morningamp:

Every Friday on the AMp, we talk to our film critic, Reggie Ponder about box office hits and misses.

This week, he called host Molly Adams and co-host Jill Hopkins and gave his review on Tyler Perry produced film “Peeples” and Baz Luhrmann’s “Gatsby”. Although the timing of Peeples, a movie surrounding a’meet the parents’ narrative, was appropriate for Mother’s Day Weekend, Reggie recommends that audiences should wait until the DVD releases to watch it rather than spend money in the theaters. Besides the story line being too cliche ( with the mimicking of the Meet the Parents story line), he felt that the movie was trying too hard to be funny and it took quite an effort to make the movie work which left him feeling disappointed.

On the other hand, “Gatsby” received a better review from Reggie. If you haven’t read the book, The Great Gatsby, not to fear. Toby Maguire - who plays the main character, Nick Carroway - narrates the entire film exactly from the book itself, so it will be easy to follow. The visuals, colors, costuming, and overall landscape in the movie were impressive enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen, and Reggie said that Leonardo DiCaprio and Carrie Mulligan’s multi-layered relationship with each other and with other characters were captivating alone. The only complaint? How Baz Luhrmann incorporated modern hip hop music (including music by Jay-Z, Beyonce and Andrew 3000) into the movie’s soundtrack which threw Reggie off and rather than supplementing the film, it became distracting. Despite split reviews from other film critics about the movie, Reggie gave this movie a 3.5 out of a possible 5 reels and recommends every one to check it out!

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morningamp:

“I believe this movie got made because of the Hangover phenomenon. The Hangover Phenomenon is that everything is crazy and everything is outrageous. And this time we have an outrageous story that’s true.” - Reggie Ponder on the new film, Pain and Gain.

Matt Fagerholm and Reggie Ponder join hosts Molly Adams and Brian Babylon in the studio to talk all things movies. Matt reports back from an Ebert-less EbertFest and reviews Cannes favorite, Mud, starring the new king of indies, Matthew McConaughey.

Reggie Ponder the Reel Critic reviews Michael Bay’s action-comedy Pain and Gain starring the Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Mark Wahlberg and talks about the winners and losers at the box office.

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morningamp:

“The franchise has died…hard.”

Reggie Ponder reviews the latest film from the franchise that just won’t die: “A Good Day to Die Hard.” Even though he predicts the movie will make a lot of money (especially internationally), he recommends waiting to see it on cable.

Reggie also reviews the supernatural teenage love story, “Beautiful Creatures.” Though the film is not for everyone, Reggie says it’s clever and well done.

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morningamp:

For our end of the month indie movie round-up and forecast, we were joined by Matt Fagerholm of HollywoodChicago.com and Reggie Ponder the Reel Critic. Hosts Brian Babylon and Molly Adams join the two buffs to talk about upcoming films The Impossible and Amour. We then looked at last week’s box office numbers, including Lincoln, Life of Pi, Hitchcock, The Collection, and, much to Reggie’s chagrin, Red Dawn.

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morningamp:

The Reel Critic Reggie Ponder reviewed the final installment to the seemingly never-ending Twilight franchise, and had nothing but good things to say!

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morningamp:

For this week’s reviews, Reggie Ponder the Reel Critic started off with the newest installment in the James Bond series, Skyfall. The character of Bond usually balances brains and brawn, but for Reggie, Daniel Craig’s Bond lacks the “silky-smooth” espionage of previous actors. Instead, Reggie praised Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance of our 16th president in Spielberg’s new film Lincoln.

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