James Franco

A misguided, aimless, and frequently irritating send-up of tinseltown egotism from the late 1960s until the early 1980s, director and star James Franco’s Zeroville feels like the work of a feverish cinema studies student on death’s door after overdosing on caffeine pills, everclear, Iggy and the Stooges records, and Martin Amis novels.

A wildly uneven mash-up of high concept sci-fi and clichéd family-in-crisis tropes, Jonathan and Josh Baker’s Kin starts off with an interesting enough premise and a stacked cast of old pros and newcomers trying their hardest before quickly setting into a boring groove and finally switching over into braindead idiocy in the final act.

Have you ever seen a movie SO bad you just can’t stop watching? Well… The Room (2003) written, starring and directed by Tommy Wiseau is just one of those films and it’s subject of the new feature, The Disaster Artist.

Bank heists rarely go off without a hitch. Robbers often double-cross each other. Cops get trigger happy. Hostages wind up in the crossfire. Double-crosses occur. Those ordinary curveballs would be welcomed in The Vault. Opening on September 1, the movie finds two estranged sisters–Vee (Taryn Manning) and Leah Dillon (Francesca Eastwood)–forced to rob a bank in order to save their brother.

Partly a profane, raunchy comedy full of embarrassing moments for its characters and partly an earnest “getting to know the in-laws” picture, the holiday release Why Him?, starring Bryan Cranston and James Franco, is so standardized and unsurprising that the bigger question for the audience and those involved in the making of the film should have led to something titled “Why Bother?”

Glitter, guns, and girls collide in writer and director Harmony Korine’s ballsy Spring Breakers, a film that dreams American glamour through a dark, shimmering lens.

Enter for a chance to win one of five copies of the comedy Your Highness, courtesy of Universal Pictures, starring Danny McBride, James Franco and Natalie Portman, which is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

This week’s new releases on Blu-ray and DVD include: Paul, the tongue-in-cheek alien comedy starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost; the animated Disney film, Mars Needs Moms; and the stoner comedy, Your Highness.

Opening at a theatre near you this weekend: humanity has a new threat to fear in the prequel to the famous franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes; and Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman star in the unfortunate comedy, The Change-Up.

Opening across Canada at a theatre near you: a teenage girl takes on the CIA in the modern action fairy tale, Hanna; Russell Brand plays a lovable man-child in Arthur; medieval times get a bit dopey in the comedy Your Highness; and a girl gets back on her surf board after a shark attack in Soul Surfer.