patching...
Update: Get Barrow Patch news in your inbox each day by subscribing to our free newsletter »
Welcome back, Patch Blogger!

About this column:

Brett Martin is a familiar face in the Atlanta area. He was the entertainment reporter and Road Warrior for Fox 5 and Good Day Atlanta for many years (1999-2007). Brett continues to be a film critic and a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association. He has personally interviewed nearly every major movie star and Academy Award winning actor and actress over the past two decades. You can catch all his reviews and find out more about Brett on his two websites. His movie reviews can be seen at www.flickedup.com. His video production business, which specializes in online commercials, can be seen at www.brettervideo.com. If you have any specific questions contact Brett via e-mail, flickmeup@gmail.com, or friend him on Facebook www.facebook.com/brettervideo. You can also follow him on Twitter at @imbrettmartin.
The movie No less than a dozen different story lines intertwine in the star-stuffed film New Years Eve. These stories are spliced together and made into a movie. The small stories include first kisses, midnight rendezvous, newborn babies, dying fathers, trapped strangers and husbands at war. The end result is a big, bloated cast of celebrities with very little to say, except, happy holidays. So who's in the film ? Let's roll the credits … Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Hector Elizondo, Katherine …
The movie Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Animal and all the rest are back together again in The Muppets. Jason Segel co-wrote and stars in the film as Gary. He and girlfriend Mary (played by Amy Adams) head to Hollywood on a dream trip. Tagging along is Gary's brother Walter, a cute, little puppet who is the world's biggest Muppets fan. Upon arriving in Hollywood, they find out the Muppets' studio has fallen into disrepair. Kermit and his gang of friends have long since parted company but reunite just in time to put on a telethon to raise cash to buy back the studio. An all-…
It has been three years since the first movie and the wait is finally over for fans of "The Twilight Saga." Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) tie the knot at last in the highly anticipated "Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1." The film is the fourth in a supernatural soap opera franchise that has already raked in nearly $2 billion worldwide. If you are one of the only people on the planet who do not know about this series, here is all you need to know: Vampire Edward Cullen and human Bella Swan (who happens to be a virgin) are getting married and their werewolf friend …
We want your review of J. Edgar and any other movies you've seen in theaters lately. Tell us in comments. The movie He ruled the Federal Bureau of Investigation for decades, nosing around in the private lives of his enemies and friends. Leonardo DiCaprio stars in a Clint Eastwood-directed film about the secret life of one of the most powerful men in the United States in the last century — J. Edgar HooverJ. Edgar focuses on those closest to Hoover: mother Annie Hoover (played by Judi Dench), secretary Helen Gandy (played by Naomi Watts) and FBI associate director and Hoover companion Clyde …
We want your review of Tower Heist and any other movies you've seen in theaters lately. Tell us in comments. The movie Ben Stiller plays an apartment building manager who, along with the other building staff members, gets ripped off by penthouse resident Arthur Shaw (played by Alan Alda). When the employees realize they have been swindled, they plan their revenge in the form of a "Tower Heist".After an FBI agent (played by Tea Leoni) leaks word about a large stash of cash in Shaw's apartment, Stiller's character hires Slide, a two-bit cat burglar played by Eddie Murphy, to plan the heist. …
The movie This Shrek spin-off is actually a prequel that tells the story of Puss in Boots, an adventurous kitty voiced with great charisma by Antonio Banderas. Our favorite cat teams up with the lively Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) on a dangerous search for Jack and Jill's "magic beans". They get help in their quest from Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) as they climb the beanstalk to a castle in the clouds to nab the golden goose in order to repay their debts back home. There are more cat jokes and fairy-tale references in this story than I have time to mention. The Puss in Boots character …
The movie If you like scary movies, Paranormal Activity 3 may be just the movie for you. This good, old-fashioned ghost movie takes the story line back to the very beginning of the franchise. Cast with unknown actors, the horror prequel focuses on the two sisters who were seen as adults in the previous films. The girls share a two-level home with their mother and the mother's boyfriend. The girls are aware of a ghostly presence in the house that the adults, at first, are not.The boyfriend, who is something of a VHS video expert, has cameras set up all over the house — running all the time, …
The movie A remake of the original from 1984, Footloose pits old farts who hate rock and roll against wild, young, dancing teens who want to shake their groove thing all night long. The story remains basically the same. Some teens, including the son of a local reverend, are killed in a car accident after a night of dancing and partying. The reverend (Dennis Quaid) then leads the drive to pass an ordinance forbidding public dancing. Fast forward a few years. Now the reverend's daughter Ariel, played by Julianne Hough, starts to stir up controversy by participating in some forbidden, …
The movie Hollywood superstar George Clooney stars in and directs The Ides of March, a political thriller that reveals a dark underbelly of our ever-changing democracy. Clooney plays Democratic presidential candidate Mike Morris, a man who isn't what he appears to be in this political thriller. The movie also features rising star Ryan Gosling. Gosling plays Clooney's hot-shot media strategist Stephen Myers. Gosling's character butts heads with the campaign manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and the opposition's campaign manager (Paul Giamatti). Marisa Tomei stars as the New York Times reporter …
The movie Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, a 27-year-old man who has his whole life ahead of him until he discovers he has a rare form of cancer and only a 50/50 chance of survival. The people in Adam's life react differently to the news. His girlfriend, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, pledges to stand by him, then dumps him. His mother, Anjelica Huston, goes into smothering mode and his best friend, Kyle, played by Seth Rogen, tries to keep his spirits up by turning his life into a non-stop party. Rogen co-produces 50/50, a movie based loosely in part on the life of Rogen's good friend Will …
The movie Brad Pitt sets out to revolutionize the game of baseball in the real-life story turned movie Moneyball. Pitt plays Billy Beane, the Oakland A's general manager who hired math whiz Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) to help revolutionize the game of baseball. There is not a lot of time spent on the field in this film, it is really all about Beane and how he created a winning organization not with roster talent, but by using statistics called sabermetrics. It is the story of a time when nerds took over what had always been a jock's world and hit a grand slam. Moneyball stands on its …
The movie "Driver," played by Ryan Gosling, is a solitary stunt driver who works on movie sets by day and drives getaway cars at night in the movie Drive. Driver falls for his apartment neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), a mom with a small son whose father is an ex-con. The ex-con drags Driver into a robbery that goes wrong and threatens both Irene and her child. Albert Brooks plays a crime lord with a thing for forks, Ron Perlman is the Jewish gangster who does business in a pizza parlor and Bryan Cranston plays Driver's best buddy, giving this film plenty of acting horsepower.Drive is a …
The movie Two brothers slug out their emotional baggage in the moving, melodramatic sports movie Warrior. Joel Edgerton plays Brendan, a family man who earns a living as a daytime teacher and extra cash moonlighting as a fighter. His brother Tommy (played by Tom Hardy) is a brooding war veteran who has returned home under mysterious circumstance. Their father Paddy (played by Nick Nolte) is a once violent alcoholic who is now sober. The brothers have grown apart and dislike each other. The only thing they have in common is the hatred they share for their father and all his years of abuse. …
The movie Six actors play three roles over a 30-year time period in this thriller about Nazis, Israeli spies and all sorts of lies in The Debt. Helen Mirren plays retired Israeli Mossad agent Rachel who is honored for her role in an assassination of a Nazi War criminal in 1965. Thirty years have passed, but questions still remain. Did she and associate Stephan (Tom Wilkinson) and others really kill their target? After an apparent suicide of a certain spy, Mirren rewinds the entire mission 30 years prior. Jessica Chastain plays a young Mirren, who, along with Sam Worthington's character, …
The movie Paul Rudd looks all hippie dippy as Ned, an immature man-child who drives his family crazy in the film Our Idiot Brother. Rudd spends most of the movie crashing on one sofa after another in a series of unfortunate events.  Ned first lands at his sister Liz's house. Liz, played by Emily Mortimer, is an insecure Brooklyn mom married to Dylan (Steve Coogan). Ned quickly wears out his welcome and moves in with his sister Miranda, played by Elizabeth Banks, a writer for Vanity Fair. Finally, he joins his artsy, bisexual bohemian sister Natalie, played by Zooey Deschanel. Ned has a knack …
The movie Conan the Barbarian is back. Bare chested, bloody and brutal, it is everything you would expect from a franchise that helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger's career 30 years ago. Move over "Ah-nold" — there is a new barbarian breaking new ground. Hawaiian actor Jason Momoa breathes new life into the role as Conan. Mamoa is best known for his role in the wildly popular HBO show Game of Thrones as Khal Drogo. Now the long-haired actor, who looks as if he belongs on the cover of a Harlequin romance, brings his muscular physique to a whole new legion of fans. The storyline for this movie …
The movie Social Network star Jesse Eisenberg finds himself in dire straits as a pizza delivery guy turned bank robber in the dark comedy 30 Minutes or Less.Eisenberg, along with Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari, team up to rob a bank to help Dwayne (played by Danny McBride) obtain $100,000 in order to pay a hit man (Michael Peña) to kill Dwayne's father (played by Fred Ward). The reason for the murder — to get Dwayne's inheritance. Nick Swardson plays McBride's sidekick in this fast-paced and strangely funny film. This film is based on a similar premise as Zombieland — by placing …
The movie Chimps, gorillas and other primates take some mind-altering drugs and give a big hairy smackdown to the puny humans in this week's featured film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. James Franco plays a scientist trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease, the same disease that has stricken his father (played by John Lithgow). After trouble with one of the test chimps, all of the chimps are put down — all but one, a newborn chimp that Franco's character rescues and names Caesar.  Caesar grows up to be a very smart monkey — a little too smart. As a result, he is sent to a "primate …
The movie Double-O Seven star Daniel Craig forms an unlikely alliance with Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde in the Sci-Fi/Western genre mashup "Cowboys and Aliens." Craig plays an 1870s outlaw with amnesia who wakes up with a alien bracelet and figures out he can zap space monsters with the flick of a wrist. The monsters are bad and the cowboys are good. A classic western with an intergalactic twist. John Favreu directs the move and, as an added bonus, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazier have their hands all over it, making this a trailblazing future classic. The CGI is great, the …
The movie Chris Evans goes from 98-pound weakling to superstar in the film Captain America: The First Avenger. Evans plays Brooklyn-born Steve Rogers, who gets chosen by military scientist Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) for an experiment. Evans ends up turning into a super buff, greased-up Ken doll, also known as Captain America. This film has some great supporting actors. Tommy Lee Jones plays military leader Col. Chester Phillips, Captain America's love interest is military liaison Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell, and Hugo Weaving, the go-to bad boy (remember The Matrix?) is the Nazi …

Columns