Movie Reviews
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Considering we're talking about a live-action version of "Alvin and the Chipmunks," and that there's a scene (already immortalized in the trailer) where Simon eats a piece of Theodore's poop, I guess we should count it a Christmas miracle that the fi...
I Am Legend
The most startling thing about "I Am Legend" is how quiet it is. That's logical, since it's about a man who for most of the film is the only human being in New York; but given Hollywood's propensity for loudness at all costs -- and especially given d...
The Golden Compass
Even without having read the fantasy novel on which "The Golden Compass" is based, I can tell that the movie has drastically eliminated a lot of its material. The book presumably makes sense, whereas the movie is rushed and slapdash. I frequently had...
Atonement
Childish misunderstandings produce dire consequences in "Atonement," an achingly poignant melodrama whose title's significance doesn't hit home until the final minutes. Based on Ian McEwan's novel, the story is awash in tragic romance, the kind where...
Romance & Cigarettes
Who'd have thought that in the year of "Across the Universe" there would come a musical that was even stranger? Yet here is "Romance & Cigarettes," a potty-mouthed Brooklyn love story about a man named Nick Murder and his lovers and friends, all ...
The Band’s Visit (Hebrew/Arabic)
To fully appreciate the deeply warm and optimistic nature of "The Band's Visit," you might have to be personally connected to the conflict between Israel and Egypt. Watching the film as an outsider, I'm definitely moved -- but I can tell that for the...
Juno
"Juno," about a savvy teenage girl who gets pregnant and chooses a generically nice suburban couple as adoptive parents, is one of the year's snappiest, snarkiest, most quotable comedies. It was written by Diablo Cody, a stripper-turned-blogger, and she populated the screenplay with hip characters who speak not in the manner of real people but in the manner of self-aware movie characters. And yet they can still come off as believable, human characters, as likable as they are funny. Ellen Page plays the title character, a girl whose effortless charm is her most endearing trait. The movie is a sweet and simple delight.
Awake
"Awake" begins with ominous titles telling us that about one in 700 people who are anesthetized for surgery fail to go completely under. They remain conscious and aware for the entire ordeal, unable to alert the doctors that something is wrong. This ...
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (French)
While "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" boasts some marvelous performances, I think I'm most impressed by the work of the cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski. He does things that are relatively common, but he does them at a higher level and with great...
The Savages
Caring for a dying, demented parent has seldom been as astutely (and humorously) observed as in “The Savages,†from “Slums of Beverly Hills†writer/director Tamara Jenkins. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman play quarrelsome-but-loving adult siblings who must figure out what to do with Dad (Philip Bosco) when he starts forgetting who he is and writing on the walls with his poo. Linney and Hoffman wield Jenkins’ sharp, intelligent dialogue with precision, and both can earn laughs with nothing more than an exasperated look. Underlying it all is poignancy and insight about growing old and muddling through mid-life crises.
Everything’s Cool (documentary)
In "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore explained that global warming is real. In "Everything's Cool," documentarians Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand explain why it needs to be explained that global warming is real. Why the huge gap between what scientists know and what the general public understands? A misinformation campaign, of course, mandated by oil and coal lobbyists who want to position global warming as a debatable theory rather than an understood fact. Much of the evidence is eye-opening, and damning of Bush's environment policies, but the film rambles on too long and indulges in too many tangents. A tighter focus would serve the film's educational agenda much better. And hey, a cameo from Al Gore wouldn't have hurt.
Starting Out in the Evening
The actor Frank Langella is 70 years old and has had a long, illustrious career, mostly in theater. Yet watching him in "Starting Out in the Evening" is like seeing a brilliant new actor give his breakthrough performance. Every small gesture and minu...
Margot at the Wedding
Noah Baumbach is well acquainted with the darkness of fractured families, and he finds it funny. His autobiographical "Squid and the Whale" earned praise for its unflinching look at an upscale family in crisis, while his screenplay for Wes Anderson's...
Hitman
I was worried the streak might be broken. "Hitman" stars Timothy Olyphant, who's a good actor, and it's about a squad of assassins who are raised up from childhood to be perfect killers -- kind of a cool idea. Would this be the first time in history ...
Enchanted
"Enchanted" isn't a perfect Disney film, but it's the closest thing to a live-action classic that the studio has produced in a very long time. Most of the Mouse House's recent films have been minor trifles like "The Pacifier" or "Underdog," comparabl...
August Rush
Very little of what happens in "August Rush" is plausible. Heck, Robin Williams plays a Bono-like street musician who lives in a condemned theater with a brigade of homeless kids who are also street musicians, whom he governs like Fagin in "Oliver Tw...
The Mist
Stephen King's entertaining stories have probably been ruined by movies more than any other author's, so it is a rare pleasure that 2007 should see not one but two successful adaptations: "1408" and now "The Mist," a scary-fun horror flick that doesn...
I’m Not There
"I'm Not There" is not a biography of Bob Dylan. It's not as interested in what happened in his life as it is in what his life felt like. In fact, if you don't already know at least the basics of Dylan's early career, you'll be left to flounder while...
Southland Tales
Seeing "Southland Tales" has made me change my opinion of writer/director Richard Kelly. His first film, 2001's "Donnie Darko," gave the impression that he was some film-school hotshot who thought incoherence was the same thing as brilliance. Now I r...
Beowulf
An examination of Wikipedia's entry on "Beowulf" -- I didn't read it in high school, either -- confirms what I suspected, which is that the new computer-animated movie version has added some details not found in the original. The 9th-century epic poe...
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
Many elements of "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" may indeed be swiped from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and there's no question it has a terrible title. But I am utterly charmed by its imagination and sweetness, by its clever wizardry and in...
Fred Claus
Like an obese Santa grunting and wheezing as he hoists himself out of a low-sitting chair, so are the desperate gasps of "Fred Claus" as it runs through its creaky old Christmas-oriented sappiness and its slapdash story and its sub-Tim-Allen-level sh...
Lions for Lambs
One of the impressive things about "Lions for Lambs," a thoughtful, up-to-the-minute drama about U.S. involvement in the Middle East, is that despite being directed by outspoken liberal Robert Redford, it is NOT simply a liberal tirade. In fact, the ...
Music Within
The trouble with "Music Within" starts at the opening narration. The biopic's subject, Richard Pimentel (played by Ron Livingston), tells us, "I was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. I've been pissed off ever since." That's a great...
P2
Technology has forced the makers of horror films to get creative with their locations. It's no longer sufficient that the victims be isolated in spooky houses or abandoned warehouses; now they have to be in places where they won't get cell phone rece...
No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy is considered by many to be America's greatest living author, and Joel and Ethan Coen certainly comprise one of the finest voices in modern filmmaking. Despite that, I don't know if I'd have guessed that the McCarthy/Coen combo would ...
Stalking Santa
(Full disclosure: I'm friends with a lot of the people involved in this film, including the stars. If I were on assignment, I would have to recuse myself from reviewing it. But as a guy just writing on the Internet, I can do as I please. I tried to s...
Martian Child
When I asserted in my review of "1408" that everyone loves John Cusack, I heard from a few people who don't. Apparently, some people can't stand him. I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR FROM THESE PEOPLE EVER AGAIN. To hate John Cusack is to hate life!
My pro-C...
Sleuth
Fans of the 1972 version of "Sleuth" will not enjoy the new version unless they accept beforehand that it is not a "remake" so much as a "re-imagining." The same basic story is there, with the same basic twists and surprises, but the tone is differen...
American Gangster
As suggested by the title of the movie about him, Frank Lucas was the most American of gangsters. A poor black kid from North Carolina, he worked his way to the top of the New York City drug world in the early 1970s all by himself, taking full, perverse advantage of the American ideals of self-reliance and capitalism. America's involvement in Vietnam helped, too, as Lucas could use bribe-receptive servicemen to smuggle pure heroin from Southeast Asia back into the States. Directed with dazzling energy by Ridley Scott, "American Gangster" stars Denzel Washington as Lucas and Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts, the Brooklyn narcotics officer striving to bring him down. Both men are richly portrayed -- Washington gives Lucas calm but fierce menace while Crowe is dogmatically upright despite his disastrous personal life. Both come across as likable, flawed heroes, which is a bit alarming, considering one of them is a murdering drug dealer. Not surprisingly, there are shades of Corleone in Scott's approach, including a climax that parallels the baptism scene in "The Godfather." We Americans do revere our gangsters, don't we?
Bee Movie
Jerry Seinfeld's "Bee Movie" doesn't really make sense, even taking into account that it's a cartoon. The plot is absurd, sometimes so outrageously harebrained that you have to figure Seinfeld and company were doing it on purpose. Other times, you th...
Dan in Real Life
As much as I roll my eyes at the generically ironic scenario -- he's an advice columnist, but his personal life is a mess! -- I'm delighted by the effortlessly breezy humor of "Dan in Real Life." It breaks free from that lame set-up's confines to go ...
Saw IV
As nearly everyone knows, the surest way to suck all the scariness out of your villain is to over-explain him. "Saw III" had that in spades, reducing the once-creepy Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) to a laughable, bedridden wreck. In "Saw IV," Jigsaw is dead -- ...
Lars and the Real Girl
At 26, Ryan Gosling has already emerged as one of his generation's most talented actors, versatile in subtle, unflashy ways that don't always get mainstream notice. His latest, "Lars and the Real Girl," works -- and works amazingly well -- all because of his performance as a reclusive, socially awkward Minnesota man who buys a life-sized, anatomically correct rubber sex doll ... and falls in love with her. At the urging of a psychologist (Patricia Clarkson), the whole town goes along with his delusion, pretending "Bianca" is as real as he seems to think she is. Being chaste Lutherans, he and the doll sleep in separate beds -- which means Bianca is never actually put to the one use her designers had in mind. What follows is a surprisingly sweet and charming tale, with Lars' life story gradually explained and everything eventually made right. The key is in Gosling's sincerity: It's not just that Lars believes Bianca is a real person; Gosling believes that Lars believes it, too. That commitment turns a potentially disastrous premise into something special.
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
In their discussion of "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," many commentators are focusing on the age of the director, Sidney Lumet, who turned 83 in June. Knowing how much sheer physical and mental effort goes into directing a movie, even a bad one...
Wristcutters: A Love Story
"Wristcutters: A Love Story" is a great title for a movie, but that's only the beginning. This is one of the more creative, unusually entertaining things I've seen in a while, certainly head and shoulders above most of its competition at this year's ...
Rendition
"Rendition" is a Very Important Movie that has a Very Important Point to make. And that point is this. Are you ready? Here it comes: Torture is bad.
Well, put away the nipple clamps and the car battery, because I am ALREADY SHOCKED! Much of the fi...
30 Days of Night
We've all been disappointed by lousy thrillers that had cool ideas but didn't know how to execute them. "30 Days of Night" is the rare horror film that actually lives up to its potential.
Based on a comic book mini-series by Steve Niles and Ben T...
Reservation Road
The story in "Reservation Road" is centered around coincidences so extraordinary they pull me out of the film. One of them isn't even necessary. It's there ... why? So the film can boast the highest coincidence count of 2007?
It feels like anythin...
Gone Baby Gone
To give his career a much-needed boost and regain some of the credibility he once had, Ben Affleck has returned to his roots with "Gone Baby Gone." Not only is the film set in Boston, Affleck's home turf, but he adapted the screenplay from Dennis Leh...
Things We Lost in the Fire
"Things We Lost in the Fire" doesn't have much of a plot. It finds its substance in the personalities and relationships of the characters, so much that a conventional "story" isn't even needed. It begins with the death of Brian Burke (David Duchovny), beloved husband of Audrey (Halle Berry) and father to a young son and daughter. His best friend, Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), is a heroin addict and a deadbeat, and Audrey has never liked or trusted him -- but he is now her strongest connection to her dead husband, so she wants him around. This mature drama is a welcome return for its stars, as Del Toro hasn't been onscreen since 2005's "Sin City," and Berry hasn't done anything worthwhile since winning an Oscar almost six years ago. Both actors remind us of their vitality here. While the story falls prey to a couple predictable developments -- has any movie character trying to kick an addiction NOT had a relapse at about the 70-minute mark? -- I like that it mostly doesn't go the way you think it will.
The Comebacks
I got a few good laughs out of the sports spoof "The Comebacks," but not nearly enough to make it a worthwhile investment of 84 minutes. I like that one of the football players is named ACL Tear (pronounced "Aseel Taree"), and that the parody of Cuba...
We Own the Night
James Gray wrote and directed "Little Odessa" in 1994, waited until 2000 to make "The Yards," and has waited since then to do "We Own the Night." The question I have is: Why the wait? It couldn't have taken seven years to write a screenplay this lead...
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Queen Elizabeth I caught a lucky break with her navy's defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Her luck runs out, though, with "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," a gorgeous but flaccid film about that incident that is all the more disappointing for being a sequel to 1998's superb "Elizabeth." Where the 1998 movie, also directed by Shekhar Kapur and starring Cate Blanchett, painted a compelling portrait while also telling a riveting narrative, the sequel simply takes a chunk out of Elizabeth's life and says, "Here's what happened during these years," without bothering to shape it into a story.
The Final Season
I don't like being the bad guy. Why do I have to be the one to tell you that "The Final Season," a perfectly wholesome, American, corn-fed film about high school baseball, is amateurish and hackneyed? It makes me look like a jerk. "What?" people say. "You don't like inspiring sports dramas -- based on true stories, no less -- about our national pastime? HAVE YOU NO SOUL?!" Fine. You want to see it? Be my guest. But it is my duty to inform you that this story about the final season of play for Norway, Iowa's, tiny high school before being consolidated with a bigger school practically bursts at the seams with the same stock characters and clichés you've seen in countless other Inspiring Sports Dramas. There is the rebellious teen (Michael Angarano) who joins the team reluctantly and gradually becomes civilized. There is the soulless suit-wearing administrator who intentionally hires an inexperienced coach (Sean Astin) because he wants the team to fail. There are countless come-from-behind victories and last-minute reversals. It's all been done before, and in a more polished and exciting manner, too. Don't hate me.
Michael Clayton
George Clooney is Hollywood's happy-go-lucky poster boy these days, self-effacing, quick with a joke, and refreshingly unpretentious. He tosses off lighthearted fare like "Ocean's Thirteen" just because he enjoys doing it -- and then he does something like "Michael Clayton" to remind us that, holy crap, the guy can ACT, too. His title character, a "fixer" for a high-powered law firm who gets pulled into the seedy details of a case involving a probably-guilty corporation that the firm's defending, is unhappy for most of the film. He doesn't say it, but it's on his face -- and considering Clooney's public persona is that of a carefree, contented bachelor, it's jarring to see him so clearly miserable. (See? Acting!) Michael Clayton's angst is existential (who am I, what do I stand for, yada yada), but the film, by "Bourne" trilogy screenwriter Tony Gilroy, is gritty and plot-heavy, too, with the satisfying revelations, twists, and double-crosses you expect from a legal thriller. With first-rate support from Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, and Sydney Pollack, this is a tasty mix of crowd-pleasing action and whip-smart storytelling.
Why Did I Get Married?
"Why Did I Get Married?" is a simple, feeble-minded film with a high-school-level screenplay. Where good writers subtly introduce us to the facts about their characters, Tyler Perry just has them flat-out announce things with phony expository dialogu...
Control
Ian Curtis was such a mopey fellow that his story can only be told in black-and-white. In "Control," director Anton Corbijn makes that elemental choice, and everything else seems to follow naturally. The perpetually gray skies of England seem all the...
The Heartbreak Kid
It's been nearly a decade since Bobby and Peter Farrelly made gross-out history with "There's Something About Mary," and with little in the way of success since then ("Fever Pitch," anyone?), it's no wonder they've tried to recapture the magic by cas...
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
From what I gather, "The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising" is not very faithful to the Susan Cooper fantasy novel on which it is based. I certainly hope this is true. I would hate to think that Ms. Cooper had written a book as vague, halfhearted, and unint...
For the Bible Tells Me So (documentary)
Many Christians say they believe homosexuality is sinful because the Bible teaches it, but the truth in most cases is that they believe it because it's what their churches have taught them. Just reading the Bible, with no preconceived notions and no ...
The Kingdom
"The Kingdom" offers the satisfaction of a crowd-pleasing police procedural -- the mystery is solved; the bad guys are caught -- tempered with the uneasiness of a terrorism thriller. It suggests that evil-doers can be tracked down and punished, which...
The Game Plan
Some reviews and summaries of "The Game Plan" will refer to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's character as an NFL quarterback. This is incorrect. He plays for the Boston Rebels, which of course is not a real NFL team. (It seems to me that "Rebels" calls to...
Feast of Love
Everyone in "Feast of Love" is messed up in some way, but none of those ways make them interesting. This is a movie that thinks having an "ensemble" cast means that there's no need to have a straightforward story with a beginning, middle, and end. The film is all middle, and the characters just sort of wander around in it. Based on Charles Baxter's novel, it's narrated with characteristic wise bemusement by Morgan Freeman and populated by people in various stages of finding love, including oblivious but sincere coffeehouse owner Bradley (Greg Kinnear) and his idealistic young employees (Toby Hemingway and Alexa Davalos), who are a romantic couple themselves. It's an anemic production in which the characters go through a lot but don't ever seem to learn anything.
Trade
Every year thousands of young women and boys are smuggled illegally into the United States and pimped out or sold to perverts. Peter Landesman wrote an article about these sex slaves ("The Girls Next Door") for the New York Times Magazine in 2004, an...
The Jane Austen Book Club
I feel like Hollywood is conspiring to make me read a Jane Austen novel. There have been two adaptations of "Pride & Prejudice" in the last few years, the quasi-biopic "Becoming Jane" earlier this year, and now "The Jane Austen Book Club," in whi...
The Darjeeling Limited
I've often been tempted when reviewing sequels that do nothing more than mimic their predecessors to simply reprint what I wrote on the original film. "The Darjeeling Limited" marks the first time I've considered doing that for a non-sequel. Most of what I said about Wes Anderson's last film, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," applies to this one, too, and as delightful as his cinematic tricks are, they start to get old when every film feels like a copy of the previous one. This time, it's three brothers (Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Adrien Brody) on a train ride through India as part of a "spiritual journey" to reconnect after their father's death a year ago. As always, there are many laughs to be had in the characters' deadpan delivery of strange, intentionally stilted dialogue, as well as in the understated and decidedly non-wacky physical comedy. But just as in "The Life Aquatic," you almost have to force yourself to feel the emotions that the characters are feeling. I think if you've never seen an Anderson film, this one will strike you as likably odd and unconventional. If you've seen the others, this will feel like a repeat. A good repeat, sure, but still a repeat.
Lust, Caution (Chinese)
Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is heavy on both counts, to the detriment of what could have been an extraordinary film. Set primarily in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War that coincided with much of World War II, it's a highly watchable film, even an admirable one. Yet it is strangely inert and passionless, with a running time that is far too long for a movie so devoid of compelling emotion. The story is about a wallflower college student named Wang Jiazhi (Wei Tang) who gets involved with a resistance group that believes the Chinese leader Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) is a traitor to the Japanese. Wang infiltrates his inner circle and becomes his mistress, with his assassination the eventual goal ... except that she develops romantic feelings for him. The film is too slow and glum to be an espionage thriller. It lacks the passion and emotion necessary to be a tragic romance. It is not interested in the details of the Sino-Japanese War, so it's not a historical epic. I keep thinking about the things I wish it had done instead of the things it did do. Maybe that's because the former list is so much longer than the latter.
Into the Wild
Knowing that "Into the Wild" was written and directed by Sean Penn and features songs by Eddie Vedder, you'd expect it to be the most self-serious film ever made, full of lectures and humorless scolding. And there is some of that. The film is certainly the brooding, contemplative type. But it's also at times surprisingly emotional and unguarded, with a great central performance by Emile Hirsch as Christopher McCandless, the real-life 22-year-old who left his affluent family in 1990 and spent two years wandering the Western United States before meeting his end in Alaska. Penn's treatment of all this is ambitious and respectable, but also overlong and occasionally overripe. He takes a lyrical, poetic approach that serves the film well from a visual standpoint; not quite as well when it comes to the dialogue, which has a few howlers. But the nature photography is beautiful, Hirsch is a revelation -- and Hal Holbrook shows up late in the game to give the film the emotional weight it needs to finally come together, the true embodiment of a great supporting performance.
Sydney White
"Sydney White" is a cutesy retelling of "Snow White," but I believe its working title was "OMG! The Movie." Amanda Bynes is Sydney, a tomboyish college freshman who pledges a pretty-blonde-bimbo sorority (OMG, they wear such pretty clothes!), only to be cast out by its president when she becomes too popular. That's when Sydney befriends the seven dorks who live in a dilapidated house at the end of Greek row, and OMG, they have such cute personalities! One is shy, one is a grumpy blogger, one is allergic to everything and hence "sneezy," etc. Sydney's prince is the student body president, who -- OMG! -- helps feed the homeless in his spare time and has dimples (OMG!!) and serenades her in the library!! (OMG!!!) The way the film incorporates "Snow White" details into the story is sometimes clever, and there's no question it will push the squeal buttons on the 14-year-old girls it's aimed at. Still, the dialogue is mostly lame and the story is tedious, like they took the framework of a fairy tale and just threw a leftover Disney Channel script on top of it.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
You can tell that "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" isn't a traditional Western because it gives away two serious spoilers right there in its title. The mechanics of the plot are not essential here, as they tended to be in ...
Resident Evil: Extinction
In "Resident Evil: Extinction," five years have passed since the events in the last film. The zombie-making T-Virus has spread worldwide, with only small patches of humanity left. Those few groups stay on the run, avoiding the flesh-hungry infected w...
Good Luck Chuck
"Knocked Up" and "Superbad" have sparked renewed confidence in the idea of R-rated comedies, and they succeeded because they understood that you can get away with all the vulgarity you want as long as it's also funny. "Good Luck Chuck" shows the wron...
Darkon (documentary)
You know those guys who re-enact Civil War battles in full military regalia with realistic replicas of 1860s weapons? Geeky, right? And you know those guys who spend hours in their parents' basements playing Dungeons & Dragons and other role-play...
Eastern Promises
There are several moments in "Eastern Promises" that warrant discussion. The bloodletting that opens the film, for example, or the way someone puts out a cigarette with his own tongue before casually cutting up a corpse. You remember things like that...
The Brave One
There's a lot of internal conflict in "The Brave One," and I don't just mean the main character's psychological battles. The film itself seems unsure what it wants to do, working toward one point but undermining those efforts with contradictory messa...
Mr. Woodcock
There are two surprising things about "Mr. Woodcock." One, it's not full of sophomoric jokes about the title character's name. Two, it's actually not a bad movie, with enough scattered laughs to make it worth seeing (at matinee prices, anyway). It is, unfortunately, one of those comedies where someone is obviously evil, mean, or obnoxious, yet only one person seems to realize it, while everyone else thinks he's great. These things always frustrate me. The hapless victim this time is John Farley (Seann William Scott), a successful self-help author who returns to his Midwestern hometown to discover his mother (Susan Sarandon) is dating his middle-school gym coach, the cruel and sadistic Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton). Rather than listing Woodcock's exact offenses -- many of which we see in amusing flashbacks -- John just stammers vague "He's no good!" assertions to his mother, so it's no wonder she doesn't take his side and dump the guy. But a lot of the physical humor is funny, and while Thornton has played this same character in about 11 movies now, there’s no denying he's good at it.
Across the Universe
More than anything else, "Across the Universe" is a testament to the power of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songwriting skills. The film is a full-fledged musical, structured in the classic boy-meets-girl style, with all the lyrics coming from Beatles songs. What's extraordinary is that the words to these 40-year-old pop songs fit perfectly, no alterations necessary. The story is set in the turbulent 1960s, with English working-class lad Jude (Jim Sturgess) and privileged young Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) falling in love with Vietnam and other unrest in the background. Visionary director Julie Taymor (responsible for Broadway's "The Lion King") stages some surreal and eye-catching sequences, but even the more "normal" numbers are beautifully put together. You'll walk out feeling like love really is all you need.
In the Valley of Elah
Paul Haggis made a lot of enemies when his shallow race-relations morality play "Crash" became inexplicably successful and won the Oscar for Best Picture. Now comes his follow-up, "In the Valley of Elah," and all is forgiven. Where "Crash" was bombas...
December Boys
"December Boys" is a quintessential C+ movie, which is a film that you should not go out of your way to see, but that would not do you any harm if you did see it. Based on Michael Noonan's novel, it is set circa 1960 on an Australian beach where the four title characters -- young orphans whose birthdays fall in that month -- have gone to spend a few weeks around Christmastime, sent by the Catholic orphanage where they live and hosted by a kindly, devoted older couple. They learn that another couple down the beach is thinking of adopting one of them, turning their holiday into something of an informal audition. It's a coming-of-age story, with some charming elements of rascally boys-will-be-boys behavior, and a maudlin, sappy ending. It's a gentle and unchallenging wisp of a movie. No reason to see it. No reason not to see it, either. Shrug.
King of California
Whimsy is the order of the day in “King of California” -- a big ol’ heavy sack full of whimsy.
This is the lightweight story of Charlie (Michael Douglas), a grizzled and enthusiastic old fellow fresh out of a mental institution who fervently beli...
3:10 to Yuma
The good guys in "3:10 to Yuma" expend a lot of effort to get Ben Wade, a murdering S.O.B., to the train station so that he can be transported to jail and given a fair trial. After that trial, he will be hanged. No one doubts that. The trial is pract...
Shoot ’em Up
In the opening moments of "Shoot 'Em Up," a homeless man sitting at a bus stop eating a carrot sees a woman who is clearly about to give birth being chased into an alley by a gunman. He feels obligated to help her, so he kills the gunman. With the ca...
The Brothers Solomon
I think Will Forte (from "SNL") and Will Arnett (from "Arrested Development") are both very, very funny. I realize there are others who do not. "The Brothers Solomon," which Forte wrote and which they both star in, reduces comedy to its most minimal elements as it tells the story of two socially awkward brothers who seek to impregnate a woman in order to create a grandchild for their dying father. Forte and Arnett both perform with comedic fearlessness, fully committed to every joke no matter how odd or lengthy it is. They are one-dimensional characters (intentionally so), and for that reason the film wears thin before it should, but I laughed a lot. The fact that one of the threads on IMDB is titled "Worst movie of the year?" actually gives me comfort. If I laughed a lot at a movie that someone else thinks is the worst picture of the year, that suggests the film is trying something new and out of the mainstream. It won't work for everyone, but it will work for some people. I was one of those people.
The Hunting Party
"Only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true," says the disclaimer at the beginning of "The Hunting Party." If we accept that at face value, it means some really, really ridiculous things are true. And they are. In the battle for supremacy ...
Halloween (2007)
After de-beautifying the world with his uniquely ugly vision in “House of 1000 Corpses†and “The Devil’s Rejects,†Rob Zombie has found an actual purpose for his vile, hateful characters: to serve as backstory for a psychopath in the “Halloween†remake. No wonder Michael Myers became a killer; just look at his family! (And isn’t it great that he killed those vulgar and unpleasant barbarians first?) Unfortunately, by focusing so much attention on Michael’s early history -- it’s nearly an hour before he breaks out of the mental hospital and returns to his hometown to kill babysitters -- Zombie removes any hint of scariness or menace. A few mildly tense moments aside, this is a remake that feels even more pointless than usual.
Death Sentence
A movie about a man who seeks vigilante justice after a family member is harmed, directed by the Generation Y auteur who made "Saw," sounds like it is bound to be garish and exploitative. You can almost hear the heavy metal soundtrack and feel the he...
Home of Phobia
There are some raucous good laughs peppering the otherwise standard proceedings in "Home of Phobia" (retitled "Freshman Orientation" for theatrical release), about a college guy who pretends to be gay in order to get a girl to like him.
If that pl...
Balls of Fury
If you're a devoted fan of Bruce Lee's 1973 classic "Enter the Dragon," you might especially appreciate "Balls of Fury," which spoofs the plotline and changes the sport from kung fu to ping-pong. Otherwise, the question you'll be asking is: An "Enter...
Right at Your Door
The crisis in "Right at Your Door," about a chemical weapon attack on Los Angeles, is the same as in all those zombie movies: What do you do when a loved one becomes infected?
This small-cast, high-intensity thriller begins with a series of "dirty...
September Dawn
This much is beyond question: In 1857, a band of Mormons killed 120 men, women, and children who were passing through southern Utah on their way to California. The attack was unprovoked and unjustified. Despite the direct involvement of numerous Morm...
Resurrecting the Champ
Like a good boxer, "Resurrecting the Champ" bobs when you expect it to weave, and despite being a heartwarming tear-jerker, it doesn't resort to sucker punches or cheap shots. Based on a true story, it's about a Denver sports journalist (Josh Hartnett) who finds a former pro boxer (Samuel L. Jackson) living on the streets. The first half of the film deals with the writer's efforts to publish a profile of the fighter; the second half delves into the aftermath, both professional and personal. It wastes some time in the early rounds, but once it gets going, it's a solid, honest film with some very touching performances.
War
The fatal flaw of "War," the lazily titled, frenetically produced Asian gangland thriller starring Jason Statham and Jet Li, is that I don't give two craps about anyone in it.
Statham plays a San Francisco FBI agent named Jack Crawford who wants ...
Mr. Bean’s Holiday
Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean character was a hit when he debuted on British television in 1990. Then came the misguided 1997 feature film, which tried to Hollywoodize the character, ruined much of his appeal, and turned Mr. Bean into a comedy pariah. Pe...
2 Days in Paris (French/English)
Julie Delpy is a lovely and talented French actress who has won the hearts of many art-house-going men for her work in "Before Sunrise," "Before Sunset," and other small indie productions. As a writer and director, however, she is considerably less a...
The Invasion
The latest remake of the classic sci-fi thriller "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" -- this time just called "The Invasion" -- takes a genuinely creepy premise and renders it almost ineffective through weak, factory-issued dialogue and a disappointing finale. Nicole Kidman plays a Washington D.C. psychiatrist trying to protect herself and her young son from an alien virus that turns people into emotionless, drone-like versions of themselves. A few scenes are mildly suspenseful; quite a few others are laden with extremely helpful coincidences: Hey, there's a useful disguise in the train's bathroom! Look, a cop car we can use! That's not to mention clunky characters like the Russian guy who summarizes, in a bizarrely lengthy speech at a dinner party, all of the film's supposedly deep themes. Silly stuff like that detracts from the movie's tone, which is otherwise completely straight-faced and deadly serious. Kidman, with her kittenish whisper and seeming frailty, isn't quite believable as a butt-kicking action heroine, and the climax is uninspired and watered-down. It's typical late-summer fare: not bad, exactly, but liable to make you say, "Is that it?" when it's over.
The Last Legion
There are two kinds of people who might love "The Last Legion": People who know nothing about ancient history, and people who know nothing about filmmaking. I assume the movie's director and writers fall under both categories.
Set in A.D. 460, ju...
Superbad
With "Knocked Up" at the beginning and now "Superbad" at the end, we can officially declare this to have been the Summer of Judd Apatow.
Apatow, who wrote and directed "Knocked Up," only produced "Superbad." But he's a mentor to the guys who wrot...
Death at a Funeral
There's nothing in "Death at a Funeral" that's any funnier than the tagline that appeared in some of the advertising: "A family that puts the F U in funeral." That's gold!
The movie, a madcap British farce from director Frank Oz ("Dirty Rotten Sco...
Rush Hour 3
... And finally we come to "Rush Hour 3," the last and least of the summer's threequels. The L.A. cops played by Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan are in Paris this time, looking for the Asian organized-crime ring that tried to assassinate an ambassador and that may be planning a new attack on French soil. Apart from the locale, it's "Rush Hour" business as usual: Chris Tucker speaks very quickly and in a high-pitched voice, alternating between wanting to flee from danger and wanting to talk beautiful women out of their clothes; Jackie Chan remains calm at all times and beats people up in impressive ways; and director Brett Ratner seizes every opportunity to stage a fight sequence, regardless of whether any of the characters in the scene actually have a good reason to fight. Some of the action sequences are fun in their goofy way, and the film is not without its occasional bombastic charms. But the story doesn't make a lick of sense, and the finale -- at the Eiffel Tower, naturellement -- is anti-climactic. Fans waited six years for this?
Rocket Science
Like the stutterer who acts as its protagonist, "Rocket Science" is usually quietly funny -- except when it tries too hard and winds up stumbling. "Just relax," you want to say. "You're doing fine!"
It was written and directed by Jeffrey Blitz, wh...
Stardust
"Stardust" might be the "Princess Bride" of its generation: a darkly comedic and imaginative fairy tale full of witches, princes, and magic spells, not to mention a happily-ever-after ending. The story (based on a book by Neil Gaiman) is bursting wit...
Skinwalkers
Are you tired of bad movies that are bad in the normal, boring ways? Then "Skinwalkers" could be the answer to your prayers!
"Skinwalkers" is bad in fun, laughable ways, and I'm not using "laughable" figuratively. I mean I literally laughed out lo...
Daddy Day Camp
"Daddy Day Camp" addresses the question "How bad does a sequel have to be for Eddie Murphy to want nothing to do with it?" The answer? Really, really bad. Cuba Gooding Jr., in his continued campaign to make the Academy sorry it ever gave him an Oscar, fills in for Murphy in this crass, moronic sequel to "Daddy Day Care" (which wasn't much of a film to begin with, you'll recall). This time, the two dads (Gooding and Paul Rae, replacing Jeff Garlin) re-open the summer day camp they attended as children, just in time to re-ignite a rivalry with the neighboring camp and face immediate financial ruin because their own place hasn't turned a profit in years. Those dilemmas are addressed with astonishing idiocy; in the meantime, the film (directed by Fred Savage!) treats us to poop joke after vomit joke after fart joke, each cheaper than the last. The forcibly cheerful musical score is merciless, and the plot developments are nonsensical. And Gooding? He's never seen a potentially comedic moment that he couldn't ruin with a little bug-eyed overacting.
Underdog
With "Underdog," Hollywood once again demonstrates its ability to take a mediocre idea and destroy what little potential it had. They offer a graduate-level course in this skill at Disney University.
The "Underdog" cartoon series of the 1960s and...
Bratz
"Bratz," inspired by the fashion-conscious dolls for tween girls, is an utter mess of a movie, even by the standards of Movies Based on Toys. Every turn of the wandering, aimless story is ill-conceived, the jokes fall flat, and the characters are as plastic and fake as their Toys R Us counterparts. Our heroines are a quartet of lifelong friends who separate to fall in with different circles as soon as they enter high school. That's exactly how the evil student body president wants it, with everyone neatly organized into cliques. But the girls reunite to fight this trend, and to encourage friendship among all high schoolers, regardless of clique affiliation! The message is "be yourself and don't follow the crowd" -- which rings a bit hollow, considering how stereotyped the girls are: the Asian one is good at math and science and has overachieving parents, while the Mexican one dances around her bedroom singing "La Cucaracha." Strange details like the deaf football player who can read lips even when you're not looking at him, and the principal played by Jon Voight who has a fake nose and ears, just ratchet up the "WTF?" factor.
The Bourne Ultimatum
It's been three years since we last saw Jason Bourne, but "The Bourne Ultimatum" begins just minutes after the last film left off, with the CIA-trained assassin (again played to steely perfection by Matt Damon) recovering from that now-legendary car ...
Hot Rod
I don't think "Hot Rod" is going to make any money, not in the summer of "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" (to name two better, raunchier comedies). And that's too bad. The work of "SNL's" Andy Samberg and his partners Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone -- the trio behind some of "SNL's" best digital shorts of the last few years -- "Hot Rod" is a sublimely ridiculous comedy of the postmodern, Will Ferrell-inspired, keep-repeating-the-joke-until-it-becomes-funny school of thought. It's about a doofy teen named Rod (Samberg) who fancies himself the next Evel Knievel, planning a major stunt in order to raise the $50,000 his stepfather (Ian McShane) needs for a heart transplant. He has some loser friends to help him, along with a worshipful stepbrother (Taccone) and an admiring girl-next-door (Isla Fisher) who he hopes will become his girlfriend. So much of the humor is odd and baffling that I suspect many viewers simply won't know what to make of it. You're either going to wet your pants laughing, or you're going to scratch your head and wonder if you're getting too old. I'm in the wet-pants camp, but hey, what else is new?
El Cantante
Familiarity with someone's work is not a prerequisite for enjoying a movie about that person's life. But if the subject is unknown to most people -- as is Hector Lavoe, the 1970s salsa singer who is the subject of "El Cantante" -- then the film has its work cut out for it. You have to show us 1) why people loved him, and 2) why we should care. "El Cantante" fails on both counts. It's a dour, standard biopic featuring the usual cycle of fame, drugs, money, and self-desctruction, and characterized by shrill, charmless performances by Marc Anthony as Lavoe and Jennifer Lopez as his enabling wife. As portrayed by Anthony, Lavoe's singing voice is average and his stage presence is unremarkable. So why was he a sensation, especially considering what a jerk he is shown to have been in real life? Why did his wife love him? Why did he love her? Considering I just watched a movie about these people, there is no excuse for these questions to still be unanswered.
Becoming Jane
The premise behind "Becoming Jane," the sumptuous-looking quasi-biopic about the beloved Ms. Austen, is that Jane Austen's life often resembled a Jane Austen novel -- "Pride & Prejudice" specifically, I guess, though my familiarity with Austen's ...
