Thanks For Sharing

Review by Bob Ignizio

A movie about sex addicts in a 12 step program from one of the co-writers of the cloyingly quirky and overrated THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT? Let's just say I wasn't exactly looking forward to THANKS FOR SHARING. Surprisingly, despite my hostile mindset I found myself warming to the characters and light comedic tone of the film, and even becoming invested in the more dramatic turns of the story.


The film is an ensemble piece with Mike (Tim Robbins), who has managed to abstain from extramarital sex for15, as the guy everyone at the group looks up to. He's especially close with Adam (Mark Ruffalo), who has kept himself sex and masturbation free for 5 years. He in turn has sponsored Neil (Josh Gad), an aspiring doctor who so far hasn't taken the program very seriously and who still engages in frottage on unsuspecting subway passengers. And then there's the newest member of the group, and only female, Dede (Alecia Moore aka pop singer Pink), who has never been able to relate to men in a nonsexual way.

Iron Man 3

Review by Matt Finley

Marvel Studios is devouring filmgoers’ money with all the appetite and efficacy of Ego the Living Planet… but it’s not as if they haven’t earned it. Among other successes, they’ve made a fantastic show of thoughtfully matching their classic comic properties with star-crossed cinematic soul mates.  Who better than Kenneth Branagh to unleash the proscenium-rattling mythic heroism of THOR? Or Joss Whedon to embody the fragile and volatile ad hoc family that composes THE AVENGERS?

And who better than Shane Black (LETHAL WEAPON), self-conscious and overblown action auteur, to capture the smarts, ‘splosions and swagger of Iron Man? Did someone just say Paul Verhoeven circa 1988? Okay, maybe – but let’s pretend the question was rhetorical and focus on how totally fun IRON MAN 3 turned out.

Country Strong

Review by Pamela Zoslov

Sometimes a single scene in a movie provides a key to what’s wrong with the movie as a whole. In COUNTRY STRONG, a country-music melodrama in which Gwyneth Paltrow plays a superstar country singer attempting a comeback after an alcohol-fueled collapse, it’s a small jewel of a scene in which the singer, Kelly Canter, visits a cancer-stricken boy in his classroom as part of a public-relations effort with the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Paltrow’s gentle interaction with the star-struck child (Gabe Sipos), bald from chemotherapy and wearing a little cowboy hat – is so natural and sincere that it makes the histrionics of the rest of the movie seem irrelevant. If you do not grow a little teary as Kelly plays the boy a sweet song named for him (“Travis, May I Have This Dance?”) and dances him around the room, then you are made of sterner stuff than I.