Reviews: Snitch, Dark Skies and Like Someone in Love

It was a pretty mediocre weekend for film. I think it says something that this year's Academy Awards show was the best thing I saw during the past few days.

My reviews for Patch include "Snitch," an OK drug crime thriller, "Dark Skies," an occasionally scary but mostly just OK alien abduction thriller, and "Like Someone in Love," a puzzling, often intriguing, but ultimately unsatisfying new picture from Abbas Kiarostami.

Here are my Patch reviews.

This coming weekend, I'll catch up with Chan-wook Park's "Stoker," the acclaimed documentary "Leviathan" and, most likely, "21 and Over."

Reviews: Side Effects, Charles Swan, Die Hard and No

I've got some catching up to do. Just got back from a wonderful trip to Morocco, so I'm double posting here as I missed last week's post.

Prior to my departure, I saw Steven Soderbergh's twisty "Side Effects," which is easily the best American film of the year so far. "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III," unfortunately, was not so impressive.

This week, I was taken with Pablo Larrain's political thriller/comedy "No," but not so much with "A Good Day to Die Hard."

For the previous two films, click here to read my reviews.

For the latter, click here.

This coming weekend, I'm definitely going to catch up with Abbas Kiarostami's "Like Someone in Love" as well as at least one of this week's new releases: "Snitch" and "Dark Skies."

Weekend Roundup: Bullet to the Head, Warm Bodies

So, the new year has not exactly kicked off in grand style, cinematically speaking. Michael Apted's "56 Up" is the only picture I'd highly recommend, but that one almost doesn't count since it's part of a long-running series, rather than a work that stands on its own.

That being said, I thought "Warm Bodies" was a modest charmer, which is a surprise considering that it's not only a zombie movie, but also a supernatural teen romance - a phrase that tends to make me think of "Twilight."

Anyway, it's not a great movie, but I'd place it on the short list of films that I've found to be kinda entertaining - that list also includes "The Last Stand" and "Broken City" - this year so far.

I also caught Walter Hill's "Bullet to the Head," which doesn't rank among the director or star Sylvester Stallone's best, but is passable. It's a violent and occasionally amusing, but mostly standard, action film.

Here are my Patch reviews.

This coming weekend, I'll review Roman Coppola's "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III," which I've already seen and found to be a little disappointing.

I'll also catch up with Steven Soderbergh's "Side Effects" and "Identity Thief."