by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Writer David Koepp became a Director years ago, but his freshest scarer is YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried from Universal Pictures. PANIC ROOM’s Koepp will fry Bacon and toast Seyfried, no doubt in this nailer-biter for Blumhouse Productions. You have only to peruse their description, as the goosebumps appear prior to the 6/19 release. On a personal note, Koepp was my mentor at UCLA Film School and uses the f...

Mama Mia 2! Here we go again, Review: ABBAsolutely delightful--See that film, enjoy the scenes Co-incidences and flashbacks galore dot the story of Mama Mia 2! Here We Go Again, a sure-fire recipé for disaster in so many films. Not here, though. Here, they are never one too many. And linking them all are some delightful songs and dances, in a 114 minute long ode to bittersweet things called life and love. A jukebox romantic comedy it is, but so well executed and integrated that it almo...

Gringo, Review: Enough of Judas! What about Peter? “Which is the best Beatles album?” asks the man with the gun. If your answer is ‘Sergeant Pepper and the Lonely Hearts’ Club’, you die. If you do not like the Beatles or have outgrown them, he will still kill you. Your only hope is...‘Let It Be’! Get it right and he might either let you off, or just settle for chopping your finger off. That is Gringo, a slightly confused and wayward take on an Americ...

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent Selfie from THE LAST WORD cast. Never start a headline with a bad pun, and never write your own obit might be two unwritten rules of journalism, but in new movie THE LAST WORD, starring Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfried, a lot of rules are broken so let’s skip the logline and go straight to the press conference at The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. The timing is key here, because this takes place, Friday, March, 3, in the wake of M...

Pan, Review: Flying Pantasy Once you pick up a hundred year-old children’s story and decide to invent its unwritten prequel, 3D and CGI are obvious choices. Yes, you could go overboard on both counts, but so long as you have packed it with a generous dose of thrills, and given it break-neck pace, you can make a fantasy both exciting and interesting. Pan offers above par performances, not so common in fairy-tales, mounts a huge canvas and makes sweeping brush-strokes. There are issues ab...

While We’re Young, Review: Means and ends Documentary film-maker and lecturer Josh (Ben Stiller) and his wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are a middle-aged New York couple who befriend a free-spirited, liberal younger couple, Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). The young couple claim to be fans of his, and Jamie is an aspiring documentary-maker himself. Josh is struggling on the post-production of his new documentary film about leftist intellectual Ira Mandelstam (Peter Yarrow) ...

I was a guest on the set of The Wedding yesterday which is shooting in Connecticut. It stars Robert De Niro, Robin Williams and Amanda Seyfried to mention just a few of the great cast. Some of the people that were there included Amanda Seyfried, Robin Williams, Ben Barnes and, of course, Justin Zackham, the writer and director.It was a beautiful day which is worthy of mention due to all the hot and rainy days we've had lately. The house used for the set was fantastic. There are people that actu...