Looper is an ambitious and deeper take on time-travel and the future than the usual sci-fi action flick, and if approached with patience and an open mind, it will blow yours away at least as much as the oft-featured blunderbuss in the film. It starts slowly. In fact, it maintains a decidedly European style in its ambiguity and attention to character detail. Although the fashion in France and greater Europe of late has been toward all flash and no substance (Banlieu 13, The Horde), Looper recalls the type of art house vibe that made Blade Runner, for example, the top of its genre.  There are…

The box office for last weekend is in, and it is an interesting statement on the need for escapism that Resident Evil: Retribution (the fifth in a franchise I once upon a time very much enjoyed) roundhouse kicked Finding Nemo 3D at the box office, with $21 million to Nemo's $16.6 million in ticket sales.  While it is true that Nemo is a movie many have already seen, it also boasts a 99 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a rating few movies of any kind attain, while the most recent trip back deep into the bowels of the Umbrella Corporation starring Milla Jovovich fighting brainless zombies …

If Cinema Siren had a dime for every time a perfectly down-to-earth average adult said Finding Nemo is one of their favorite movies, I might have a yacht as big as Steven Spielberg's. The Siren knows animation. Alter ego Leslie Combemale owns a gallery that has specialized in animation and film art for 19 years. When I say "I know Nemo," I mean I've seen it at least 20 times, and have met and spoken to Pixar animators and directors many times. I remember the way they spoke of Finding Nemo in hushed tones in 2003, just before it was released. The artists knew they had something spectacular. It…

"Moonrise Kingdom" is coming to theaters in a much wider release this Friday.  Cinema Siren places this film as one of the top of 2012, and shows in this case the director's genius for creating a mythic, nostalgic world vaguely tethered to reality that is thoroughly engaging and wholly charming.   Wes Anderson's latest and best effort stars two newcomers as young lovers running away together who must be found before a historic storm reaches landfall on the isolated island that is their 1965 home. Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand are all players in the ensemble …

In Greek mythology, Prometheus got in big trouble for handing over the secret of fire to mere mortals. In modern day, he represents the quest for human knowledge and achievement. Of course, he wound up tied to a rock and having an eagle peck his guts out every day. Apparently the team who embarks on their own quest for knowledge in the spacecraft that supplies the title of Ridley Scott's highly anticipated new film hadn't gotten the foreshadowing memo. For them, asking questions about human origin, and actively seeking answers, is the beginning of Bad Things happening, but then we audience …

Such promise. After Tarsem Singh's "Mirror Mirror" chose form over substance, we were hoping the dark take "Snow White and the Huntsman" offers on the age-old tale would be all it seduced us with in the previews. Oscar-winning stunner Charlize Theron as the wicked queen, Chris Hemsworth, the haughty hottie we love as Thor as the Huntsman, and Kristen Stewart bringing her mixed demeanor of demure ingenue and smoldering "git-er-done" Goth girl all presented in a nightmarish landscape…what's not to love? Lots. No question it out-designs "Mirror Mirror," which is no small feat. The actors embrace…

If you're like me, you may have pondered: "Why, 10 years after a MIB sequel that stunk up the theater like Edgar the Bug's rotting human skin, are they releasing another sequel? How can it possibly be worth seeing?" Well, you ask, is it? Oh yeah!  Definitely the best of the franchise, "MIB3" is a lot of escapist fun and breathes life into the adventures of these boys in dark suits. It succeeds most by using every detail of both the scripting and visual elements in the service of the story. This installment has neither the jokey "too cool for school" vibe of the first or the "too serious to …

I'm surprised blue and gold aren't the colors used on the movie poster for "Battleship," along with Go Navy! and Beat Aliens! If you leave your brain at the front door of the multiplex on a day you feel like rooting for the home team, you could do worse than vacillating between cheering and snickering for those two hours of this completely ridiculous, raucous mash-up of "Independence Day," "Pearl Harbor," and "Transformers."  Director Peter Berg, of "Friday Night Lights," "The Kingdom," and "Hancock," knows his way around the camera. So we can try to accept the fact that for some reason he …

Tim Burton, as the stylized director of such glorious oddities as "Edward Scissorhands," "Beetlejuice," and "Ed Wood," is the pied piper to the inner goth in all of us. So it is with a heavy heart Cinema Siren has to report "Dark Shadows," while it might have moments of loopy greatness and top-notch production and costume design, it is on the whole the most tragic of cinematic sins: A bore.   The greatness is in some particularly exciting and fast-paced scenes, that are strangely intermittent in its 116 minutes, and so at odds with the soap opera ploddings of the rest of the film. The first …

Opening on Earth Day weekend, "Chimpanzee," Disneynature's latest True Life Adventure, is a documentary following the challenges of a two year-old chimp they name Oscar as he struggles to survive and find his place within his extended primate family.   His sweet mug alone is reason to root for him, but there's more to his story than the usual monkey business, and the viewers get to experience his unique journey up close and quite personally on the big screen.  The visuals of this movie are spectacular, with footage only the most expert nature filmmakers could create, and showing an intimate …