Unfortunately, bullying is beyond hair-pulling on the playground. For the parents and kids in Lee Hirsch’s Bully, it’s a tragedy with real life and death implications. It’s on the bus, in the locker room, and most disturbingly – in the victims’ bedrooms via their cell phones and computers. This is a film that everyone should [...]

Literary history and Hollywood go together like… well, like two things that go together particularly well. With the exceptions of perhaps Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson, writers lead notoriously uninteresting lives. Thoreau may very well have plucked the phrase “quiet desperation” from his own life to describe the life of your average writer. So, for [...]

THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT, 124 min. Rated R for sexual content, and language throughout. Directed by Nicholas Stoller Starring: Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, Rhys Ifans, Kevin Hart and Brian Posehn REVIEW by Preston Barta Overall, critics have had mixed feelings about “The Five-Year Engagement.” All I have to say is: “what the [...]

“If you’re still here tomorrow, we’re going to kill your landlady.” The only thing more viciously blunt than the dialogue between a surplus of dirty cops and both Chinese and Russian mobsters in “Safe” is the barrage of fists, forks and gunshots employed to convey the immediacy and tenor of the small crime war that [...]

BERNIE, 95 min. Rated PG-13 for some violent images and brief strong language. Directed by Richard Linklater Starring: Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey REVIEW by Preston Barta I had the privilege of attending a very special screening of “Bernie” at the Highland Park Village Theater (Marquee Theater) here in Dallas, TX, last Tuesday [...]

Think Like A Man is the visual feature film to accompany Steve Harvey’s controversial best-selling book, Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment. Directed by Tim Story, this romantic comedy stars many stellar actors/actresses: Kevin Hart, Taraji P. Henson, Gabrielle Union, Meagan Good, Regena [...]

Continuing their trend of releasing a new film each Earth Day weekend, Disneynature’s latest documentary “Chimpanzee” explores a small community of chimpanzees living in Africa.Narrated by Tim Allen (in his tenth Disney film!), the documentary focuses on Oscar – a young chimp who is taught the ways of life by his mother Isha. As part [...]

THE LUCKY ONE, 101 min. Rated PG-13 for some sexuality and violence. Directed by Scott Hicks Starring: Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Riley Thomas Stewart, Jay R. Ferguson and Blythe Danner REVIEW by Preston Barta When are they ever going to realize that you cannot remake “The Notebook”? “The Lucky One” is the seventh Nicholas Sparks [...]

MARLEY, 144 min. Rated PG-13 for drug content, thematic elements and some violent images. Directed by Kevin Macdonald Starring: Bob Marley, Ziggy Marley and Jimmy Cliff REVIEW by Preston Barta “What is to be, must be.” – Bob Marley Kevin Macdonald’s “Marley,” which I saw at the South by Southwest Film Festival this year in [...]

“Here’s an apple and a gun. Don’t talk to strangers.” “Lockout” wastes no time and pulls no punches. This review, therefore, need not dally in meditations on lack of character development or haughty comparisons to richer, fuller science fiction efforts. Let’s just say it: “Lockout” is good, old-fashioned fun, in the manner of Saturday afternoon [...]