Looking Glass on opening night, with a paying audience at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood, I am late in filing my review. I had a mixed reaction ...
This screen series based on the colorful Marvel characters has proved to be both durable and flexible: having enjoyed a great run in its initial phase, it spun off two Wolverine vehicles for Hugh...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/x-men-on-the-brink-20160526
Many of my friends have said of the current Presidential election follies, “You couldn’t make this stuff up.” The same is true of former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner’s career—bef...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/weiner-you-cant-look-away-20160524
As sequels go, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is pretty funny. It reunites the entire team responsible for the 2014 comedy hit, right down to the little girl who plays Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne’...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/neighbors-2-a-rare-sequel-that-scores-20160520
Just to be clear, the leading characters in this violent action-comedy are anything but nice. That’s the level of humor in The Nice Guys, the latest endeavor from Shane Black, whose Lethal Weap...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/not-so-nice-guys-in-action-20160520
The world is so crazy that it’s tough for social satirists to devise anything more absurd than what we see in our daily news reports. That’s just one of the problems with Money Monster, a Net...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/money-monster-shortchanges-suspense-20160513
The latest film from writer-director Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) is a sober, utterly compelling look at a man who flees from his native Sri Lanka—and its brutal civil war—to st...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/stranger-in-a-strange-land-dheepan-20160512
For a number of people I know, the movie event of the year doesn’t involve superheroes or special effects: it’s a restoration of the 1930 Technicolor musical The King of Jazz. T...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/jazzed-about-the-king-of-jazz-20160510
Yes, it’s time for another movie preview show featuring me and my colorful partner Grae Drake, senior editor of Rotten Tomatoes. We enjoy doing these half-hour shows for ReelzChan...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/summer-movie-preview-with-grae-drake-and-me-20160506
Dough is a sweet, feel-good film from England that may not edge out Captain America at the box-office but offers what TV folks call counter-programming. It’s aimed at mature (read: older) movie...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/dough-hits-a-sweet-spot-20160506
Any movie that opens by showing its leading actors matter-of-factly lying naked by a pool is almost certainly European. In fact, A Bigger Splash is the most European movie I’ve ever seen in the...
Is there really nothing left for comic-book superheroes to do on the big screen but fight each other? I find that a sad state of affairs and frankly, not much fun to watch. Nothing could be as dr...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/captain-americathis-means-war-20160504
Laurel and Hardy are coming back to theater screens beginning this weekend in Los Angeles, and that’s cause for celebration. If you’re already a fan, come and enjoy yourself; if you have kids...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/laurel-and-hardy-looking-better-than-ever-20160504
I’m still recovering from the TCM Classic Film Festival this past weekend, where I hosted ten events…but I suspect that some of the people I interviewed are doing just fine because they seem ...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/age-is-just-a-number-at-the-tcm-festival-20160503
I feared that The Meddler would be a one-joke movie; the “joke” being that a widow (Susan Sarandon) moves from New Jersey to California to be near her daughter (Rose Byrne) and just won’t l...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/susan-sarandon-shines-in-the-meddler-20160422
I love attending film festivals away from home, so I can immerse myself completely. I think I know, by now, what makes for a successful one: a good location, interesting films, equa...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/engaging-with-film-at-ebertfest-20160419
Jon Favreau’s new production of The Jungle Book for Disney is nothing short of spectacular: a reinvention of the much-loved cartoon feature brought to life with taste, heart, and cutting-edge t...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/the-jungle-book-reinvented-20160415
Sing Street is a real charmer from John Carney, the writer-director of Once and Begin Again. Like those films, this isn’t a musical in the conventional sense of the word but it uses original s...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/sing-street-in-one-word-irresistible-20160415
It’s hard to define good taste, but it’s easy to recognize its absence. That’s the problem with The Boss. So much of Melissa McCarthy’s new movie is hilarious that it’s frustrating to w...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/melissa-mccarthy-as-the-boss-a-near-miss-20160408
We all process grief in our own way: that’s the crux of Demolition, in which Jake Gyllenhaal loses his wife and proceeds to fall apart. I should have been on the verge of tears through all of t...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/jake-gyllenhaal-breaks-down-in-demolition-20160408
As usual, film books pile up faster than I can read them, so with the exception of the first title below and the picture-book that follows, I cannot call these reviews. They are summaries based o...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/new-and-notable-film-booksapril-2016-20160406
The time is August of 1980, the setting is Texas, and the guys who populate Richard Linklater’s newest film are members of a college baseball team who share living quarters. The newly-arrived f...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/everybody-wants-someand-should-20160330
ANIMATION: A WORLD HISTORY VOLUME 1: FOUNDATIONS/THE GOLDEN AGE; VOLUME 2: THE BIRTH OF A STYLE/THE THREE MARKETS; VOLUME 3: CONTEMPORARY TIMES by Giannalberto Bendazzi (CRC Press/Focal Press ) ...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/new-and-notable-animation-books-20160328
I’m not sure anyone was waiting for, let alone demanding, a sequel to the surprise sleeper of 2002, but it’s here just the same, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 may well please its intended au...
I’m about to give away the biggest spoiler imaginable regarding this multimillion dollar movie: it sucks. That’s not a word I usually employ but I can’t think of a better way to describe my...
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/batman-superman-v-the-audience-20160324