There’s really only one new release this weekend that is looking any good, so it’s a bit of a “between the mountain tops” sort of week in my book. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Opening This Weekend

42 - PG-13
Jackie Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player. It also means he was the focus of much scorn, criticism, and racism. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s racism. So while I’m not a big fan of sports at all, I am going to go see this film. And this film will also be the subject of The MovieByte Podcast next week.

“42” tells the story of two men—the great…

And while Nolan has played cagey about it (as he has been with “Man Of Steel,” refusing as usual to reveal too much about the movie he’s producing for Zack Sndyer), Warner Bros. has now dashed fanboy wet dreams. 

“No, no it’s not,” WB president Jeff Robinov told EW when asked if it was true that Nolan would produce “Justice League,” or if Christian Bale would once again wear the cowl.  Nolan’s reps also confirmed he wasn’t involved with “Justice League,” and it’s clear he’s moved on, focused on his sci-fi “Interstellar.” But perhaps the biggest question of all facing Warner Bros. is how…

So there’s a chance that David Zucker doesn’t really want to reboot the Naked Gun franchise. There’s a chance that he looked at his new film Scary Movie 5 – with its opportunistic stunt casting and soul-draining pastiches of trailers he saw halfway through production – realised that it was a pale imitation of his best work and just decided to invoke the name of The Naked Gun to scare up a few headlines.

But invoke it he did. Talking to Hollywood.com this week, Zucker said: “You could do another Naked Gun, with a reboot. Like Star Trek … I think Paramount has an international brand in…

Do you remember how fun G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra was? I mean despite the fact that it was a little light on plot and a little heavy on action, it really was a fun film. Had I been reviewing and rating films in 2009 I think I would have given that film about 3.5 stars.

Unfortunately I must inform you that this film comes nowhere close to that. This film is unfortunately very much like the video game Dwayne Johnson and Channing Tatum were playing in one of the very early scenes of the film.

With almost little or no fanfare, very early in the film, one of the primary characters from…

We have said a lot about Roger Ebert this week. Considering his wealthy contribution to movie reviews, it’s no wonder how much we appreciated his expertise. He has been some of the inspiration for my own reviews.

So, I find it very fitting that Roger’s last published movie review would be for Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, a soul-searching drama that explores some spiritual matters pertaining to life and death itself.

A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear. Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and…

Stephanie Meyer has enjoyed an immense amount of success with the Twilight saga in both book form, and film form. But before writing the final book in the Twilight saga, she took a break and wrote The Host. I have not read the book (which I cannot say about the Twilight series), but my wife has and she says there is much to recommend it over the Twilight saga. But it still does have some flaws.

Joe read the novel and finds it to be better than Twilight novels as well. And I’m with Joe. Given what I know from the film, I would rather spend time in the universe of The Host. But such is not…

Some more on The Great Gatsby. This in the form of a 90 second UK trailer. This is one of those deals that I wonder if I would be far more interested if I had read the source materiel. As it is I’m having a hard time finding the draw and determining what the basic plot is or why I would be interested. Even the synopsis seems unhelpful, which makes me think the filmmakers don’t really know why they are making it either. I’ve been told to give it a chance. Okay, I will.

Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby, and across…

I want to talk a little about opinions, anger, respect, and intelligent conversation.

A comment was made recently on an opinion post I wrote that the commenter had lost respect for the site because of my opinion. I love all of our readers and we are thankful for your support. I’m not upset about the comment, for I realize that we will get this sort of thing all the time. But as MovieByte is young, I do want to talk just a bit about how we should approach our conversation and our respect for one another. I want to lay out a bit of what we are looking for because I do want to have a great…

This week looks like a bit of a dud for new, fresh releases, but there are still some things in theaters we might like to see so don’t give up all hope.

Opening this Weekend

Evil Dead - R
I have zero interest in this film. I can’t find much to recommend it, it looks like all creepy horror with no really good plot or story and I’m just not interested in such.

In the much anticipated remake of the 1981 cult-hit horror film, five twenty-something friends become holed up in a remote cabin. When they discover a Book of the Dead, they unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the…