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…

We’ve got the entire score for Oblivion streaming here via Soundcloud. As was the case with director Joseph Kosinski’s TRON: Legacy, I expect the score to be a very strong favorable element of the film. And again similar to what he did with Legacy in getting band Daft Punk to work on the score with Hans Zimmer, Kosinski is pulling together Anthony Gonzalez of M83, and Joseph Trapanese to come up with a very unique sound for this score. Obviously scores always need to be evaluated and work well within the context of the film, but just by itself it’s sounding really good!

Give it a…

I like to get all geeky about Star Trek, but I don’t know if I would be geeky enough to do something like this. Still, I’m glad someone is doing it. And via Kickstarter no less. Amazing what you can do with the power of crowdsourcing.

From the video description on YouTube:

We meet the organizers of the Enterprise-D restoration project and learn about their plans to reconstruct a complete starship bridge set from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Turns out, the pieces of this bridge were just left out to waste away in the Paramount Studio lot for years before being discovered and…

Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert died at age 70 in Chicago on Thursday, just one day after posting an update about his health scare and career plans online.

The Chicago Sun-Times, the publication for which Ebert wrote his movie reviews, posted news of his death and a detailed obituary. Ebert had been battling thyroid and salivary gland cancers in recent years and, in 2006, lost some of his jaw and consequently his speaking abilities. He penned one more piece — titled “My Leave of Presence” — on April 3.

This is sad news. This week’s theme seems to be about death for me…

Joe Darnell is joined by Clark Douglas to discuss Pixar announcing production of ‘Finding Dory’, the much-anticipated sequel of ‘Finding Nemo’ (2003) scheduled for release in 2015. How has Pixar weathered major changes since they were acquired by Disney? How has Disney’s animated films been influenced by Pixar’s reputation? Clark analyzes from the audiences standpoint what movie flops like ‘Brave’ represent for the studios, and animated films at large. What might we expect to see in ‘Monster’s University’, Disney’s ‘Planes’ and beyond?

I don’t think I need to remind you that I am greatly looking forward to this film. And apparently the studio is making a big deal out of this film as well because, wow, I can’t remember the last time I have seen so much promotional material coming out for a film. That can either man this film is really good or really bad and the studio is trying to compensate for it. I choose to believe the former.

The director also directed TRON: Legacy so that gives me great hope for the film because I really liked Legacy.

I’m not going to spoil it for you, but I think I have a good portion of the…

WooHoo! We will see the first trailer for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in just ten days and I’m thrilled to hear that. I enjoyed the first film very much — I rated it 4 of 5 stars in my review. And I enjoyed the book series for the most part and am actually hoping the film series can improve upon some of the weaknesses of the books that crept in (mostly in the last book). Either way, it should be a good ride and I’m looking forward to it.

And below is the teaser trailer announcement teaser. I know Joe hates these, but I find them fun and engaging and a great way to generate buzz so I’m…

Typically, I write over 200 reviews a year for the Sun-Times that are carried by Universal Press Syndicate in some 200 newspapers. Last year, I wrote the most of my career, including 306 movie reviews, a blog post or two a week, and assorted other articles. I must slow down now, which is why I’m taking what I like to call “a leave of presence.”

What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What’s more, I’ll be able at…

Love her or hate her, Ellen DeGeneres is Dory from Finding Nemo. The character just wouldn’t be the same without her. And apparently Ellen has been pushing for a sequel for years. I don’t follow Ellen at all so I didn’t know it, but the video she put together below is pretty funny in showing that.

I just have a couple things to say about all this.

Firstly, I’m starting to worry about Pixar cranking out all these sequels. Well I have mixed feelings on it actually because they’ve cranked out some really good sequels — Toy Story 3 for instance may be one of their best films. At the same…