Mike Ryan

Nine years after the original ‘Sin City,’ a sequel that no one has recently asked for will be in your local movie theater come Friday. The name of this sequel is ‘Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,’ which consists of four intertwining stories set against a stylized backdrop and, hey, it’s August … what are you really looking for right now, anyway? As a service to you, we answer every question that you could possibly have about ‘Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.’

“Can you believe Popeye is played by the guy who plays Mork?” These words from my mother blew my seven-year-old mind. That's my intro to a piece I don’t know how to write and, honestly, probably shouldn’t be writing so soon after learning about Robin Williams’ death. I only had one encounter with Williams professionally – an interview promoting ‘Happy Feet 2,’ of all things – yet there are tears coming down my face as I type this for what is essentially a stranger. Even though he’s not a stranger. Everyone knew him. This is everyone’s loss.

During the second season of ‘Seinfeld’ – on Wednesday, December 12, 1990, to be more exact – the cast sat down to read through the script for what would be the fourth episode of the season and only the ninth episode of a series that would go on to produce a total of 180 episodes. The episode was titled ‘The Bet.’ Sets for the episode had been built. Guest characters had been cast. ‘The Bet’ would never air.

A movie like ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ exists only to make money. And it did make money -- a lot of money. And there are a lot of movies that fit into this supposed “blockbuster” (or, if at Blockbuster, the “box office buster”) category. These movie don’t have to be good. People just see them. That’s why it is really notable when one of these movies is as good as ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' is.

Here are the best movies of 2014 so far! (Note: These movies have all been released in theaters and I am not including movies that I saw at film festivals that have not been yet released to the public.)

It’s interesting that Universal is promoting ‘A Million Ways to Die in the West,’ a film that is not funny, as a comedy. I suspect it has a lot to do with the human carnage we witness on screen being unbearable to watch, so the only way to desensitize an audience’s eyes to what they're about to witness is to somehow convince the viewer that what their about to see is a comedy – even though there is not one laugh to be had.