E3 leaves Microsoft punch-drunk
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that Microsoft’s arrogance didn’t yet compare to the hubris of Sony with the PlayStation 2 circa 2006 and that the Xbox One reveal in May wasn’t its giant enemy crab moment. Nope, it wasn’t, but after the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this week in Los Angeles, the company’s Xbox division
New Star Trek explores familiar worlds
The early trailers for Star Trek Into Darkness made it look as if the film would be a slog through the generic grimness of all too many 21st century franchise films. In reality, the sequel to the 2009 Star Trek reboot is as breezy and likeable as its predecessor, a film that is hard to hate and even harder to remember once
Side Effects has a nasty kick
If director Steven Soderbergh really means to retire from making movies after Side Effects, he leaves Hollywood behind on a high. His latest and supposedly last theatrical feature is Prozac laced with arsenic, a deadly cocktail that courses through the blood like a slow poison. Like many of Soderbergh’s
Dog days for the console market
The most memorable image from Microsoft’s reveal of the Xbox One was an animated German Shepherd with Kevlar armour and a high polygon count. Motion-captured from a retired Navy Seal dog to serve as a player companion in this year’s iteration of Call of Duty, the pooch is an apt mascot for the console. The dog
Jurassic Park still holds up 20 years later
You’d think that 20 years of progress in computer-generated imagery (CGI) would make Jurassic Park look like, well, a dinosaur. But Steven Spielberg’s summer blockbuster, re-released this weekend with a 3D makeover, is just as captivating and thrilling now as it was in 1993. It remains a great example of the director’s ability
Best breast forward for Lara Croft
I’ve never been much of a gamer. The only time I’ve ever played were one or two abortive attempts at a Super Mario Bros game on my cousins’ television as a clumsy 10-year-old. Yet, even for me, the name of Lara Croft has been ubiquitous. The sex symbol
Iron Man 3: an avenger disassembled
The Avengers last year assembled four of Marvel’s biggest heroes in a single film, where an army of aliens led by a Norse god laid utter waste to New York City. That’s a tough act to follow, but Iron Man 3 does so by focusing on the character of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) rather than on the superhero firepower
Promised Land: pastoral polemic
Few topics inspire as much heated debate as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which makes it surprising that the subject should fuel a film as tepid as Promised Land. As much morality tale as green polemic, the film reunites Matt Damon with Good Will Hunting director Gus van Sant after 15 years
Seven Psychopaths: maze of meta-ness
Serial killers kill serial killers in Seven Psychopaths, a Hollywood film about an Irish screenwriter in Hollywood written by an Irish screenwriter. It is yet another snarky movie about the movies, a meta-meta-film that borrows liberally from the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Kaufman and the Coen brothers
BioShock Infinite: castles in the sky
Bathed in celestial light, and with the wholesome aroma of carnival popcorn in its air, BioShock Infinite’s airborne city of Columbia is as far from the water-sodden Objectivist dystopia of BioShock in atmosphere as it is in geography. But under its turn-of-the-century fairground Americana, Columbia churns with currents
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