Action and Adventure Movies

Don't Call Him A Hobbit

What Is a Movie Critic's Job in the Summer of Comic Books? A Discussion

Star Wars vs. Star Trek: Which Space Saga Reigns Supreme?

"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire." So begins the famous opening crawl to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, the 1977 film that kicked off a universe full of furry dog-beasts, deadly weapons of l ... More >>

Three Words: Jar Jar Binks

Rebuttal: Wesley Crusher

American Idiots: Michael Bay injects potentabsurdity into the unbelievable true story of Pain & Gain

The Phone Rings for Thee

G.I. Joe: Retaliation's a Battle of Dumb Pleasures Versus Your Higher Brain Function

A-Z Highlights of Wizard World St. Louis

Sometimes it takes an event like Wizard World Comic Con to prove that "nerd" doesn't necessarily mean "dork" nowadays. Tens of thousands of people swarmed the America's Center this weekend for St. Louis' first-ever Comic Con, a three-day event celebrating pop culture and science fiction. The event ... More >>

Fee-Fi-Fo-Fun: Jack the Giant Slayer is a new adventure with old-fashioned spirit

Die Hard, Die Alone: When John McClane lost his family, the movies lost much of John McClane

Old Habits: Die Hard's latest breaks new ground in incoherence and stupidity

Director Walter Hill brings a Bullet (and Ideas) to Your Head

This Can't End Well

Selling of the Governator, 2013

The Way We Die Now: Movie violence has never been better — or more reckless

North Korea (and audiences) Go Home Unhappy in Red Dawn

Fifty years in, the spy is ever less relevant—and still beloved. Why?

Skyfall lays bare the unknowable spy

Watching All of the Wachowskis' Movies for the Sake of Watching All of the Wachowskis' Movies

Dark Knight Shooting Coverage Over at Westword

Details about James Holmes' lethal shooting rampage at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises at the Aurora Town Center Century 16 movie complex continue to come to light at a rapid rate. The staff of Westword, our sister paper in Denver, has people on the scene of the shooting and at the var ... More >>

Self-important and overstuffed, The Dark Knight Rises feels like Batman forever

Pujol at Off Broadway, 7/8/12: Review and Setlist

Pujol | Bruiser Queen | Carriage House Off Broadway July 8, 2012 Better than: Sticking your weenie in a pool jet. The two most purely enjoyable things I've done in the last couple weeks I did back-to-back yesterday, when I went from a showing of The Amazing Spider-Man at the Moolah to the Pujol s ... More >>

Cheese Pizza at La Pizza and The Amazing Spider-Man

In May, Gut Check kicked-off the superhero leg of this summer's blockbuster season by seeing The Avengers in 3D and wolfing down a "Super Hero Sandwich" at Planet Sub. The next notch on our big-budget superhero movie belt was whittled this week at a viewing of The Amazing Spider-Man in 3D -- Marvel ... More >>

The spider becomes a man and a joy in The Amazing Spider-Man

Reminder: Vote for St. Louis' Most Overrated Burger, Draw a Spider-Man Comic

Voting continues until the end of the day Sunday in the first round of our poll for St. Louis' most overrated burger. As of this writing, there is a clear favorite for the, um, honor. But will it be the runaway winner once we narrow the field to three? And which two burgers will join it? Please vo ... More >>

Enter Gut Check's "Drawing" to Win an Awesome Spider-Man Prize Pack from Hardee's

The Amazing Spider-Man -- this summer's comic-book movie spectacular that isn't The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises -- opens on July 3. That means the Spider-Man promotional machine is kicking into high gear. Locally, the Hardee's at 2110 Hampton Avenue will host a Spider-Man event from 2-4 p.m. ... More >>

'Ware the Bat-Signal: Wehrenberg's Dark Knight Marathon Looms Large

With The Avengers making eleventy-billion dollars and Prometheus racking up a solid if financially disappointing opening weekend (it earned less than Snow White and the Huntsman?) , two-thirds of the summer's most-anticipated movies have now been released. Chances are you know what the third film a- ... More >>

For Your Ears Only

The Heavy Hand of the Lubitsch Touch

Batman's Tumbler and Batpod Park at Busch Stadium This Wednesday

The Tumbler and the Bat-Pod -- which were known as the Batmobile and the Batcycle when I was a kid, goddammit -- are touring the country right now to goose the hoopla for The Dark Knight Rises, the final installment of Christopher Nolan's bat-trilogy. If you're one of the multitude who are eagerly a ... More >>

Super Hero Sandwich at Planet Sub and The Avengers

Summer blockbuster season is upon us, and, as usual, that means a handful of new superhero movies -- and we ain't mad about it. The first of the flurry is, of course, Joss Whedon's The Avengers, released on May 4. In true curmudgeon style, Gut Check waited a week to see the flick, not because we wer ... More >>

Ask a Mexican: Who's the most pro-Mexican GOP candidate?

Cinemaestro, John Williams

Ryan Gosling at the wheel in the glossy, retro heist-gone-bad bloodbath, Drive

Transformers Meets Linkin Park: The Three Best Homemade AMVs

​These are the facts on the ground, as I see them: First, if a fourteen-year-old boy has ever loved a TV or movie franchise, there will be an AMV (from "Anime Music Video") about it. Second, if there's an AMV about something, half of the fourteen-year-old boys in the universe have synched the ... More >>

X-Men: The First Class and Mr. X Pizza

Chrissy WilmesA deliciously mutated Mr. X pizza.​Film adaptations have the dual task of not only being good in and of themselves, but maintaining a certain loyalty and respect to the story's original form. When it comes to comic books adapted into films, there's an extra element -- the nerd fa ... More >>

Metropolis Rebuilt

Which Star Wars Character is David Eckstein?

heruniverse.comAshley Eckstein, a.k.a. Ahsoka Tano​So, earlier this week Daily RFT was surfing the Internets when we came across the following revelation. Ashley Eckstein, wife of MLB player David Eckstein, makes her living as the voice actress for Jedi padawan Ahsoka Tano on the "Clone Wars" TV ... More >>

New Album Release Highlights: Tuesday, June 22

(New albums are typically released on Tuesdays, i.e., today. What can you spend your hard-earned pennies on this week? Find out below.) The Constellations' Southern Gothic​*Chemical Brothers, Further The Brothers' seventh album is an elaborate audio/visual project, with "interactive" videos a ... More >>

Moving Right Along

'May the 4th Be With You,' It's Star Wars Day in St. Louis

It's the afternoon of May 4, 2010. Or as it's known to Star Wars fans, it's Star Wars Day across America. Seriously. In that spirit, here are five totally awful Star Wars Photoshopped images that are St. Louis-centric. If you've seen the movies (the original three, thank you), you may get inside jok ... More >>

Feel the Disaster

Just in Time for Life Day

Holi-Daze

Christmas through a cracked lens

Robots in Disguise

Is there a Transformer named "Microfiche?"

Gotta Get Back in Time

But just a little bit back

Poof!

Howdy do-dat?

Dark Knight by Night

Join the Moolah cult

Glenn in the Glen

Goose and Maverick will be there, too

Right Now, In a Town Not So Far Away...