James Rocchi

‘Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters’ Review
When 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief' came out in 2010, it looked suspiciously as if the would-be franchise, based on Rick Riordan's best-selling teen adventure books, was going to get 'Golden Compass'-ed -- stopped after one installment and left to languish. But the first adventures of title hero Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) -- born to a mortal mother and the Greek God Poseidon made $226 m
‘Pacific Rim’ Review
As basically a three-word genre mash-up -- monsters vs. robots -- the announcement that Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures were making 'Pacific Rim' didn't really need to offer much more than just that siren-song simple idea. But it did, promising a big canvas for a big talent, the director Guillermo del Toro. Del Toro isn't a household name -- unless you live in Austin -- but he's the outsize
Retro Rental: ‘Playing For Keeps,’ and Playing Soccer for ‘Victory’
I watched the romantic comedy 'Playing for Keeps' a while ago, starring Gerard Butler as an ex-soccer star adrift professionally and romantically, and the less said about that, the better. Soccer is a tough sport to capture on-screen, and an even tougher one to make Americans care about in large numbers -- I know that many of my friends care about the sport with a true fervor, to be sure, but they're islands in a sea of NFL games and NBA hubub, and the eternal MLB schedule.
Retro Rental: Seeing ‘Killing Them Softly’? Check Out ‘The Assassination of Jesse James’ Instead
Brad Pitt and director Andrew Dominik's 'Killing them Softly' opens this weekend, and it's a film I consider as strained as it is strong -- for every great performance there's a heavy-handed bit of symbolism, and all the subtext is pretty much text. But it -- and a recent Variety article pondering if movies are too long (and, by the way, uh, the answer is "No," thank you very much) -- sent me back to thinking about 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,'  Pitt and Dominik's excellent, overlooked previous 2007 release.
Retro Rental: It’s Thanksgiving (American Style) With ‘I’m Not There’
There's always the very good question of what, exactly, to watch on Thanksgiving when you're relaxing at home and -- not to put too fine a point on it -- jammed to satiety with food. In the past, I've recommended all-American epics like 'A Bridge Too Far' or Mann's 'Last of the Mohicans,' but this year, I thought of a near-perfect Thanksgiving film -- shot through with the American century, as su

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