Follow on:
Paul Meekin
Paul Meekin is a Chicago based writer, television producer, and movie critic for Streetwise Magazine.
He can found on twitter @MeekinOnMovies and facebook at www.facebook.com/MeekinOnMovies
He also stars and writes the hit web-based sketch comedy show, "FatMan and Little Girl" on Youtube Channel: ANTVGM64
February 2nd, 2013 3:00pm EST
The date movie. We’ve all been here. Be it a night out with your wife or hubby, a first date with someone you met online, or simply something you enjoy doing with your boyfriend or girlfriend, oftentimes seeing the right kind of movie can enhance your romantic endeavors for the evening, and seeing the wrong kind of movie can damn them completely. Some movies are romance neutral. I don’t think anyone seeing “Parker” is going to come out of that movie questioning the very fabric of their lives, for example. But, some are profound. In a series of articles highlighting the good date movies, the...
READ MORE
MTV Movie Awards Winners & Fashion: 'The Avengers,' Emma Watson, Will Ferrell & More!
'Django,' 'Ted' and 'Silver Linings' Score 2013 MTV Movie Award Noms
Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
January 27th, 2013 7:02pm EST
The pulpy, B-movie thriller Parker is a curious choice for Director Taylor Hackford. Hackford is probably most known as the man behind An Officer and a Gentleman, Ray, Everybody’s All American, The chilling Dolores Claiborne, and one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasure movies, The Devil’s Advocate. Those movies, while varying quite wildly in terms of quality and subject matter, are almost entirely focused on human (or non-human) interpersonal drama and conflict - which is something Hackford traditionally does well. Even in a rightfully maligned film like the aforementioned Devils Advoca...
READ MORE
Review: 'Parker' A Pissed Off Thief Out For Vengeance (Video)
Jennifer Lopez Was Elegant In A White At NYC 'Parker' Premiere
Parker
January 11th, 2013 7:47pm EST
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in pitch-rooms. Hearing people toss ideas back and forth for show ideas, spec scripts, the occasional web-series or sketch, eventually makes you realize that truly unique ideas are very difficult to find - and even harder to produce properly. It also makes you realize how many folks in the TV biz desperately want to be Aaron Sorkin.
Every couple of days someone would be turned onto the witty banter of The West Wing or Studio 60 or Sports Night and almost immediately pitch a show or concept that sounded curiously like something Sorkin would do. It’s like St...
READ MORE
NBC Inaugurates '1600 Penn': Did It Get Your Vote?
New Midseason Shows To Check Out In 2013
1600 Penn, The West Wing
December 9th, 2011 11:21am EST
I have a superstition that a studio's confidence in a film can often be determined by length of the movie's Wikipedia page. Young Adult's Wikipedia is about 800 words long if you subtract links and other website jibba jabba. The recent Muppets has about 5000 words. The reason for invoking this completely unscientific ponderment of mine is because I'm a big fan of Director Jason Reitman, so this short wiki, not a week out from the release, was a bit odd to me.
And now I know why. “Young Adult” is shallow and awful, and, ha ha, has all the depth of a young adult novel about vampires. Except ...
READ MORE
Check Out 'Young Adult' On DVD & Blu-ray March 13
Blackie The Doberman From 'Hugo' Nominated For Golden Collar Award
Big Fan, Charlize Theron, Diablo Cody, Jason Reitman, Patrick Wilson, Patton Oswalt, Super, Young Adult
November 12th, 2011 11:34am EST
When the first Harold and Kumar came out in 2004, it was sort of a breath of fresh air from the Apatow comedies that were popular at the time. It was a road picture, it was irreverent, it was determined to make you laugh in any way it could. The manic energy of the two leads, and the fact the entire movie was about making it to a white-castle because your stoned, was the sort of silly concept that really captured the clouded imaginations of stoners everywhere.
The beauty of the Harold and Kumar films is the way in which they find their heart. In the first, their trip to White Castle was a ...
READ MORE
Check Out 'A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas' On DVD, Blu-ray & Download Feb. 7
Q&A: Todd Strauss-Schulson Talks 'Harold And Kumar 3D,' Emerson Ties, And Wafflebots
A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas, Harold and Kumar 3, John Cho, Kal Penn
November 12th, 2011 11:26am EST
The gay love story occupies a curious place in the minds of populist cinema goers of late: Novelty. Throughout Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, the audience would snicker and laugh to one-another, just above their breath, at any sort of implication of romance between J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo Dicaprio) and his life-long, possibly fabulous companion, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer). Just a scant few years ago audiences were actively protesting “Brokeback Mountain” and now they’re giddy like school girls during a 5th grade game of Spin-the-bottle. I suppose that’s progress.
What isn’t progressive, o...
READ MORE
Claire Danes Chose 'Homeland' Over 'J. Edgar'
Armie Hammer On Licking Julia Roberts' Face, Behaving In Hollywood And Riding His Vespa
Armie Hammer, J. Edgar, Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts
October 30th, 2011 2:58pm EDT
In Time, in the softest of science fictions, asks audiences to believe humans have somehow been genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, and that once you hit 25, the glowing green digital timer embedded into your arm starts counting down from one year. To live past that single year you must earn time by working for it, being given it, or engaging in ludicrous “fights” for it.
In this world time is used as money, so a cup of coffee is 4 minutes of your life, buying a fancy sports car would be a century, and so on. On paper, it sounds cool. However, there's zero thought given to any logi...
READ MORE
Matthew Bomer 'Comes Out' At Awards Show
Check Out 'In Time' On Blu-ray & DVD Jan. 31
Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, In Time, Justin Timberlake, Olivia Wilde
October 29th, 2011 12:00pm EDT
I left the screening of The Rum Diary feeling as if the pacific ocean itself had washed over me. There was a warmth in my belly, and this sort of slack smile on my face as I pondered what I would write about this film. My feelings are mixed. I'm wholly aware that as a film, with character arcs and a plot and a message, it sort of falls a bit flat. But as an experience, well, it's a different story.
The Rum Diary follows the many Caribbean adventures of Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp). Depp channels the snappish cadence and befuddled eyebrows of his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegasperformance, but di...
READ MORE
Johnny Depp & Vanessa Paradis Break-Up Rumor Gains Momentum
Brad Pitt Voted Top Money-Making Star Of The Year By Movie Theater Owners
Amber Heard, Giovanni Ribisi, Johnny Depp, Michael Rispoli, Richard Jenkins, The Rum Diary
October 15th, 2011 2:00pm EDT
“Texas Killing Fields” is practical. It's effective. It hits the notes necessary. But in the end it's simply unsatisfying. “Texas Killing Fields” then, is like getting socks for Christmas. Or rather, it's like being disappointed by socks for Christmas.
On the surface, “Texas Killing Fields” is about two detectives, Mike (Sam Worthington) and Brian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) who solve murders in the depths of the rural Texas. Texas is a character in this film, make no doubt about it. The Texas presented in this movie is the kind of Texas that could find itself in a Jeff Foxworthy routine: Rust, ...
READ MORE
Interview: Director Ami Canaan Mann On 'Texas Killing Fields', Her Fabulous Cast and Influences Via Father Michael
Check Out 'Texas Killing Fields' On DVD & Blu-ray Jan. 31
Chloe Moretz, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, Texas Killing Fields
October 8th, 2011 3:00pm EDT
Grief is confounding in that, over time, it can hypnotize and make us do some rash and terrible things. We can lash out at the ones we love most, drown ourselves in vices like food and alcohol, or even choose to watch that terrible, terrible, Oliver Stone 9/11 movie. In the case of “Footloose”, a movie more about mourning and grief than it probably intended to be, the drunk-driving death of several teenagers has caused a small town to outlaw unsupervised “Lewd” dancing.
Things kick off some time after this, when Bahstonian Ren MahCormahhhck, moves to the biahble-belt south to live with his...
READ MORE
Check Out 'Footloose' On DVD & Blu-ray March 6
Cut Loose With 'Footloose' - On Blu-ray & DVD March 6th
Craig Brewer, Dennis Quaid, Footloose, Footloose 2011, Julianne Hough, Kenny Wormald, Kevin Bacon