2013 OCR Movies Archive Stories

It didn't take Vulcan logic to figure out that once director J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" reboot took in $385 million at the box office four years ago, the crew of the Enterprise would again go boldly where so many movie franchises have gone before – Planet Sequel. Zachary Quinto (as the logical Mr. Spock) and Chris Pine (Capt. James T

Mae West said "Too much of a good thing is wonderful," but "Star Trek Into Darkness" proves her wrong. Director J.J. Abrams' second adventure with the crew of the Starship Enterprise revolves around a bad guy who looks like a normal Starfleet agent but is superhuman in his powers and subhuman, or at least monstrous, in his willingness to

Romania probably isn't the first place that comes to mind when you think about the global AIDS epidemic. And yet the eastern European nation was the setting for one of the most shocking and little-known chapters in the history of HIV/AIDS worldwide – a story told in the powerful new documentary "After the Fall: HIV Grows Up."

Apparently, there is an unwritten law in Hollywood that every new generation must have its own version of "The Great Gatsby." This generation will get its own "Gatsby" this weekend when Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann ("Moulin Rouge!") unveils his lavish 3D production with Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway

"The Great Gatsby" puts the work of a great American writer onscreen with precision and élan. Unfortunately, that writer is Woody Allen. In a classic humor piece called "A Twenties Memory," Allen satirized the glamour of the self-destructive "Lost Generation," recalling the night "Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda returned home from the

Jason Balsamo and April Chapman are beaming as they pose for a photo on the steps of the courthouse on the back lot at Universal Studios Hollywood. They're wearing matching "Back to The Future" T-shirts, which should explain why April later says that her heart was beating so fast she almost felt faint. That building, you'll recall, is th

"Something in the Air" is a splendid title for a one-of-a-kind film – a political mood movie that's more revelatory and exciting than almost any political melodrama. Set several years after the radical uproar of "May '68" swept through Europe, the movie depicts how rebel fervor affects a handful of adolescents who intend to be activists or

Can a full-length documentary be put together as cleverly as a "snob appeal" ad from the "Mad Men" era and bring cinematic elegance to a subject that's become high- and low-end fodder for the Bravo Channel? Judging by "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's," the answer is yes on both counts. No, it's not hard-hitting journalism about retail fashion or

In "The Iceman" Michael Shannon's mesmerizing portrayal of Richard Kuklinski, a notorious contract killer, has the paradoxical quality, peculiar to many great screen performances, of being unreadable and transparent. You can't really see through Richard, whose pale-blue eyes take in the world from a face as expressionless as a sphinx. But in its

Iron Man reigns as the standard-bearer of Hollywood superheroes with a $175.3 million domestic opening weekend for his latest sequel and an overseas haul of a half-billion dollars in less than two weeks. According to studio estimates Sunday, "Iron Man 3" has raced to a worldwide total of $680.1 million. That includes $175.9 million in it

The sun has set on the 2013 Newport Beach Film Festival. The 14th annual gathering concluded Thursday night with record-matching attendance, the West Coast premiere of "The Way, Way Back," and a festive closing-night party. Award winners chosen by a jury and audience members were announced Friday. "Fly Me to the Moon (Un Plan Par

Fabio. Jean-Claude Van Damme. Adam Brody. Leighton Meester. Alfred Molina.Several of "The Real Housewives of Orange County," past and present. These are just a handful of the celebrities who showed up during the eight-day long Newport Beach Film Festival, which concludes Thursday with the feature film, "The Way, Way Back," f

The ads read "Iron Man 3" but the end credits say "Iron Man Three" – the perfect capper for a movie that tries to spell everything out. Why is Tony Stark working for 72-hour stretches without sleep? He'll tell you in dialogue or voice-over. He's haunted by the Avengers' apocalyptic showdown with aliens in New York City. He's still

Who hasn't driven through the streets of Hollywood and fantasized about starring in a summer comic-book movie? It turns out that even Oscar-winning actors are not immune to the dream. Sir Ben Kingsley, who won an Academy Award in 1983 for "Gandhi" and was nominated three more times for "Bugsy," "Sexy Beast" and "House of Sand and

"An odor caught my attention – the singular scent of a middle-class woman." With those words, a teenage writing student named Claude snags the interest of his high school teacher, Germain, a middle-aged ex-novelist who gave up on his own talent and despairs of finding any in his pupils. Claude has a knack for storytelling. The problem is t

Cutting Salman Rushdie's 500-plus-page novel to the size of a single long feature results in a sort of slow-mo flash-card version of the book. Rushdie, who did the adaptation, and the film's director, Deepa Mehta, hew closely to the central character, Saleem, who is born to a street singer when midnight tolls to start India's independence day (A

Full disclosure: A fire alarm disrupted my screening of the fact-based adventure film "Kon-Tiki" about 20 minutes into the film. The man who ran the screening assured reviewers that projectionists paused the film during the alarm. Here's what happened before the theater's alarm system went off: In 1947, the movie's hero, Norwegian explor

When Tony Stark isn't suited up in metal saving the world, the self-described genius billionaire playboy philanthropist zips around town in the all-electric Audi e-tron. At least he does on screen, in "Iron Man 3," in an early kickoff to a summer blockbuster season that will see hundreds of speeding, squealing, exploding, airborne, rolli

In her 1968 poem, "The Speed of Darkness," the late American poet Muriel Rukeyser, who wrote eloquently about equality and social justice, penned the line, "The universe is made of stories, not atoms." While the medium is different, the new feature-length documentary "Girl Rising," also bares witness to the same truth in poetic images an

NEWPORT BEACH – The 14th annual Newport Beach Film Festival got under way Thursday night with stars, guitars and a documentary about a rock band turning its fierce, disillusioned tunes into a Broadway musical.About 1,000 people attended the West Coast premiere of "Broadway Idiot" at Edwards Big Newport. The doc

If you ever yearned for a Three Stooges movie that played bone-crunching slapstick for real, you might enjoy Michael Bay's "Pain & Gain," a movie that tries to turn a torture chamber into a comedy club. Mark Wahlberg pumps himself up physically and histrionically to portray Danny Lugo, the leader of an unholy trio of Miami gym rats.

Matthew McConaughey's name may be Mud, but he covers himself in glory in Jeff Nichols' "Mud," an Arkansas whopper about two boys in their early teens who stumble on a fugitive and decide to help him make a getaway. As Mud, McConaughey holds his power in check and goes easy on his drawl. Playing an archetype, he's never seemed more like an authen

Colin Firth has the uncanny ability to play both king and commoner with the same compassion, dignity and reverence. Whether it was his lovesick efforts in "Love Actually" or his frustration in "A King's Speech," Firth showed that it's heart that makes for a great performer. His heart-filled work is plentiful in "Arthur Newman." Firth pla

Catherine Jayasuriya had a dream.She dreamed that one day, she'd climb to the top of Mt. Kinabalu, the highest point on the island of Borneo, Malaysia. She dreamed she'd be accompanied by a bunch of others wearing red shirts with white print and holding banners, and they would be raising money and awareness for Duchenne, a fatal type of m

Doug Hamilton wanted to help his friends in the theater out. Little did he know that he'd wind up helping himself out in the process.Hamilton's documentary, "Broadway Idiot," is the opening night film of this year's Newport Beach Film Festival, which starts Thursday and runs through May 2. The movie, making its West Coast premiere, screen