Movie Reviews
The Cabin in the Woods
From a movie buff's perspective, "The Cabin in the Woods" represents the most exciting shake-up in the slasher genre since "Scream," 16 years ago. But where "Scream" went one direction, introducing self-awareness to a formula that desperately needed ...
The Three Stooges
Watching "The Three Stooges," the Farrelly Brothers' new incarnation of the vintage slapstick characters, one thing is clear: Bobby and Peter Farrelly genuinely love the Three Stooges. Plenty of old properties get dusted off and trotted out as cynica...
Blue Like Jazz
If you were a teacher and "Blue Like Jazz" were a paper handed in by a student, you'd wish you could disregard the usual criteria and grade it solely on its thought-provoking ideas and good intentions. To put it another way, it's a shame that a story...
American Reunion
As near as I can figure, the plot in "American Reunion" is that the people who own the rights to the "American Pie" franchise wanted to make another movie and didn't particularly care whether that movie had a plot. Why bother with a story when all yo...
Mirror Mirror
After a decade of snarky, "Shrek"-inspired fairy tale parodies, it's refreshing to see "Mirror Mirror" take on the Snow White story with an attitude of mischief and charm rather than outright satire. There are no hip, soon-to-be-dated cultural allusi...
Wrath of the Titans
Oh, right, this thing. Remember that "Clash of the Titans" remake a couple years ago, the one with lousy after-the-fact 3D conversion and a boring lead actor? The one that was anticlimactic and dull, even though it had a Kraken in it? Well, they made...
Goon
"Goon" represents two noteworthy achievements. One is that it's a very funny R-rated sports comedy, which is not common. The other is that it stars Seann William Scott -- heretofore best known as the aggressively jerky Stifler in the "American Pie" f...
Intruders
The best thing that "Intruders" has going for it is its central image of a person with a featureless face. Hollowface, as he's called in the movie, is a bedroom-closet boogeyman who torments a young Spanish boy and a young English girl in parallel (o...
Bully (documentary)
I don't know what it will take to eliminate bullying among young people. Better parenting, more effective school policies, possibly some reprogramming of basic human nature. "Bully," a somber documentary by Lee Hirsch, doesn't have any answers either...
The Hunger Games
For a movie with the word "games" in the title and based on a book written for young adults, "The Hunger Games" is startlingly un-frivolous. This is serious business, this matter of a dystopian future America in which every year two dozen teenagers a...
The Raid: Redemption (Indonesian)
The main ingredient in "The Raid" is action, specifically the kind of action where dudes beat the living hell out of each other with their fists, their feet, and whatever weapons are nearby. There are other ingredients, too -- there's a plot, kind of...
21 Jump Street
The movie version of "21 Jump Street" isn't faithful to the tone or spirit of the TV show, which ran from 1987-91 on the fledgling Fox Network. It isn't quite a satire of the show either, despite five or six lines of dialogue suggesting such a thing,...
Jeff, Who Lives at Home
The Jeff who lives at home in "Jeff, Who Lives at Home" is a 30-year-old pothead who rarely leaves the coziness of his mother's basement, where he has all the weed, snacks, and TV he needs. He's played by Jason Segel, which probably tells you a lot, ...
Casa de Mi Padre (Spanish)
After bracing myself for "Casa de Mi Padre" to be a significant departure for Will Ferrell, and after the deliberately Tarantino-esque opening title sequence had me intrigued about the possibilities of this Spanish-language exercise, I was surprised ...
Silent House
There are no original ideas in "Silent House," and not just because it's a remake. The 2010 Uruguayan film that spawned it, barely seen outside the festival circuit, is reportedly composed of familiar ingredients, too. But so are the scary stories th...
John Carter
Much has been made of the fact that "John Carter" was going to be called "John Carter of Mars" before someone at Disney decided the "of Mars" part would lessen the film's appeal to girls, who presumably aren't interested in science-fiction. Just imag...
Friends with Kids
There's a derivative, by-the-numbers rom-com lurking in the periphery of "Friends with Kids" -- and thank goodness it's never allowed to come out. What we get instead is a sharp, funny comedy about two platonic friends who have a baby together and ev...
The Lorax
It was only after seeing the new animated version of "The Lorax," and being disappointed by it, that I went back and re-read the Dr. Seuss book it's based on. I think my disappointment would have been greater if the book had been fresh in my mind whe...
Project X
Like pretty much all movies now, the rancid and pointless teen comedy "Project X" pretends to be "found footage," i.e., it is filmed by the characters themselves. The artistic reason for this choice is presumably to make the story seem more true-to-l...
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie
The world can be divided into three categories: people who have seen "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and liked it; people who have seen it and hated it; and people who haven't seen it at all. The first group wi...
Act of Valor
Matters of national security would make it impossible, but I would love to see a documentary crew follow the Navy SEALs on some of their dangerous, highly specialized missions, to give us a feel for just how amazing those elite groups of soldiers mus...
Gone
If "Gone" were a single episode of a police drama -- which is what it feels like it is, albeit a very stupid one -- I would have been interested enough to keep one eye on the TV while I folded laundry. The scenario is intriguing in the way that the a...
Wanderlust
The key to enjoying the delightfully absurd "Wanderlust" is accepting that it does not take place in the real world. Real people have motivations for what they do, and their actions have consequences. "Wanderlust" is populated by characters from a sk...
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
If there was any hope for the "Ghost Rider" franchise after that disastrous first entry five years ago, it was in hiring "Crank" directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. Their frenetic, cracked-out style would theoretically complement Nicolas Cage'...
This Means War
I can pinpoint the exact moment when I checked out of the brightly lit but dimly conceived romantic comedy "This Means War." Let me describe the scene for you.
Lauren (Reese Witherspoon), our perky professional gal who's unlucky at love, has just...
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
The problem with Jules Verne, of course, is that he wrote his adventure novels well over a hundred years ago, and none of them are about boy wizards or sexy werewolves. So we can't just do a straight adaptation of, say, "Journey to the Center of the ...
Safe House
A friend of mine described "Safe House" on Twitter as "a normal action movie, but with Denzel!" That's accurate and succinct, and it tells you everything you need to know. Were it not for my puritan work ethic I would just steal that line and end thi...
The Vow
The germs of a few good ideas reside within the bowels of "The Vow," but the movie is too preoccupied with pushing chick-flick buttons to cultivate them. Someone figured -- and perhaps not without reason -- that you don't need thoughtful, resonant th...
Kill List
We're a good 20 minutes into "Kill List" before anything happens that could be cited as a clear, unmistakable example of nefariousness. But one of the things I love about the movie is that even before that -- and after it, until more unambiguous dark...
The Innkeepers
Ti West isn't through with spooky edifices yet. He returns, after his slow-burning "The House of the Devil," with "The Innkeepers," a very different kind of horror film. While "House of the Devil" was a tense homage to the babysitters-in-peril bloodb...
The Woman in Black
The first discernible line of dialogue in "The Woman in Black" is an offscreen mother wailing, "Aaaahhh! My babies!" Her "babies" -- young girls, actually, but we'll cut the mother some semantic slack during her time of grief -- have just met a myste...
Chronicle
There have been dozens of "found footage" or faux-documentary movies in the 13 years since "Blair Witch Project," but never has that narrative device felt more forced and unnecessary than in "Chronicle." It's like they had a perfectly good idea for a...
The Grey
As appealing as the idea may sound, "The Grey" is not a movie about Liam Neeson punching wolves. I'm not saying he doesn't punch any wolves in the movie, nor am I saying that he does; the point is, that's not the point. In this bleak and frigid survi...
Man on a Ledge
Sam Worthington plays the man in "Man on a Ledge." He might have been better cast as the ledge. Previously foisted upon us in "Avatar," "Terminator: Salvation," and "Clash of the Titans," Worthington is the world's dullest up-and-coming action star, ...
Haywire
You know, when someone decided that mixed martial arts champion Gina Carano should be a movie star, it would have been easy to showcase her fighting skills in some brainless, slapped-together action flick. That's been the practice with plenty of othe...
Red Tails
With the 1995 HBO film "The Tuskegee Airmen" already well-regarded as the definitive account of the U.S. Army's first squad of black fighter pilots, you have to wonder what purpose is served by "Red Tails," which covers much of the same territory and...
Joyful Noise
After two music-themed films that were better than you'd expect, writer/director Todd Graff has hit a sour note with "Joyful Noise." This overlong and forgettable comedy about a gospel choir is so uninspiring that I'm not even concerned about using t...
Roadie
Michael Cuesta earned notoriety a decade ago with his first film, "L.I.E.," starring Brian Cox as a pedophile and Paul Dano as one of his targets. Cuesta went on to direct multiple episodes of "Six Feet Under" and "Dexter," plus a couple more movies ...
The Devil Inside
The shocking twists in "The Devil Inside" begin immediately. Even before the first scene there's a title card informing us that "the Vatican did not endorse this film nor aid in its completion." That's huge! Normally the Roman Catholic church is heav...
Angels Crest
The title town in "Angels Crest" is a small, snowy place in Montana where the locals all know each other, where the diner is run by the woman whose name is on the sign, and where people equipped with firearms can adjourn to a nearby wood, shoot a dee...
The Iron Lady
As the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom and a key player in 1980s world politics, Margaret Thatcher deserves a tough-but-fair biopic shedding light on her strengths and weaknesses as a person and as a leader. Until such a movie arriv...
Pariah
While coming-of-age dramas about gay teenagers are common enough (especially at film festivals), they're usually about boys, not girls. Your more lesbian-centric movies tend to be about adults. At least as far as American films go, anyway. The Europe...
War Horse
The main character in "War Horse" is the horse. I keep trying to convince myself otherwise, but it's true. The story's action follows the horse, a spirited thoroughbred named Joey, on a series of adventures on and near the battlefields of World War I...
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The 9/11 terrorist attacks may eventually serve as source material or inspiration for dozens of movies, fact-based and fictional, just as World War II and the Kennedy assassination have. But so far, with only a few exceptions, filmmakers have been he...
We Bought a Zoo
All movies are "manipulative" in the sense that they're trying to make us feel a certain way. The good ones do it artfully, leading us where they want us to go without it being obvious that we're being led. Some filmmakers are better than others at h...
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The problem with both movie adaptations of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" -- Niels Arden Oplev's 2009 Swedish version as well as David Fincher's new American one -- is that they believe we are far more interested in Mikael and Lisbeth's relationsh...
The Adventures of Tintin
For me, Tintin falls under the category of Things I Know Very Little About That Are Popular In Europe, next to Mr. Bean, bidets, socialized medicine, and soccer. So I have no preexisting attachment to the character when I report that "The Adventures ...
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
"Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" begins with an explosion, followed by a bone-crunching fistfight, followed by a lot of bullets being fired in slow-motion. It picks up right where the last film left off, in other words, and literary purists who s...
Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol
For a director to make the switch from animation to live-action is no small task, but nobody should be too surprised that Brad Bird's first flesh-and-blood effort has the best action sequences, hands down, of any movie this year. Have you seen "The I...
Carnage
"Carnage" is the sort of slight, tossed-off film that would go completely unnoticed if it weren't for its pedigree. The stars are Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and John C. Reilly, and the director is Roman Polanski. Between them there ...
I Melt with You
In "I Melt with You," a quartet of 44-year-old men who were friends in college reunite for their annual weekend of debauchery and hedonism. Sounds fun, right? Not this time! This time, one of the four is being a real Debbie Downer, reminding everyone...
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
About two-thirds of the way through "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," I jotted in my notes: I don't know what's going on. I'd been struggling to keep my head above water the whole time, and it was here that I resigned myself to drowning. I didn't miss a s...
New Year’s Eve
Twenty-two months ago, director Garry Marshall and writer Katherine Fugate hit pay dirt with "Valentine's Day," which crammed a dozen under-developed romantic-comedy plot lines into one stunningly lazy film and made $216 million worldwide. The obviou...
The Sitter
An R-rated comedy starring someone from the Judd Apatow crowd as an apathetic babysitter probably sounded like gold at the pitch meeting, but "The Sitter" -- with Jonah Hill in the lead, directed by David Gordon Green ("Pineapple Express") -- is an o...
Young Adult
Diablo Cody is one of the few screenwriters whose name regular people even recognize, let alone have an opinion about, so the release of "Young Adult" -- her third feature, after her Oscar-winning "Juno" and lackluster "Jennifer's Body" -- attracts m...
We Need to Talk About Kevin
At the center of "We Need to Talk About Kevin" is a premise drawn from a parent's nightmare: what if your child were a cruel, remorseless monster? It's the stuff of horror movies, and this qualifies as one -- though not in the usual way that "evil ki...
Shame
Despite the impression you may have gotten strolling some of the Internet's more giggly avenues, the most riveting part of Michael Fassbender's anatomy in "Shame" is his face. He plays a man who is both addicted to sex and disgusted with himself for ...
Coriolanus
Shakespeare's "Coriolanus" is not staged as often as most of his other plays, and it's never been adapted into a theatrical film before. The reason for this isn't that it has the word "anus" in the title (though that might be a factor) but that the m...
Arthur Christmas
We'll get to praising "Arthur Christmas" in a minute, but first we need to stipulate that it has a bad title. Either you think it's a yuletide story about Dudley Moore's (or Russell Brand's) drunken Arthur character, or, if you know it's a cartoon, y...
The Artist
Nothing about "The Artist" is transcendent or brilliant. A frothy, upbeat tale of old Hollywood, it's clever but not particularly innovative, different but not unique, funny but not hilarious. Yet as frothy, upbeat tales of old Hollywood go, it's sup...
Hugo
So here's Martin Scorsese, almost 70 years old, one of the best directors in the history of cinema, and what does he do? He makes the first family film of his career. Why? For fun. For a change. Oh, and he does it in 3D, and not just in 3D, but in so...
The Muppets
The premise of "The Muppets" is that this hard, cynical world needs the gentle-but-firm humor and optimism of the Muppets. If you doubt this is true, I suggest you watch "The Muppets," a movie that winningly makes the case for its own existence.
...
The Lie
"The Lie" begins with a premise based in darkest comedy, like something "Seinfeld" would have addressed -- it would have been George who told this particular lie -- and then subverts our expectations by contemplating the deeper issues that led to the...
Happy Feet Two
"Happy Feet Two" is such a messy, giddy collage of undisciplined storytelling and half-developed subplots that I'm amazed I enjoyed it as much as I did. Like its predecessor, also directed and co-written by George Miller ("Babe: Pig in the City," the...
Breaking Dawn — Part 1
If "Breaking Dawn -- Part 1" is any indication, there was no need to split the final "Twilight" episode into two films. There's a lot of inactivity here, with pregnant Bella (Kristen Stewart) immobilized while Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) sit around waiting for Jacob's lupine brethren to attack.
The Descendants
"The Descendants" is Alexander Payne's first movie since 2004's "Sideways," his first not to have Jim Taylor as his co-writer, and his first to take place somewhere other than the U.S. mainland. But that doesn't mean he's reinventing himself. The new...
J. Edgar
The impression I get from watching "J. Edgar" is that Leonardo DiCaprio likes the character, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black doesn't, and director Clint Eastwood couldn't care less either way as long as he can finish making the movie before suppertim...
Immortals
It is very difficult for me not to get some enjoyment out of a movie that starts with a stentorian narrator providing exposition in grandiose language that begins with clauses like these: "When this world was still young, long before man or beast roa...
Jack and Jill
Rule number one is that you go into every movie with an open mind. No matter how bad the trailer makes it look; no matter how imbecilic the premise is; no matter how terrible the previous films made by the same people have been; you always allow for ...
Melancholia
Lars von Trier has suffered from clinical depression. This will not surprise anyone who sees "Melancholia," his latest film and his first in a while to feature relatable human emotions, with Kirsten Dunst giving a career-best performance as a young w...
Tower Heist
Brett Ratner is basically Michael Bay without the ambition. Both specialize in frat-boy-oriented movies full of noise, explosions, and references to testicles. But while Bay wants to make GIGANTIC movies that often wind up being awful, Ratner just wa...
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
Like the holiday season or a pot brownie, "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas" takes a while to kick in, but once it does it's cheerful, merry, and ultimately rather exhausting. And once a year feels like plenty.
The third entry in this absurd...
The Rum Diary
Upon learning that there was a gap in his schedule during which he would not be shooting any Tim Burton movies, Johnny Depp returned to his second-favorite subject: Hunter S. Thompson. Depp played the gonzo journalist's alter ego in "Fear and Loathin...
Anonymous
One of the oldest and most enduring conspiracy theories is that the plays attributed to William Shakespeare were not actually written by him. The controversy first arose some 250 years after Shakespeare's death, and it basically boils down to the not...
Puss in Boots
As soon as he appeared in "Shrek 2" and stole the show from the ogres and donkeys, Puss in Boots -- the swashbuckling feline Lothario voiced to perfection by Antonio Banderas -- was assured a spinoff. Whether it was going to be any good was an open q...
Like Crazy
For every "Like Crazy," which examines young love with aching authenticity and poignance, there are a dozen low-budget dramas on the subject that don't work at all. Film festivals are littered with the carcasses of these failed attempts, which often ...
Martha Marcy May Marlene
You may have heard that "Martha Marcy May Marlene" is a harrowing drama about a young woman trying to get away from a cult. One detail that hasn't been highlighted very often but that I find interesting -- one of many intriguing elements of the story...
Paranormal Activity 3
Some of the known laws of physics are defied in "Paranormal Activity 3," but the law of diminishing returns is in full effect. The problem of how to satisfy returning viewers without merely repeating what you've already done is a tough one to solve a...
The Three Musketeers
Paul W.S. Anderson's version of "The Three Musketeers" is a wicked parody of the dumbed-down, tarted-up literary adaptations that Hollywood is famous for. The modern dialogue, the superhero-like physical abilities, the utter abandonment of logic in f...
Johnny English Reborn
Upon hearing that a sequel to "Johnny English" is on its way, the average American will have one of two reactions: either "Why is that flop getting a sequel?" or "What is 'Johnny English'?" Both responses are valid. The James Bond spoof, starring Row...
The Big Year
"The Big Year" is a comedy about the competitive world of birdwatching. The best thing I can say about it is that it's a lot better than you'd expect a comedy about the competitive world of birdwatching to be. It's cheerful, unassuming, and congenial...
The Thing
Running a movie studio is very hard. Your job is to make as much money as possible without wasting any time coming up with new ideas. Ideally, you'd do nothing but produce remakes of movies that your studio already owns. Problem is, whenever you do t...
The Skin I Live In (Spanish)
If you're familiar with Pedro Almodovar's previous movies, you shouldn't be surprised when it turns out his latest, called "The Skin I Live In," actually is about someone wearing new skin. Was it "Talk to Her" that had a fantasy sequence where someon...
The Human Centipede 2
To give credit where it's due, Tom Six, the demented Dutchman behind the notorious "Human Centipede" movie, didn't take the easy way out on the sequel. Once you've established the gross premise of a mad scientist surgically attaching three people so ...
The Ides of March
"The Ides of March" reaffirms what I already believed, which is that I would rather set myself on fire than go into politics. The conniving, the backstabbing, the spinning, the lying, all while under the constant scrutiny of the media and the public ...
Real Steel
"Real Steel" takes place in the near future, maybe 15 years ahead, when everything is exactly the same as it is now except that the sport of robot boxing exists. Evidently we put all our innovation eggs in the robot-boxing basket and ignored everythi...
Take Shelter
The plot of "Take Shelter" is straightforward enough: A man fears a catastrophe is coming and strives to protect his family from it. Yet the film's meaning -- what it's really "about" -- is open to interpretation. Is it about marital communication? T...
50/50
Speaking of perilous odds, the chances of a film like "50/50" turning out to be anything better than awful were slim. It is a comedy about a young man stricken with cancer, first of all, and it costars Seth Rogen, not an actor known for his gentle to...
Dream House
There are probably some fascinating behind-the-scenes stories that would explain why "Dream House" is such a ruined pile of nonsense. How does a movie directed by two-time Oscar nominee Jim Sheridan ("My Left Foot") and starring Daniel Craig, Rachel ...
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
The premise of "Tucker and Dale vs. Evil" is so simple, so elegant, it's practically a thing of beauty. You know those horror movies where a bunch of college kids go camping in the woods and are attacked by psychotic hillbillies? This is one of those...
Dolphin Tale
Like the injured sea mammal at the center of it, "Dolphin Tale" is friendly, lighthearted, and not too graceful. It floats along amiably without any sense of urgency or purpose (or should I say porpoise??) (I should not). Also like a dolphin, the mov...
Killer Elite
The only thing about "Killer Elite" that's even remotely original is that it deals in part with the Arab nation of Oman, which rarely shows up in movies set in that part of the world. It's always Iraq or Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or Israel, never O...
Moneyball
"Moneyball" lies at the intersection of math and baseball, where-- wait, come back! It isn't boring, I promise!
As it happens, the intersection of math and baseball is also the intersection of business and sports, two subjects that have often ent...
Archie’s Final Project
A recurring theme in my relationship with movies (which began when I was underage and has often been mutually abusive) is that it doesn't matter if a film has the same basic ideas as a hundred other movies, as long as the filmmakers find new ways to...
Kill Me Please (French)
In the old horror movies, a mad scientist would conduct his experiments in a secluded castle, earning suspicion and mistrust from the nearby villagers. In "Kill Me Please," a deadpan black comedy from Belgium, the doctor isn't insane, and there's no ...
Drive
Every individual element of "Drive" is familiar, but the combination is uniquely intoxicating -- a fresh, lurid, melancholy neo-noir with a hint of existential crime thriller and, for some reason, an '80s-ish techno-pop soundtrack. I was absorbed in ...
I Don’t Know How She Does It
Even as a non-mother and an avoider of work, I realize that the life of a working mother is difficult. Juggling the demands of the children, husbands, and jobs competing for your attention must be complicated. Fortunately, there are movies like "I Do...
Straw Dogs
While researching an article about Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" recently, I was struck not just by how many commentaries have already been written, but by how many wildly different opinions and interpretations they contain. What one viewer saw as a t...
Beware the Gonzo
The Gonzo we are cautioned about in "Beware the Gonzo" is Eddie "Gonzo" Gilman, an intense prep-academy student who believes his school newspaper can right wrongs and fight injustice. It can't, really, but he's not the first student journalist to suf...
Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star
"Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star" is about a man who succeeds in the porn industry despite having none of the talents or assets required for the job. The movie was made by people who have succeeded in the comedy industry despite not being funny. Writ...
