When I first saw the previews indicating that Martin Scorsese was producing and/or directing a kids’ movie, I was pleased. After all, Marty has been responsible for some of the great cinematic masterpieces of our lifetime. Who wouldn’t want to see an absolute master, the guy who brought us Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and The Last Waltz, stretch out and do something for young people? Maybe Marty’ll throw in a cameo from DeNiro or Liotta, trot out a Stones tune or wink at us with a good-natured jab at Catholicism, something to keep the adults chuckling at least. But Hugo doesn’t need any irony to …

I’m turning over part of this week’s review to my kids — once again, I’m out of the targeted demographic for this one, but the crafty filmmakers figured how to make me laugh nonetheless. Klara, age 9, typing for herself: The Muppet Theater is going to get torn down! To prevent this, the Muppets fix it up. Still, Tex Richman (played by Chris Cooper) wants to tear it down. With a lot of laughs and a little tragedy, the Muppets prevent Richman from tearing it down. Heartwarming and funny is what I call it. Mary (played by Amy Adams) wants to marry someone. The Muppets almost make $10 million at …

I arrived at the theater at my usual time, 15 minutes before the film’s scheduled start, and the place was swarmed. Twenty people in line for tickets, twice as many in line for popcorn. It was so crowded, they almost put the kid waiting for a job interview to work immediately behind the cash register (good luck, by the way. Show business is hard to break into). They (mostly women of all ages) weren’t there to see J.Edgar, Tower Heist or the Bolshoi Ballet’s rendition of The Sleeping Beauty (by the way, try to imagine American audiences at a movie theater in Peoria watching a closed-circuit …

In my formative young adult years as program director at Covenant Harbor, a summer camp in Lake Geneva, I learned a valuable lesson: When all else fails, put a guy in a dress. A man in a dress, with maybe a wig and some obnoxious makeup (use tempra paint for the best results), brings 200 10-year-olds to their knees with laughter every time. However, it’s a cheap, we’ve-already-smashed-pies-in-each-other’s-faces-all-week gag. A filmmaker with the comedic talent of Adam Sandler shouldn’t have to resort to putting himself in a dress for a couple cheap laughs. In Jack and Jill, the namesake twin …

I really didn’t expect to like Paranormal Activity 3, but I did. I’m not familiar with the franchise (I didn’t see PA or PAII which look like Roman numerals for millions, which could fit here given how much dough this picture has made), so I expected a typical slasher flick, long on blood and guts and short on intensity and/or suspense. The film made me gasp out loud at some points (I haven’t done that at the theater since witnessing Sting’s wooden performance in Dune) and left me itchy with the suspense (or is that because I was catsitting for my parents this week and my allergies were …

In The Rum Diary, Johnny Depp both plays and pays homage to great gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, whose suicide in 2005 created a noticeable cultural and literary void. The movie is based on Thompson’s novel, which is based loosely on Thompson’s adventures in Puerto Rico as a young freelance writer. The apex of Thompson’s career was at a then-relevant Rolling Stone magazine in the early 1970s, where his work influenced a couple generations of English and journalism majors, including me. Reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at age 18 opened a wide swath of possible attitude and texture …

The first scenes of this movie promise more than the film delivers: In the initial five minutes, the filmmakers allude to Animal House*, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Mad Men. But throughout, the movie doesn’t deliver the level of comedy or drama presented in any of the three titles mentioned above. It’s OK, though, because the breathtaking cinematography, believable allegory and rare winged wildlife more than make up for the missed comedic promises. The Big Year is a fun movie suitable for all ages. Steve Martin (Stu Preissler), Owen Wilson (Kenny Bostick) and Jack Black (Brad Harris) …

The Ides of March, the R-rated political thriller, left me with a strange feeling of hopelessness, a sense that we’re all being had by the clouded idealism of democracy, when all that separates the two dominant American political parties is a phone call. But that’s what makes a good film: When it causes your hopes and aspirations to be called into question. The film’s R-rating was due to salty language (and mature subject matter) that would make Rahm Emanuel proud. In fact, this whole movie would probably make him proud, as it places the emphasis on the operatives making politics work, as …

Dream House tries to combine the familiar plots of 1979’s The Amityville Horror (James Brolin/Margot Kidder) and 1986’s The Money Pit (Tom Hanks/Shelley Long). We know the story line well: Unsuspecting family moves into fix-it-up house where grisly murders have happened, unsuspecting family discovers weird stuff in the house, unsuspecting family moves out or is generally eviscerated. Or they go bankrupt from crooked contractors. The plot twist here, and it’s a lame one, is that Will Atenton (brooding and disturbed, and often shirtless Daniel Craig) is suffering from some sort of mental …

Although Moneyball is set in the baseball home office, the message it conveys is one of revolution, and the difficulties that true rebels face at every turn. We also learn that America’s pastime is deeply entrenched in its own history, and that changing the game can be painful for those trying to alter it. Brad Pitt, channeling a 1970s-era Robert Redford, plays Billy Beane, who is still general manager of the Oakland A’s in real life. Jonah Hill, channeling Twinkies, plays Peter Brand, Pitt’s numbercrunching assistant. Brand’s unique, mathematic approach to the game is perfect for Beane’s …

I really wanted to like Drive, which was supposed to be an art-house answer to car chase movies according to other reviewers. The way I understood it, Drive was like Bullitt crossed with La Dolce Vita. To me that was a stretch. The movie centers around Ryan Gosling’s freelance career as a driver for various criminal activities. By day he’s a Hollywood stunt driver often outfitted with a rubber mask resembling Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. By night, he skillfully motors cash-carrying criminals through various locales to safety. He’s also a daytime mechanic. Gosling’s aptly named …

Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z. Burns really created a paranoia-inducing masterpiece in Contagion. In this great film, worldwide chaos is created by a mysterious disease that kills those who contract it within 48 hours. The disease is spread by personal contact that can be as casual as a handshake. It will leave you running for the hand sanitizer and seeking refuge from every errant wheeze. Through scientists, we track the movement of the disease across the globe, from small villages in China to major metropolises like Chicago. As the seemingly unstoppable virus spreads, scared…