Articles by DIana Beechener

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 5/31/12

Bernie

Nice guys get a pass

In the small town of Carthage, Texas, the most popular guy in town is the man who puts you to rest. Mortician’s assistant Bernie Tiede (Jack Black: Kung Fu Panda 2) sings in the church choir, gives care packages to new widows and delivers inspirational speeches to Little League teams. So it’s understandable that the town forgives Bernie his one, itty-bitty transgression: shooting a rich widow in the back and keeping her body in a freezer for nine months. You see...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 5/31/12

Men in Black III

Third time’s the charm for this space spoof

Men in Black agents J (Will Smith: Seven Pounds) and K (Tommy Lee Jones: Captain America) have worked together for over a decade managing Earth’s alien population. This hasn’t made them close, as K won’t share his life story with his more effusive partner. Still, when J wakes up after an argument to find out that K has seemingly been dead for 40 years, he’s pretty upset about the whole thing. Turns out an evil assassin named Boris the Animal (Jemaine...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 5/24/12

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Remember: Running away to exotic lands fixes all your problems

When seven British retirees find that life didn’t work out the way they expected in stodgy England, they hightail it to India, where they assume they’ll live out their golden years in some Victorian-colonialist dream. What they get is a decaying hotel, food that charges the digestive tract without mercy and a culture shock that there are, gasp, Indians living in India. It’s easy to pick apart The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for its...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 5/17/12

Dark Shadows

Don’t lead women on, or you’ll turn into a vampire

Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp: The Rum Diary) has two curses in his life: He’s irresistible to women, and he’s a vampire. One might seem more serious than the other, but his callous treatment of chambermaid/witch Angelique (Eva Green: Camelot) is the cause of his undead undoing. This cautionary dating tale starts in 1772, when young fishing magnate Barnabas sows his wild oats with Angelique before settling down with his one true love, Josette (Bella Heathcote: In...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 5/10/12

The Avengers

When in doubt, Hulk Smash!

Banished from Asgard by brother Thor, Loki (Tom Hiddleston: The Deep Blue Sea) is a god without subjects. So he takes a page from his brother’s book, traveling to Earth. Sadly, Loki is no God of Thunder. So instead of romancing winsome astrophysicists, the God of Mischief makes a deal with an alien nation to subjugate humanity. All Loki has to do is steal a mysterious energy source held by the government and trade it for an alien army. When an alien...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 5/3/12

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Yo-ho! Yo-ho! A claymation life for me!

The pirate captain (Hugh Grant: Did You Hear About the Morgans?) is having a bad year. As the Pirate of the Year competition looms large, the good captain has little to show for his pillaging. Other pirates like Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek: Puss in Boots), Peg Leg Hastings (Lenny Henry: Tinga Tinga Tales) and Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven: Entourage) boast rare jewels and mountains of gold. The pirate captain? He has a lustrous beard and a very fat parrot. He’s the joke of...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/26/12

Chimpanzee

Nature is cute, if you live in a Disney documentary

Oscar is a baby chimpanzee, living a blissful life in the jungles of Uganda. His mom dotes on him. He romps with other baby chimps during upbeat musical sequences. But in the distance the evil Scar and his hoard of chimp raiders threaten Oscar’s idyllic life. If it sounds like a Disney movie, it is. The latest documentary from Disneynature, Chimpanzee, makes a monkey out of the term documentary. This is nature without death. This...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/19/12

The Cabin in the Woods

Zombies and ghosts and mermen. Oh my!

When five attractive college co-eds spend the weekend at a creepy isolated cabin in the woods, it’s no surprise they’re marked for death. We’ve seen this movie, and it always ends the same way: Someone gets high, someone flashes her breasts and almost everyone dies. Such is the world of slasher filmmaking. Fans love it just the way it is. It’s a formula so common that many movies have poked fun at its absurdity while still getting...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/19/12

Bully

It’s hard not to beat up on this well-intentioned film

Alex is a sweet kid with huge lips, glasses and ears that stick out. To an adult, he’s an adorably awkward adolescent who hasn’t grown into his features. To his peers, he’s a target. Every day his school bus ride is a gauntlet of humiliation. He’s punched, choked and stabbed with pencils. When he comes home, his sister calls him a loser. But Alex smiles because at this point he’s used to it. His parents complain to the school...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/12/12

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Children can be little monsters. But if you give birth to a real monster? We Need to Talk About Kevin is a nightmare about the nature of evil. When a pregnancy interrupts Eva Khatchadourian’s (Tilda Swinton: Chronicles of Narnia) exciting life of travel and extravagance, she reluctantly settles down to play the roles of wife and mommy. It’s not a believable role for Eva. She doesn’t like Kevin, her son, (Jasper Newell), and he,...