Author: Roger Moore

Disaster movies, which predate the zeitgeist’s fascination with a world falling apart around us, are always great measures of the state of the Hollywood art of special effects. In “San Andreas,” you will believe the ground is rippling under Los Angeles, the cracking collapse of the Hoover Dam and that a tidal wave is submerging…

Starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachael McAdams, Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin, John Krasinski, Dennis Bumpy Kanahele, Bill Murray; directed by Cameron Crowe; 104 minutes; PG-13 for some language including suggestive comments Cameron Crowe fans – and that includes most movie critics – have cut him a lot of slack over the years. Our love for…

Starring George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie; directed by Brad Bird; 130 minutes; PG for sequences of sci-fi action violence and peril, thematic elements and language; C+ “Tomorrowland” is Brad Bird’s Jeremiad against the dystopia that is modern culture, with its yen for zombie apocalypses, environmental catastrophes and the 24 hours of fear telecast by…

Hollywood long ago ceded “love that stands the test of time” to the realm of science-fiction and fantasy, so “The Age of Adaline” falls neatly into a genre that includes “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “About Time” and even “Somewhere in Time.” But building this film around all the willowy, world-weary grace that Blake “Gossip Girl”…

Starring Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Yilmaz Erdogan, Jai Courtney, Dylan Georgiades; directed by Russell Crowe; 111 minutes; R for war violence including some disturbing images The century-old open wound of Gallipoli, Australia’s ill-fated entry into World War I, makes a vivid and grim backdrop for Russell Crowe’s “The Water Diviner,” a sensitive and sentimental story…

Starring Jakob Salvati, Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson, David Henrie and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa; directed by Alejandro Monteverde; 100 minutes; PG-13 for some mature thematic material and violence Racism and religion, hatred and friendship, bullying and war, atomic bombs and the consequences of using them – heavy stuff to pack into a faith-based film. And one aimed…

Narrated by Tina Fey; directed by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill; 85 minutes; G “Monkey Kingdom,” Disneynature’s latest Earth Day offering, is an intriguing peek inside the social structure of macaque monkey society in Sri Lanka. So while it’s got plenty of cute macaque monkeys, playing and cavorting, there’s also a little social commentary in…

One is a newly disgraced New York Times reporter desperately in search of a career- reviving scoop. The other is a newly captured accused murderer, a man who has been on the lam using the Times reporter’s identity as he fled the country. They’re roughly the same age, both opportunists and story tellers, each cynical…

Starring Henry Adofo, Phillip Adekunle Michael, Michael Attram, Alphonse Menyo; directed by Garrett Batty; 113 minutes; PG-13 for thematic situations involving violence The early days of Liberia’s long civil war provide the backdrop to “Freetown,” a modestly budgeted odyssey about Mormon missionaries fleeing the country for neighboring Sierra Leone. It’s 1989, and rebels are hunting…

Starring Scott Eastwood, Britt Robertson, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin, Alan Alda; directed by George Tillman Jr.; 124 minutes, PG-13 for some sexuality, partial nudity, and some war and sports action The pretty coed doesn’t want to go, doesn’t seeing herself “as a rodeo gal.” But her sorority sisters insist she ogle the “easy on the…