Christopher Campbell

Two movies opened over the weekend that co-star Brooklyn Decker and are based on unlikely source material, but while ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ offers nothing interesting ‘Battleship’ offers tons of things to consider between all the explosions and jingoist naval porn. It's actually disappointing that more moviegoers in the U.S. aren’t appreciating it. Seriously, the emptier the narrat

During 'Dark Shadows' part of the Collinwood staircase turns into a serpentine creature and attacks Michelle Pfeiffer and at that point it became clear: ‘Dark Shadows’ is as much of a rehash of ‘Beetlejuice’ as we'll ever need.

What makes ‘The Avengers’ so appealing that it should earn more in its opening weekend than ‘Thor,’ ‘The Incredible Hulk’ and ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ each earned in its entire domestic run? Could it be the positive reviews? I don’t think so. Strong buzz from the geeks on the Internet? Also not very likely. Successful marketing? Only inasmuch as there was already something extremely fa

There’s an amusingly reflexive scene in ‘The Five-Year Engagement,’ in which two social psychologists are watching, through a one-way mirror, a romantic couple dramatically breaking up while sitting in an observation room, unaware they’re not alone. The mirror is like the movie screen, and its framing of the couple becomes the framing of the shot, so the psychologist characters and the audience be

For the past four years, Disney has released a new nature documentary each Earth Day, a seemingly liberal act involving conservation promotion and charity, and yet these films seem more and more like right-wing propaganda to me with every release. This year’s title is ‘Chimpanzee,’ about an adorable little ape experiencing war, survival and special patriarchal relationships among his community, an

While it is true that ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ is the most reflexive horror movie since ‘Scream,’ there is a major difference between the films’ employment of self-awareness. ‘Scream’ simply takes place in a universe in which characters are familiar with other horror movies. It could pretty much be set in the real world. ‘Cabin,’ on the other hand, is very much outside that universe and looking in

A lot of movies want to have their cake and eat it too. 'Dinner with Schmucks' parades a bunch of freaks around for laughs before it tells us we shouldn't make fun of these eccentric individuals. 'Avatar' condemns certain technological advancements at the same time it is, itself, a product of groundbreaking technology (though as the new documentary 'Surviving Progress' shows us, man's scientific d

As the oft-repeated story goes, the initial inspiration for 'The Hunger Games' was a night of channel surfing, during which author Suzanne Collins began to blur together reality television and news coverage of the Iraq War. But this doesn't mean her books, nor the films adapted from them, are really about that specific conflict or necessarily tied to the modern tastes of spectators and the enterta