Title: The Fairy Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten Director: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy Screenwriter: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy Cast: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy, Philippe Martz, Vladimir Zorano, Destiné M’Bikula Mayemba, Wilson Goma Cast: Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Philippe Martz, Bruno Romy Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 2/7/12 Opens: February 24, 2012 No cinephile could possibly watch this movie without thinking of Jacques Tati (1908-82), a French director, who may well have been the inspiration for the Belgo-Canadian-French directors of “The Fairy.” Tati’s theme, like that portrayed by Buster Keaton, is that individual personality is warped by unfeeling organizations–which the principal characters try to…

I guess this is really the first Movie News Cheat Sheet of the year. Sure, we ran one on January 1st, but considering that edition was packed with the top stories of 2011, this is your first taste of the best of the best in movie news for 2012. There’s a couple big casting updates to report from Joel Edgerton signing on to lead Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden feature to Spike Lee losing another villain option for his remake of Oldboy. Then, of course, awards season nominations continue to come in and this time around, it’s the Writers Guild and Producers Guild pinpointing the finest films of last year….

One of my favorite things about being a film blogger is looking back on the past year and formulating a “best of” list. This has been a good year in movies and I think it’s better than what most will have you believe. Sure there were some horrible movies, that’s every year, but in spite of that there have been some amazing movies released by amazing filmmakers. 2011 brought us a strong spring season with release of “Jane Eyre,” “Hanna” and “Paul,” a strong box office with “Battle: Los Angeles” and spectacular failure in “Sucker Punch.” The summer season has been kind with the release of two movies from Marvel…

Movies like “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” aren’t necessarily made for critics, who are frequently presumed to have it in for live-action family films, with their primary colors and jokey, obvious set-ups for the lowest common denominator. And director Mark Waters’ film, starring Jim Carrey as a realtor who inherits a half dozen penguins and finds his swank New York penthouse apartment turned into a raucous, chilly wonderland, is certainly not a subtle thing. But it is sweet, and has a heart, and it also benefits in comparison to many movies of its ilk by the use of actual real, live animals rather than talking critters or overly slick CGI creations. Based on the…

As usual, this Movie News Cheat Sheet is packed with text, but this week, much of that text is geared towards describing the slew of brand new stills that dropped over the past seven days. Not only did we get seven new images from John Carter, but a bunch from The Dark Knight Rises and Prometheus, too. In casting news, word just got out that Gary Oldman turned down the part of The Colonel in Akira and, in rather off-beat casting news, the industry is shocked to learn that a casting associate on Super 8 as well as a number of other child actor-heavy productions is a registered sex offender….

What better way to spend the most magical time of year than by seeing a particularly magical and inspiring movie? No, this isn’t a review – that you can find right here – but there’s really no way to talk about Hugo without being swept right back up by that incredible adventure. Based on Brian Selznick’s book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo tells the tale of a young orphan named Hugo (Asa Butterfield) who keeps the clocks running in a 1930s Paris train station by day and tries to finish his deceased father’s work by night, restoring an old automaton. In attempt to find the pieces to…

It’s that ghoulish time of year again, where all the CRaziEs come out and horror fans get to bask in their element; which includes watching horror movies on those brisk October nights. Over the years, yours truly bestowed upon you 13 Halloween Horror movie reviews. Last year, 7 Deadly Horror flicks were put on display. Some were classics! Others were decent. A few were so bad that one had to watch them anyway. This month, 6 Sinful Films are being unearthed to help guide my loyal readers through their tireless search in finding a worthwhile horror flick during the Halloween season. Watch at your own entertainment risk my lovely corpses!…

Title: The Perfect House Directed by: Kris Hulbert (‘First Times’) and Randy Kent (‘Life of Lemon’, TV’s ‘The John Kerwin Show’) Starring: Monique Parent (TV’s ‘Tanya X’), John Philbin (‘Children of the Corn,’ ‘The Return of the Living Dead’) and Felissa Rose (‘Dahmer vs. Gacy’) The horror genre has multiple successful sub-genres, whether it be Hitchcock-inspired suspense, ‘Saw’-inspired torture-porn or violent, psychological thrillers. The new horror anthology film ‘The Perfect House’ encompasses all three sub-genres with three diverse short stories. All three stories take place in the same house, particularly the basement, and aim to prove that people are sometimes driven to commit crimes by an external evil force. ‘The…

The revenge thriller “Hanna” – which plays as sort of like a cross between “The Professional” and “Run Lola Run,” with a pinch of “The Bourne Identity” — courses with an unflagging, forward-leaning vigor. It’s a smart, stylish, interesting and fun piece of pop entertainment, powered by strong performances and all wrapped up in an offbeat but engaging fairytale motif that gives the material a little extra zesty kick. Opening in the snowy wilds of Finland, the story centers on 16-year-old Hanna Heller (Saoirse Ronan), who has the intelligence, strength, stamina and lethal combat skill set of a soldier the opposite gender and twice her age, all thanks to her father Erik…

Few actors get to star in a monster commercial smash that is also a zeitgeist hit, but that was Joshua Leonard’s experience with “The Blair Witch Project,” which turned a meager $60,000 production budget into almost $250 million in worldwide theatrical receipts, and owned the summer of 1999 (and beyond, in the form of countless spoofs, homages and far less inspired rip-offs) like no other indie movie of its time. Leonard continued to act over the years, and achieved a second peak of artistic acclaim two years back in Lynn Shelton’s “Humpday,” in which he and a fellow heterosexual friend (Mark Duplass) find themselves locked in a pact/dare to make…