NBC saves it’s 9PM spot with new show called, The Blacklist, featuring James Spader as Raymond “Red” Reddington. Red oozes felonious activity. His wardrobe (complete with black fedora) exudes fashionable evil. Even his nickname—Concierge of Crime—seems to channel comic book villainy. So, why would Red work with the FBI? Turns out he has a list (that’d be the blacklist, naturally) of the world’s most dangerous criminals—guys so good at being bad that the FBI doesn’t even know about them yet. He’ll only work with newbie criminal profiler Elizabeth Keen. He’s obsessed with Liz for some reason and seems to know an awful lot about her past. The Blacklist is both a clever…

Picking up where the first Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs left off, this sequel is nothing if not silly and wittingly cute. The food doesn’t just fall from the sky this time, it moves, breathes and develops its own ecosystem. The result is a film in which the environment, the “Foodimals,” end up more interesting than the characters or story. My kids could not stop talking about these imaginative creatures after seeing this movie. A number of large foodimals roar and chase after the good guys (in something of a Jurassic Park send-up), which results in lots of sprayed cheese, special sauce and scattered bits of lettuce. But ultimately we…

Ron Howard is no stranger to realistic, historical drama with movies such as Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Backdraft and Frost/Nixon. This time, he takes on the elegant cars of Formula One (F1) racing in the movie Rush. Rush attempts to combine Hollywood style with an independent film sensibility with mixed results. The Hollywood-style comes from director Ron Howard. He brings his usual glossy professionalism to this real-life rivalry between Austria’s Niki Lauda, played by Daniel Bruhl, and Britain’s James Hunt, played by Chris Hemsworth. These drivers hate each other from the first moment they meet. The problem between these two isn’t just that both men are obsessively driven to…

Calling all Janeites, book clubbers and romantically-minded females, there’s a new movie in town that you need to see – Austenland! Sony Pictures Classics’ Austenland is a romantic comedy set in a fictional English theme park which recreates the Jane Austen’s Regency world, replete with bonnets, carriage rides, whist and needlepoint. Based on the 2007 novel by Shannon Hale, the film stars Keri Russell as Jane Hayes, a thirty-something American singleton who blows her savings to cross the Atlantic and stay at a plush country estate where she can channel her inner Austen and, perhaps, find a Darcy-esque Mr. Right. Austenland is one of those movies I knew I wanted to see…