Movies

The month of May 2013 kicks off the summer blockbuster season for movies, and there are lots of reasons to get your butt to the ice cold multiplexes, which always crank the AC to Arctic levels in the warm months. Take in a shoot 'em up, a big budget actioner or a comic book flick.

New in theaters this week: a biography of a groundbreaking baseball player, and the latest installment in a popular, long-running horror-movie-parody series. Here's the reviews, trailers, and links to get your tickets at Victoria's Cinemark 12.

Hitting theaters this weekend are the second entry in a toy-based action franchise, the latest adaptation of a Stephenie ('Twilight') Meyer novel, and a Madea-free Tyler Perry tale. Here's the rundown, and the links for tickets to see them here in Victoria.

Zombies are everywhere lately, at least in the form of books, TV and movies, and a local zombie horde is headed to the big 'D' next week. A comedy horror film called "Buck Wild' that was shot in Goliad and Weesatche has it's big screen debut April 6th at the Dallas International Film Festival, and at the Hill Country Film Festival in Fredricksburg on May 4th.

The trailers for both of these flicks opening today look pretty good to me, I'm always up for a slick suspense thriller, and how can you go wrong with a comedy starring Steve Carell and Jim Carrey?

The recent 'Amazing Spider-Man' and the upcoming 'Man of Steel' seem to get all the attention regarding studios' attempt to "reboot" franchises, but that's pretty much the same thing as what's going on with 'Oz the Great and Powerful.' If it succeeds at the box office, we may end up with a new version of 'The Wizard of Oz' at some point very soon, even though the producers have said that

'Jack the Giant Slayer' may have taken the number one spot at the box office, but no one is celebrating -- it may sit at the top, but it sits at the top of one of the weakest box office weekends since, well, last weekend.

This week we have four new releases, covering four different genres and targeting four different audiences: fairy-tale action epic, a coming-of-age (21) comedy, supernatural horror, and a submarine thriller. They're all opening this weekend in Victoria, with the exception of 'Phantom.'

This review contains spoilers for 'The Last Exorcism' -- though not for 'The Last Exorcism Part II.' Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell), the heroine of 'The Last Exorcism,' was a great tragic figure; a sweet, innocent girl inexplicably hounded by a nefarious cult and a vicious demon named Abalam. With 'The Last Exorcism Part II,' Nell's story grows even sadder -- by extending it into this superfluous and

'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,' and the new approach to the 'PotA' films is decidedly different than the tact taken in the 1970's. There, each sequel was given a smaller and smaller budget and with fewer name talents. Not so with 'Dawn,' as it just added Gary Oldman to the cast.

We're big fans of the video mashup, especially when it combines two things that should never, ever be combined: Like Kevin McCallister and the Iranian hostage crisis, for example.

This week, two new flicks hit theaters. The first is a spooky thriller about a family terrorized by a mysterious force, while the other is an action tale about a father determined to save his son.