Cloud Atlas





Directed By: Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, and Andy Wachowski

Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, James D'Arcy, Zhou Xun, Keith David, David Gyasi, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant

"Our lives are not our own.  From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present.  And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future."
-Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae) / Abbess (Susan Sarandon)

Ambition is the word of the day thanks to...

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D





Directed By: Michael J. Bassett

Starring: Adelaide Clemens, Sean Bean, Kit Harrington, Carrie-Anne Moss, Malcolm McDowell, Radha Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger, and Martin Donovan

I'm so happy that this is the last weekend of October!  That means we get a reprieve from bad horror movies for a couple of months.  So far in the fall, we've had Sinister, Paranormal Activity 4, and Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.  All of these attempted fright fests leave a lot to be desired ...

Smashed





Directed By: James Ponsoldt

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul, Octavia Spencer, Nick Offerman, and Megan Mullally

Each and every member of the STMR team can hold his or her liquor, so we have no problem whatsoever knocking back some drinks when a film calls for it.  Alcohol can help overcome any bad movie.  However, I do realize that everyone who frequents the site may not be so responsible in their drinking, and I've discovered just the right flick for them.  James Ponso...

Paranormal Activity 4





Directed By: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman

Starring: Katie Featherston, Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively, Brady Allen, Aiden Lovekamp, Stephen Dunham, and Alexondra Lee

I normally start out a review on a crappy horror movie by throwing around some wisecracks about Hollywood's obsession with terrible scary movies that are often tantamount to torture porn.  I've got something a little different to talk about today, Hollywood's recent obsession with kids in horror movies.  La...

The Sessions





Directed By: Ben Lewin

Starring: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, and William H. Macy

Sometimes, I wonder what makes a screenwriter tick.  I wonder how they come up with some of the crazy stuff they put in screenplays.  With all I've seen in recent months (e.g., For a Good Time, Call..., Cosmopolis, The Paperboy, etc.), I've really been pondering this lately.  Every once in a while, it's sheer creativity.  More often than not though, they simply got the idea from somebody else.  In the ...

Argo





Directed By: Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, and John Goodman

Argo couldn't have come to theaters in a more timely fashion.  Just several weeks after the attack in Benghazi that left the US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens to Libya and three other Americans dead, we revisit a similar situation, the Iran Hostage Crisis during which the lives of 52 embassy employees were put in grave danger for a total of 444 days.  While the film was put into production lo...