By Ashley Bergner Box Office Buzz Do the ends ever justify the means? Is it ever acceptable to do something wrong if it helps bring about a cause that is noble? Is it ethical to require a few to make painful sacrifices for the good of the majority? These are
By Ashley Bergner Box Office Buzz When I was a kid, my dream was to become an astronaut. I’m pretty sure I checked out just about every book on space my local library had to offer, and at night I would stare up at the sky and imagine what it
By Ashley Bergner Box Office Buzz When Gary King was a teenager, he was the king of “cool.” As a sort of James Dean “Rebel Without a Cause” figure, his friends idolized him and looked up to him as a leader. The only problem is, Gary is now well past
By Ashley Bergner Box Office Buzz Although the puzzling under-performance of several major blockbusters brought an unexpectedly quiet end to the summer movie season, Hollywood has saved several highly-anticipated tent-poles for its fall/winter line-up. From the “Hunger Games” sequel “Catching Fire” to the next chapter in Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” trilogy,
By Ashley Bergner Box Office Buzz With the release of “Elysium” in theaters this past weekend, the summer movie season is drawing — for all intents and purposes — to a close. Though there are still a few major releases scattered throughout the remaining weeks of August, students will soon
What is the cost of immortality? At what point does it become a curse rather than a blessing, and when does living become more of a burden than dying? That’s a pretty heavy theme for a summer comic book superhero movie, but the newest X-Men movie “The Wolverine” (out July
By Ashley Bergner Box Office Buzz “Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!” That line quickly emerged as a fan favorite from the trailers leading up to “Pacific Rim,” Guillermo del Toro’s sci-fi monster movie about giant robots fighting giant creatures. It’s a fun, over-the-top bit of dialogue, and perfectly captures
By Ashley Bergner/Box Office Buzz In the golden age of Hollywood, the Western genre seemed to be the king of the cinema. From “The Magnificent Seven” to “Rio Bravo,” audiences couldn’t seem to get enough of adventures featuring cowboys, railroads, and gunslingers on the open plains of the “Old West.”
By Ashley Bergner/Box Office Buzz Although we like to think of ourselves as the architects of our own destinies, many times the choices others make for us do more to define us than we care to admit. We’re forced to solve problems we didn’t cause, and we’re called to rise
Although the special effects are now somewhat dated, the “Star Trek” original series has always occupied a special place in my geeky heart. What the show may have lacked in budget, it more than made up for with great characters and good storytelling. Captain Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Dr. McCoy, Scotty
By Ashley Bergner Box Office Buzz “Big man in a suit of armor — take that off, what are you?” That’s a question Captain America asks Tony Stark/Iron Man during “The Avengers” movie. Of course Stark fires back one of his trademark snarky replies — “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” —
By Ashley Bergner Box Office Buzz Before 2008, many people weren’t familiar with the Marvel comic book superhero Iron Man. DC Comics characters Superman and Batman had long been the two most famous superheroes, and no one was expecting a movie based on Tony Stark — a snarky narcissist in
