Jonathan Swift

*1/2 (out of four)   FYI: When punching a lizard in the face, it’s called giving him “the thunder cookie.”   At least, that’s what Hank (Dwayne Johnson) calls it when protecting his stepson Sean (Josh Hutcherson, reprising his role...

Bill O’Reilly is not a stupid man, but he often plays one on TV. Last week O’Reilly, on his program on Faux News, dealt with the nonissue of the rapper Common doing a poetry reading at the White House. Following the designated GOP ceaseless...

Having the ability to sincerely apologize is a wonderful trait. Because I’m chatty and a joker, I do and say things I shouldn’t on a regular basis, so I have to apologize often. If I don’t feel any regret, I won’t waste my...

In Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (the sequel to 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth) the characters are on a quest that takes them to an island located in place where no island is supposed to exist.  Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson), his...

Master gardener Mud Baron supplies school gardens with evangelical zeal....

Orlando TV viewers may have caught new commercials, funded by Americans for Prosperity, and directly targeting the Congressional re-election bids for Alan Grayson and Suzanne Kosmas. The national advocacy group, founded by billionaire David Koch, has paid...

Nikki Finke is reporting that Fox has blinked and moved “Gulliver's Travels,” the comic modernizing of Jonathan Swift's famous satire starring Jack Black, Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, to Christmas Day. I have a call in to Fox to confirm that....

It begins with a very short cartoon starring that pre-historic “Ice Age” squirrel and ends with a big song and dance number. But no, “Gulliver's Travels” isn't all filler. Even though it sometimes seems that way. This Jack Black...

The Christmas weekend box office will be led by "Little Fockers," but Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller's dysfunctional family won't be as dominant as previously expected. The star-laden and pricey comedy, which is being distributed domestically by Universal...

The Fockers are still the king of the busy holiday box office as "Little Fockers" had a pretty good start, but the Coen brothers' "True Grit" was surprisingly close on their heels. Meanwhile, Jack Black's "Gulliver's Travels" barely got off......

Someone told me that one line of defense being trotted out for South Carolina Republican congressman Joe Wilson's ill-bred and uncouth shout of ''You lie!'' at President Obama is that that sort of thing is done all the time in Britain's House of Commons....

Only toward dawn did the sea begin to calm. I rose from my berth and glanced out the window. The setting moon cast a broad light on the rolling waters of the Bass Strait, and in the distance, the lights of Tasmania began to dot the darkness. We had...