Short answer: No. “A Good Day to Die Hard” was so dispiriting that it might be better for us to all simply move on with our lives. “A Good Day to Die Hard” was like that crazy uncle you’ve always loved: He gave you $50 for your birthday every year when you were growing up, and then yesterday he appeared out of the blue with a teenaged bride, talking only in Pig Latin. In other words, the unexpected and tonally unfamiliar fifth iteration of the iconic action franchise was completely inexplicable given the affection everyone once had for the series as a whole. Of course, “A Good Day to Die…

Welcome to the world of the new blockbuster. Would Hollywood studios learn to make good movies, or make smarter fiscal decisions first? Given that we’re looking at “A Good Day To Die Hard” ruling over the box office, the latter is true, with the fifth installment in the action series winning a very close horse race on this Presidents’ Day weekend. The fact that this opening is significantly smaller than the one for “Live Free Or Die Hard” and that the picture is assuredly the worst in the series turns out to be irrelevant.

It’s a sad tale, but someone has to tell it. Yes a horrible film…

Remember Hans Gruber, Simon Gruber, Col, Stuart, and even Thomas Gabriel as the baddies in the previous four Die Hard Films? Well don’t go looking for the likes of them here because you will be disappointed. Also remember how John McClane was a blunt but intelligent weapon of the law, and how he cared what happened to the people around him? That’s gone from this film too.

Oh, and remember how the plots of the previous films made sense, simple though the plots were? Well don’t expect everything to make sense this time out, because it’s not going to.

A lot of elements just didn’t add up…

Scholastic announced that the Harry Potter series would be getting new cover artwork.  The publisher unveiled the first of the seven new paperback covers with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. 

The other books in the series with new covers will be in stores in September 2013 to celebrate the 15^th anniversary of the U.S. publication of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

I don’t know how I feel about my beloved Harry Potter books getting new covers. But… in all honesty, while I love the books a lot I was never a big fan of the art and this kind of looks like a…

In the past 13 years, comic book fans have seen five movies based on Marvel’s huge collection of X-Men characters and stories. Some have been great, some have been bad, but all have been in two dimensions. That will change in 2014, as director Bryan Singer has confirmed that X-Men: Days of Future Past will be shot in 3D.

Nooooooooooooooo…

Despite the seven-decade leap between Captain America: The First Avenger andCaptain America: The Winter Soldier, there are a few stars from the former set to reprise their roles in the latter. That group includes Chris Evans as the title character, obviously, along with Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes and Toby Jones as Arnim Zola. It won’t, however, include Stanley Tucci, who revealed in a recent interview that his character Dr. Abraham Erskine won’t be in the sequel.

But contrary to previous reports, Tucci claims that Cap’s former flame Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) will make an…

Identity thief suffers from a fundamental flaw. On the one hand, it wants to be a funny and non-serious film full of slapstick humor and cartoony violence that would hospitalize real world people. On the other hand it wants to be taken as a serious drama at other points of the film. While this has been done before, and has even worked for some films, it fails miserably here. Doing a film in the manner I have described, like having your cake and eating it too, is very tricky business.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Diana (Melissa McCarthy) is established as the identity thief here, she’s…

Yesterday, The Walt Disney Co. unveiled plans to make a number of spin-off movies set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away — in addition to the post-Return of the Jedi trilogy that had already been announced.

Entertainment Weekly has learned details on two of the spin-off projects: A young Han Solo saga, focusing on the wisecracking smuggler’s origin story, and a bounty hunter adventure with Boba Fett at the center of a rogue’s gallery of galactic scum.

I don’t know what to say except… uhh… well, maybe I just don’t know what to say. This could be really bad. There’s some small…

Earlier today, we reported that Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 began production in New York.  Now, we have the full press release that reveals the first official synopsis and the principal cast.

Full Press Release:

New York, February 5, 2013 – Columbia Pictures announced today that filming has begun on The Amazing Spider-Man™ 2 in New York. The film is the first in the history of the franchise that will be filmed entirely in New York City and New York State.

The sequel to last year’s critical and box office hit The Amazing Spider-Man, the film stars Andrew Garfield, Emma…