philmguy

J. Edgar – Leonardo DiCaprio cakes on a goofy makeup mask to play sexually repressed FBI head J. Edgar Hoover as he rises up the ranks and manages the

All Quiet on the Western Front Blu-ray – One of the first great movies with sound, the 1930 classic tells the sad, brutal saga of German teens who enlist to

Safe House plays out just like a romantic comedy, only with slightly more explosions, car chases, hand-cuffings, ear-yankings and stabbings with glass

Anonymous – A fun piece of historical fiction. Shakespeare nuts will eat this up, as will fans of The Tudors. Excellent acting and costumes help buoy a

Adaptation Blu-ray — The trippy 2002 film from the formidable Spike Jonze-Charlie Kaufman directing-screenwriting team casts Nicolas Cage in a double role as a

Belle du Jour Blu-ray – Director's Luis Buñuel's lavish 1967 drama stars Catherine Deneuve as the original desperate housewife, who begins moonlighting as a

Abduction — The serviceable thriller follows a path set by Enemy of the State, only with a high school bent. Taking a break from his broken-hearted werewolf

Boardwalk Empire: Season 1 – HBO's exquisite Prohibition-era drama details the exploits of fictionalized bootlegger barron Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), who

1. The Artist — Like all film lovers, I've held my nose and plowed through the silent classics in order to develop an appreciation for the caveman days of the

Apollo 18A silly faux-doc – think Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project – tells the story of a fictional final Moon landing that went awry, leading to

Colombiana In a thriller inspired by La Femme Nikita, The Professional and Kill Bill, Zoë Saldana plays an assassin trained since childhood who is obsessed with

Pop quiz. "Ghost Protocol" is:A. The subtitle of the new Mission: Impossible.B. Something that sounds too much like the names of 100,000 video games.C. What

Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Remarkable computer animation and puppetry combine with an expected brilliant lead performance by Andy Serkis make this my

Sorry purists who are lovestruck by the Swedish adaptations of the trilogy that started with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The Hollywood remake makes the

Diablo Cody seems incapable of writing realistic dialogue or giving characters believable motivations. Or giving them names that don't seem like they came from

Another Earth – I dig sci-fi films that don't feel the need to trot out laser blasters, metallic unitards and flying cars. This quiet character study tells the

Apparently, being dead for 31 years makes you really horny. You want to claw your way out of the grave, grab a shaky handheld camera and start filming people

The Future – Quirky writer/director Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know) stars in this offbeat, slice-of-life tale of mid-30s angst. July plays a

Beginners – Ewan McGregor stars as a romantically challenged moper who starts up a new relationship while recalling the final days of his deceased father

The Change-Up – Jason Bateman is a buttoned-down, responsible dad, and Ryan Reynolds is his unreliable, womanizing best pal who has got stuff in his fridge that

Tower Heist is the Occupy Wall Street movement’s idea of a porno. A group of ritzy apartment complex clock-punchers who’ve had their pensions plundered by a

If they ever make a time travel tourism film about 1960 Puerto Rico, it will be the opposite of The Rum Diary. Hunter S. Thompson’s vision of the setting is as

Captain America: The First Avenger – A muscled-up Chris Evans takes on the role of the stars-and-stripes wearing hero in this surprisingly gritty take on one of

Red State – Director Kevin Smith rebounds in a major way from the Cop Out debacle with a heady thriller that subversively comments on religion, law enforcement,

Green Lantern – Due out Friday, this middling comic book adaptation shoehorns Ryan Reynolds into the role of the power ring-wielding hero, who flies about the

Fast Five – Vin Diesel and Paul Walker resume their homoerotic, nitro-fueled bromance in this car-centric action series, which caught a second wind after 2009's

Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Due out Friday, the summer blockbuster brings its relentless chain of maximum-budget explosions and insipid dialogue into your

Bridesmaids – The female-centric answer to The Hangover, the film aims to prove female-driven comedies can be every bit as disgusting and crass as those

Thor – Available in 3D as well as 2D, my favorite comic book movie of the summer wields its thunderous hammer in stunning high-definition. Director Kenneth

X-Men: First Class – Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn pulls out a defibrillator and revives the mummified X-Men series, scrapping the nonsense of the past

Prom – Aimee Teegarden, best known as the coach's daughter on Friday Night Lights, plays an eager go-getter who falls for an anti-establishment dude (Thomas

Gossip Girl: Season 4 – The CW soap opera about the comings and goings of Manhattan elites ditches Taylor Momsen and Jessica Szohr in favor of more screentime

The Bang Bang Club – Ryan Phillippe plays one of four photojournalists take to strife-torn South Africa in the early 1990s to make names for themselves and

If Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera arm-wrestled, no one would win and daffodils would pop up from the table. This is actually my way of complimenting both

Super – The indie-film answer to last year's sensational Kick-Ass star's The Office's Rainn Wilson as a sad-sack restaurant worker who becomes a masked

I believe it was Socrates who once advised “Never pee into a public fountain while wishing you had the life of a friend who’s peeing next to you, lest you run

Ferris Bueller's Day Off: 25th Anniversary Blu-ray – In 1986, back when Matthew Broderick was capable of starring in good movies, this John Hughes-directed gem

Well, they got Crazy and Stupid right. My only suggestion to make the title more accurate is to change Love to Hate. A romantic comedy with too many

Source Code – In this drama, a sci-fi take on the Groundhog Day concept, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a war vet who is locked in a chamber and tasked to travel back in

Limitless – If you're a video game fan who's got any doubts about director Neil Burger and star Bradley Cooper adapting Uncharted into a movie, this gripping,

If Alfred Hitchcock lived in our time, had an eighth of his talent and was obsessed with blunt sex jokes, Horrible Bosses is exactly the movie he would make.

Beastly – This one's more notable for its odd and surprisingly high-profile supporting cast (Neil Patrick Harris, Mary-Kate Olsen and Peter Krause) than its

Copying off the paper of Bad Santa, and even going so far as to swipe a couple of its punch lines, Bad Teacher would seem to be doomed because its parts aren’t

The Adjustment Bureau – Matt Damon takes on a role that blends his Jason Bourne and Will Hunting qualities, playing a politician who tangles with a tapestry of

Hall Pass – Shattering his typecast as a care-free slacker, Owen Wilson plays a pudgy, overweight and unconfident family man whose wife (Jenna Fischer) gives

Just Go With It – In this lame romantic comedy that manages to stretch the silly standards of the genre past their breaking point, Adam Sandler plays a wealthy

Biutiful – In a role that earned him a best actor Oscar nomination – something that rarely happens in a foreign language film – Javier Bardem plays a Barcelona

The Roommate — Leighton Meester ditches her party girl persona to play a psychopath who becomes obsessed with her college roomie (Minka Kelly), working behind

The Mechanic — Continuing to play the same stoic, determined action hero archetype in each movie, Jason Statham stars in a remake of a 1972 Charles Bronson

Blue Valentine – I’m ashamed of myself for not having seen this movie before I put together my top 10 list last year, because it definitely would have cracked