Charlie Myers

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON       I had read some relatively positive comments about Dark of the Moon, the third in this series, so I actually went to it with some faint positive expectations. You’d think I might have learned by now. I found the film to be mind-numbingly tedious.       Directed yet again by Michael Bay, the […]

REVIEWS: BAD TEACHER       Setting aside all those inspirational Stand and Deliver sort of films about teachers who come through when the need is greatest and the student beneficiaries of that idealism, Bad Teacher tries to do for the profession what Bad Santa did for Christmas. Unfortunately, while I called Billy Bob’s delightfully nasty take on our beloved, over-weight icon in a […]

Reviews: GREEN LANTERN. Every so often in the miasma of our local film offerings there is a brief moment of light. Such a moment occurred a week ago with Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. But, as is too often the case, the moment proved ephemeral, serving simply to create a bit of hope only to […]

Reviews MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. I’m in love with Woody Allen again. A committed devotee, I felt betrayed and abandoned by You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger last year. I’m happy to report, though, that the makeup sex provided by Midnight in Paris really is the best. Allen’s latest is completely captivating, entertaining and seductive. […]

Reviews X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. I suppose it had to happen. OK, I’ve been getting the geezer discount at various local stores for a while now and servers mostly call me “sir.” But to see my advanced age memorialized in print raises the issue to a new level. After all, if Andrew Goff is the “junior […]

Reviews PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES. Sometimes, a commercial film comes along that far exceeds one’s low expectations. A recent case in point for me was Bridesmaids, a film that turned out to be funny with some fine acting, particularly from Kristen Wiig. I had similar low expectations back in 2003 for Pirates […]

Reviews BRIDESMAIDS. To be truthful, Bridesmaids had a lot going against it for this viewer. For one thing, to quote the Journal‘s preview, it’s being touted as a “would-be The Hangover for chicks,” and The Hangover ranks very high on my all-time worst-film list. For another thing, the stars are from Saturday Night Live, and […]

WIN WIN. Regular moviegoers know not to trust trailers. In addition to regularly including plot spoilers and often, especially for comedies, revealing the film’s best lines, trailers can be significantly misleading. Such is the case with Win Win. From the trailer I saw too many times, I would have put this film down as a […]

JANE EYRE. Back in college, when I first read novels by Emily and Charlotte Brontë, I thoroughly enjoyed Jane Eyre but passionately embraced Wuthering Heights, which opened my eyes to what seemed like an all-encompassing romanticism. As I’ve gotten older, if not more mature, the darker side of the soul now holds sway over me […]

Reviews HANNA. Consummately played by Saoirse Ronan, Hanna is being homeschooled with a vengeance; perhaps for vengeance would be more accurate. In a finely shot opening sequence, we watch Hanna stalk a deer in the snow with a bow and arrow. She shoots the deer but not immediately fatally and must run after it. As […]

REVIEWS CEDAR RAPIDS. Having attended graduate school at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, I was vaguely aware that Cedar Rapids was not far away. But back then, there was no ready reason for ever going to Cedar Rapids, a moderate-sized city with no apparent distinction, at least for this out-of-state Iowa-ignorant graduate theater […]