Movie Reviews
TMNT
It is my opinion that "TMNT" is as good a movie about teenage mutant ninja turtles as there can possibly be. The protagonists are mutated turtles who have learned martial arts, have grown to the size of adult humans, and have learned English. I reall...
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger were so successful in their killing sprees that they were bound to inspire copycats. And sure enough, the town of Glen Echo is about to meet its worst nightmare: Leslie Vernon?
We meet Leslie Vernon...
I Think I Love My Wife
The problem with Chris Rock writing, directing, and starring in a film is that every character winds up talking just like Chris Rock. This means, in "I Think I Love My Wife," stuffy, middle-aged white men dropping the F-bomb, and everyone delivering comedy-club one-liners about how the black man is being kept down by whitey. Bland characterizations aside, the film -- in which a happily married man is tempted to have an affair -- offers a few chuckles but nothing substantive, and it has not a single insight into the mind of the married man that hasn't already been explored elsewhere.
Premonition
"Premonition" has such a high-stakes premise -- a housewife foresees her husband's death and must act to prevent it -- that if you're not careful, you slip into unintended comedy. And Mennan Yapo, the director of "Premonition," is not careful. Why does the husband's severed head need to fall out of the casket during his wife's vision of his funeral? How are we supposed to take you seriously when you act like that? Anyway, the wife is played by Sandra Bullock, who must look perpetually baffled as she tries to figure out what day it is and whether her husband has died yet and whether she can save him. It's a "Twilight Zone" plot stretched out over 90 minutes with no real suspense and only mild intrigue in the workings of the plot.
The Namesake
Now, who expected this? Kal Penn, best known for his roles in lowbrow comedies like the "Van Wilder" films, "Epic Movie," and "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (he played Kumar), shows surprising range and emotion in "The Namesake." The film is...
Dead Silence
From the writer and director of "Saw" comes "Dead Silence," a much gentler, less gory, more traditional spooky-ghost-creepy movie about a town haunted by the ghost of a dead ventriloquist, a woman whose dummies may still be enacting evil deeds on her behalf. It's a throwback to the old matinee thrillers of yesteryear, right down to the retro Universal Pictures logo at the beginning, and while the final twist is laugh-out-loud ludicrous, the movie up to that point is actually pretty creepy in a Halloween haunted-house kind of way.
Maxed Out (documentary)
James Scurlock saw "Super Size Me," the fast-food exposé by the similarly named Morgan Spurlock, and was inspired to wage the same sort of all-out attack on the credit card industry. "Maxed Out" is the result, and like "Super Size Me," it had a profo...
300
Knowledge of ancient Greek history won't help you appreciate "300," which tells the story of the Spartan army's valiant fight against innumerable Persian forces in 480 B.C. The film, just like the Frank Miller graphic novel that inspired it, uses his...
The Host (Korean)
"The Host" is a monster movie, but there's a clear indication early on that it's going to be more than that: We get a complete view of the monster within the first 15 minutes as it gallops along a river front, eating people.
If you know anything a...
Wild Hogs
Why the talented actor William H. Mac agreed to work with inveterate hams Martin Lawrence, John Travolta, and Tim Allen in a road-trip comedy about four middle-aged guys riding motorcycles across America is a mystery for the ages. He is, however, the only actor subtle enough to wring any kind of truth out of Brad Copeland's dopey, inane script. Director Walt Becker ("National Lampoon's Van Wilder") manages to avoid most of the poop jokes that you'd expect, but he compensates for it with lots and lots of "gay panic" jokes; the humor is at a tenth-grade level instead of seventh, in other words.
Zodiac
Perhaps it's fitting that "Zodiac," David Fincher's account of the notorious serial killer who eluded California police for more than two decades, should be as long and sprawling as the killer's career. The frequent subtitles indicating how much time...
Black Snake Moan
"Black Snake Moan" benefits from the rich, authentic dialogue of its rural Southern characters, and from the spot-on performances by Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci -- he as a Bible-believing bean farmer whose wife has just dumped him, and she as a trashy nymphomaniac whom Jackson chains to his radiator as a means of fixing her. It begins as a sexually charged exploitation film, but it winds up as a curious inspiring turn-your-life-around fable. It's audacious and outrageous throughout, yet part of the magic worked by writer/director Craig Brewer is that even at its most ludicrous, it stays somehow believable. You think, "I can't believe I'm buying this," but the fact remains, you're buying it.
Wild Tigers I Have Known
What "Wild Tigers I Have Known" tries to do, it does very well. It sets out to be a languid, dreamy portrait of a middle-school boy beginning to deal with his burgeoning sexuality, which may be focused on members of the same rather than opposite sex....
The Number 23
There are a lot of unbelievable elements in the psychological thriller "The Number 23," but most astounding is the idea that anyone could actually be psychologically thrilled by it. The story is melodramatic hooey. As a thriller, it's funnier than "N...
Reno 911!: Miami
The problem with the "Reno 911!" movie is the same as the problem with the "Reno 911" TV show: They're out of ideas. Moving it to a different city and putting it on the big screen doesn't cure that problem. The premise is that the gang of bumbling sheriffs deputies go to Miami for a convention, only to be put in charge of the city's law enforcement when a chemical attack quarantines all the regular cops. What it means is that the same gags that were funny when the TV show premiered in 2003, and that are now a little tired, are being trotted out some more in South Florida. It has its moments -- that Dep. Trudy Wiegel (Kerry Kenney-Silver) always cracks me up -- but not enough to outweigh the general sense of weariness. It's 20 minutes of great material stretched out for 84.
The Astronaut Farmer
I kept looking at "The Astronaut Farmer" to see if there was more to it than meets the eye. What meets the eye isn't very encouraging: a simple, mildly uplifting story with little nuance to it. But it was written and directed by twin brothers Mark and Michael Polish, whose previous films ("Twin Falls Idaho," "Jackpot," "Northfork") have often employed symbolism and other literary devices. Perhaps "The Astronaut Farmer" is deeper than it appears? Alas, I don't think that's the case. It really is nothing more than the quirky story of a man (Billy Bob Thornton) who has built a functioning rocket in his barn and wants to blast himself into space. He faces obstacles; he overcomes them; the film ends happily. It's nice to be straightforward and uncomplicated, but this film feels TOO simple, too ordinary, despite its unusual premise. It has heart and soul but no depth.
Amazing Grace
"Amazing Grace" is an earnest and upright film about William Wilberforce, the British Parliamentary figure who led the fight to abolish the slave trade 200 years ago. Played by Ioan Gruffudd, Wilberforce is passionate of spirit but weak of body for much of the film, and his efforts -- along with those by various clergymen (including Albert Finney and Rufus Sewell) and the prime minister (Benedict Cumberbatch) -- are inspiring without being sentimental. It's a curious artifact, actually: The film is overtly religious, yet not overbearing or preachy. I bet I can count the movies I've seen that match that description on two hands.
Starter for 10
In "Starter for 10," a pleasant coming-of-age film that feels like the British version of a John Hughes comedy (complete with mid-'80s soundtrack), an inquisitive, timid, working-class lad named Brian (James McAvoy) goes to Bristol University in 1985 and seeks to fulfill his lifelong dream of appearing on the TV quiz show "University Challenge." In the meantime, he pursues two girls, one obviously right for him and one obviously wrong, and does the other things one normally does in a coming-of-age story. There's nothing particularly insightful or brilliant about the film (from British TV director Tom Vaughan, with a screenplay by David Nicholls, adapting his own novel), but its charm and good humor take it a long way. In addition, James McAvoy's performance is deeper than you'd expect from a lightweight teen-angst comedy -- a reminder that lightweight teen-angst comedies don't have to be frivolous piffle.
Ghost Rider
With no thrills or excitement, a muddy, convoluted storyline, and Nicolas Cage doing that thing where he acts really crazy all the time, "Ghost Rider" has all the makings of a loud, cheesy comic-book adaptation. Written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson (the man behind "Daredevil," if that helps you any), this is the story of a motorcycle daredevil who sells his soul to Satan and thereafter must ride around acting as the devil's bounty hunter. The film is superficial and ridiculous in every way, though at least Cage seems to be enjoying himself.
Breach
To establish its based-on-a-true-story-ness, "Breach" begins with actual footage from February 2001 of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announcing that FBI Agent Robert Hanssen has been arrested for selling U.S. secrets to the Russians. We move in...
Bridge to Terabithia
In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I wept like a baby at the end of "Bridge to Terabithia." If a movie's quality were judged solely on the basis of how many tears it elicited, I'd have to give this one an A+. Thank goodness there are other factors to consider. Based on the beloved 1977 young adult novel by Katherine Paterson, the film -- about a boy and girl who imagine a fanciful kingdom in the woods as an escape from their misfit real lives -- is sometimes as gawky and awkward as its adolescent characters, occasionally a little ungraceful in the way it handles itself. Yet like so many films of its genre, it redeems itself by being good-natured and sincere, and by touching the viewer's heart without manhandling it. Its themes of love and family are well-played.
The Work and the Glory: A House Divided
The "Work and the Glory" movie trilogy has proved to be a noble near-failure, and the third chapter, subtitled "A House Divided," is as noble and near-failing as the series. It's very nicely produced and beautifully shot, and engaging for most of its...
Music and Lyrics
You can always count on Hugh Grant to play a smart, self-deprecating, charming bumbler in romantic comedies, and he helps make "Music and Lyrics" a frothy and funny affair. He plays Alex Fletcher, once part of the '80s synth-pop band Pop!, now perfectly content to be a has-been who plays at state fairs and collects the occasional royalty check. He's recruited to write a new song for a Britney-esque pop diva, and winds up collaborating on the lyrics with ... the woman who waters his plants. (Yeah, I know.) She's played with the usual dose of free-spirited whimsy by Drew Barrymore, and Barrymore and Grant make a better pair than you'd expect. Written and directed by Marc Lawrence ("Two Weeks Notice"), the movie doesn't follow the same template usually laid out for rom-coms; it works just fine as a comedy, so we're not sighing and looking at our watches as we wait for the inevitable romance to occur. Romantic comedies are often nothing more than variations of each other, and after seeing too many, one starts to approach them with a certain wariness. "Music and Lyrics" is a pleasant surprise -- or, as Pop! put it more poetically in 1984, "I wasn't gonna fall in love again, but then pop goes my heart."
Hannibal Rising
It may have classier roots, but "Hannibal Rising" suffers from the same problem that doomed "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning." Both prequels purport to show the ghastly psychological underpinnings of their respective killers -- Hannibal Le...
Norbit
Timing is everything in comedy, and "Norbit" is an example of terrible timing. Here Eddie Murphy's been nominated for an Oscar for "Dreamgirls," and now Academy members will take one look at "Norbit" -- an utter disaster in which a milquetoast tries to escape his obese harridan of a wife -- and not vote for him purely out of spite. Murphy, returning to his "Nutty Professor" shtick, plays both the nerd, Norbit, and the wife, Rasputia, as well as the old Chinese man who runs an orphanage. A few laughs are derived from sight gags involving Rasputia's girth, but her character is wholly irredeemable, cruel and mean-spirited for no reason. Norbit, meanwhile, is a weak, overplayed character based on nothing more than a funny face and a funny voice. This is Murphy's worst film yet.
The Lives of Others (German)
In considering the outstanding performance of Ulrich Muhe in "The Lives of Others," I'm reminded of Helen Mirren in "The Queen." Both play characters defined by their stone-faced emotionlessness, and yet we come away knowing so much about their thoug...
The Messengers
In the prologue to "The Messengers," creepy things happen to a family on a dark night long ago. Then, in the present, a family moves to a huge, forlorn house in the middle of nowhere, and strange things start to happen. Why, it's as if an evil presen...
Because I Said So
I took a hiatus in January and didn't see any new films. Returning to the trenches now, I feel like a man waking up after being in a coma for 10 years. Did movies get really, really bad while I was gone?
The source of my alarm is "Because I Said ...
Room 314
If "Room 314" were a student film, which is what it feels like, it would get high marks for its technical proficiency and general competence. But since it is not the work of a degree-seeking college student, but rather a theatrical film that people a...
Catch and Release
Plenty of movies deal with death and its aftermath. "Catch and Release" has the distinction of addressing death in the manner of a slightly subdued romantic-comedy. We begin with tears, but the overall effect is supposed to be frilly and fun.
What...
Smokin’ Aces
When you love pulpy, bullet-ridden stories as much as Joe Carnahan apparently does, a film like "Smokin' Aces" is the natural expression of that love. It's loud, funny, and intentionally overdone, a bloody crime caper that feels like the offspring of...
Seraphim Falls
"Seraphim Falls" begins in what appears to be mid-story, with a man named Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) being pursued, in 1868, through snowy, mountainous terrain by a posse of men on horseback, led by one Carver (Liam Neeson). Which man is the good guy and which one's the bad guy? That's the central question, and the answers are revealed over the course of the film. The beginning is riveting and full of tension, with Gideon,a Civil War officer and a Rambo-style survivalist, evading capture by the dogged Carver. The story is ultimately no thicker than those basic elements -- two guys shooting at each other -- and a story that thin probably shouldn't be as long as the movie is. But it's compelling for a good portion of the time, and worth seeing for its themes of justice, revenge, and forgiveness.
The Hitcher
Onscreen titles at the beginning of "The Hitcher" tell us that 42,000 people are killed on American highways each year. That information, while probably accurate, is irrelevant to the content of the movie. Unless those 42,000 are all killed not by tr...
It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine
In his latest attack on mainstream cinema, “It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine,†Crispin Glover casts Steven C. Stewart, a non-actor with severe cerebral palsy, in the lead role – which is fine, even praiseworthy, except that 98 percent of what he says is incomprehensible due to his impeded speech. The story, written by Stewart himself, has the wheelchair-bound man carrying out elaborate, explicit sexual fantasies with numerous women, after which he generally murders them. Glover seems to be daring us to be put off by his extremely off-putting movie: If we find it uncomfortable to watch dull, unsexy porn, we must be hatin’ on the handicapped. But I love the handicapped. It’s boring, laughably acted movies I hate.
Weapons
The opening shot of "Weapons" is of a young man enjoying a hamburger at a fast-food joint, facing the camera, clearly having a pleasant day. The scene is in slow-motion, peaceful, almost dreamlike. Then an act of alarming violence occurs, shocking th...
An American Crime
The question I have for the makers of "An American Crime" is: why? What purpose does your film serve? For I have watched it, and I have contemplated it, and I can come up with no good reason for it to exist. It dredges up awful memories and conjures ...
On the Road with Judas
Behold the curse of independent film: the self-referential insufferable wankfest. "On the Road with Judas," written and directed by JJ Lask, is about a man named JJ Lask who has written a novel that has been made into a movie. The "real" people from the book appear on a talk show, as do the actors hired to play them, and they all recount the story, which we see in flashbacks, sometimes with the "real" people, sometimes with the actors. It's the sort of crap where the filmmaker believes he's being clever and postmodern by explicitly mentioning how meandering and plot-free the story is. But guess what, Hector: Acknowledging the fact that you're a tedious, self-indulgent storyteller doesn't excuse the fact that you're a tedious, self-indulgent storyteller.
Alpha Dog
"Alpha Dog" is in some ways a revelatory film. It was written and directed by Nick Cassavetes, whose previous output ("John Q" and "The Notebook," particularly) has been proficient but strictly by-the-numbers. Furthermore, it features Justin Timberla...
Stomp the Yard
For as unoriginal as it is, there's something pleasantly wholesome about "Stomp the Yard." The movie thinks it's better than it is, but that misapprehension comes across as enthusiasm, not pretension. It's a movie about people dancing. They dance a l...
Primeval
The Wikipedia entry on the African nation of Burundi is far more interesting than "Primeval," which is a movie set there. As it tries to be two things at once -- a gory monster movie and a dramatic social commentary -- what it mostly succeeds at is b...
Happily N’Ever After
There was a time when a film's being comptuter-animated almost ensured it would be good. The process was so time-consuming that no one would bother putting the effort into it if they didn't have a solid story in place. Unfortunately, as computer anim...
Miss Potter
Do you know the word "twee"? It's mostly British, and the only place I ever see it is in movie reviews, never in casual conversation. But it's a great word -- it means "affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint," according to Webste...
The Dead Girl
The title character of "The Dead Girl" is introduced to us as a corpse, rotting in the sun in the hills near Los Angeles, and discovered by a woman who's not feeling so great herself. Written and directed by Karen Moncrieff, this anthology drama -- with several stories depicting women in desperate situations, each of them connected somehow to the dead girl -- boasts an impressive ensemble of actresses: Toni Collette, Piper Laurie, Mary Beth Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Kerry Washington, Rose Byrne, Mary Steenburgen, and Brittany Murphy. Not every chapter is entirely successful thematically, but each ingredient adds an important flavor to the picture as a whole, and the acting is outstanding throughout.
Pan’s Labyrinth (Spanish)
Dios mio, what a movie is "Pan's Labyrinth"! It's a dark fairy tale, complete with a wicked stepparent, but by no means is it for children. Yet if it weren't for the grim, sometimes shocking violence, it would be the sort of story children love, with...
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
"Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" is a most bizarre, bemusing, and beguiling quasi-thriller from German director Tom Tykwer ("Run Lola Run"), based on Patrick Suskind's novel. Set in France in the 1760s, it tells of a man named Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) who has a superhuman sense of smell. What he doesn't have is a conscience. After using his keen sniffer to devise bestselling perfumes, he takes on a more grim task: to distill the scent of "beauty" itself, which unfortunately means killing the town's fair young maidens and doing dastardly things with them. I feel confident in saying I have never seen a film like this one, and I've rarely seen anything as delightfully twisted. Its story is marvelously bizarre, its tone is coy and playful, and Tykwer directs it thrillingly. It's ghastly and horrific, entertaining and mesmerizing, and it smells fantastic.
Dreamgirls
You've probably heard about Jennifer Hudson's show-stopping number in "Dreamgirls," and the hype is accurate: It's an astonishingly powerful performance, one of the most breathtaking tours de force in the history of movie musicals. The rest of the movie? Eh, it's fine. This story of a '60s girl group -- a thinly fictionalized version of Diana Ross and the Supremes -- is vigorously paced and exceedingly well-costumed, but for all it's glitter and razzle-dazzle, it rarely connects on an emotional level. It feels superficial -- though I admit it's a pretty rousing and toe-tapping kind of superficiality. Eddie Murphy is outstanding as a funky, sexually charged performer who has to "whiten" his act in order to gain mainstream success, while Beyonce Knowles can't seem to shake her bland pop-star roots. It's adapted and directed by Bill Condon, who wrote the "Chicago" adaptation a few years ago, and while "Dreamgirls" isn't the revelation "Chicago" was -- it's neither as fun nor as catchy -- it is a step in the right direction.
Notes on a Scandal
"People have always trusted me with their secrets," says Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) as "Notes on a Scandal" begins. "But who do I trust with mine? You, only you." And who is her sole confidante? Her diary, of course. Barbara, of all people, knows yo...
Children of Men
One of the most technically brilliant and thematically layered films of the year, "Children of Men" is a stark, gray vision of a future without hope. How does a society respond when its outlook is irrefutably grim? And how quickly does joy return whe...
The Good German
The technical aspects of Steven Soderbergh's "The Good German" have come to outweigh its actual content in most discussions of the film. Could it be that the way the movie was made is more interesting than the movie itself? For film geeks, it offers much to contemplate, as Soderbergh used 1940s-style cameras and recording techniques to make the film -- a noir drama set in Berlin in 1945 -- look as much as possible like a movie from that era. But you can ignore the behind-the-scenes technicalities and enjoy the movie on face value: as a moderately entertaining nod to "Casablanca" and "The Third Man." I found the film fascinating to watch even when the story had lost its zip, because I'm a film geek, and I think it's nifty to see modern filmmakers replicate old styles. That's enough to sustain me, though of course your own mileage may vary.
The Good Shepherd
"The Good Shepherd" is solid, respectable filmmaking, egregiously overlong but still highly watchable. It's moody and complicated and tricky, a real movie for grown-ups, as they say. Directed by Robert De Niro (only his second time behind the camera) and written by prestigious non-fiction screenwriter Eric Roth ("Munich," "Ali," "The Insider"), the film tracks the history of the U.S. government's spy agencies -- the OSS during World War II, and its subsequent morphing into the CIA. At the center is Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), a quiet, blue-blooded Yale student recruited in 1939 to spy on a Nazi-sympathizing professor and thereafter brought into the fold of spooks and spies. Throughout his career -- into the Red Scare and the Bay of Pigs and onward -- Edward is a man of duty, not so much neglecting his personal life as simply not having one, loveless marriage to a rich girl (Angelina Jolie) notwithstanding. Despite the film's occasionally too-complicated plot and rambly running time, I'm inclined to treat it charitably simply because of its intelligence and class, and because of Damon's rock-solid performance as the conflicted spy.
Night at the Museum
"Night at the Museum" has a premise that sounds fantastic until you look closely at it. It's about a security guard at a large museum who discovers his first night on the job that between sunset and sundown, everything in the place comes to life. The problem is, where can you go with such a premise? Any scenes set outside the museum, or set inside the museum during daylight hours, will seem irrelevant. And furthermore, what's the actual story going to be? "A museum where the exhibits come to life" isn't a plot; it's a premise. You have to DO something with it to turn it into a plot. The film is fun when it sticks with the living museum exhibits -- tiny men in Old West and ancient Rome dioramas; marauding Huns; Teddy Roosevelt astride a horse; etc. -- and how they behave when they come to life every night. The film is a great deal less fun when it shows the security guard (a restrained Ben Stiller) trying to please his son or impress a museum docent. We don't care, movie. Can't a guy just run around a museum being pursued by reanimated mastodons and wax-figure Neanderthals?
We Are Marshall
Coming in the wake of such Inspiring Sports Dramas as "Glory Road," "Gridiron Gang" and "Invincible," "We Are Marshall" has to convince an over-stimulated audience that it's more deserving of their Inspiring Sports Drama dollars than its predecessors were. It gets my vote. Directed with surprising restraint and compassion by McG, whose work is usually as gimmicky as his name, it tells the true story of West Virginia's Marshall University trying to rebuild its football program in 1971 after a plane crash took most of its team. Matthew Fox is the tormented surviving coach, with Matthew McConaughey as the loosy-goosy outsider who comes in to resurrect the football program, and relative unknown Anthony Mackie is surprisingly touching as one of the surviving players. There are cliches and cheesy lines ("This isn't about football, is it?" someone says to a mourning father who doesn't think the team should be restarted), but they are not found in abundance. Instead, the story is sweet and graceful, a cathartic and well-made production that earns our tears rather than jerking them.
Venus
It's been so long since Peter O'Toole did his greatest acting -- decades, actually -- that it's easy to forget (or to never know in the first place) how good he is. He has the same kind of magnetism that Marlon Brando had, where even in a bad movie, ...
Rocky Balboa
You have every reason to scoff at the idea of another "Rocky" movie, but "Rocky Balboa" finds new life in the series by returning to the themes of the original 1976 Oscar-winner. Rocky (Sylvester Stallone, of course, also filling his usual role as writer/director) is older now, retired, and running a neighborhood restaurant called Adrian's. He misses his beloved wife, who died a few years ago, and he can't seem to connect with his grown-up son (Milo Ventimiglia). An exhibition match against the current heavyweight champion draws him back into the ring, and for the first time, it actually feels like it's Rocky the character who needs to fight again, not Stallone the filmmaker. "Rocky V" was such a wreck that most fans hate it. So here is a replacement film, a more tender and emotional (and exciting!) finale that stirs the soul almost as well as the first one did.
Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese)
Clint Eastwood, at the age of 75, directed two movies this year, both of them shot in difficult locations, both addressing complicated issues, and both populated with large casts, with one of them acting in a foreign language. Making one such film in...
Eragon
If you took all the dragon-centered movies ever made, and counted the good ones on your fingers, I bet you'd still have enough fingers left over to flip off "Eragon" as you walked laughing from the theater.
I haven't read the book, but I know thi...
The Pursuit of Happyness
The year is 1981. The Rubik's Cube is all the rage. Newly elected President Reagan is on TV talking about the lousy economy and what he plans to do about it. And Chris Gardner has to take his son to a daycare center where they let the kids watch TV a...
Charlotte’s Web
The special effects are so seamless in the new live-action version of "Charlotte's Web" that you might overlook how flat some of the performances are, and how the story doesn't quite come together the way it should, and how some of the secondary char...
Breaking and Entering
"Breaking and Entering" is Anthony Minghella's follow-up to his sophisticated and emotionally vibrant "Cold Mountain" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley." Those films helped Minghella overcome the reputation he'd gotten from "The English Patient," which wa...
The Holiday
Like most Christmas vacations, "The Holiday" is way too long and a little too cutesy. I mean, come on: No formulaic romantic comedy needs to be 131 minutes long. But Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz are the stars, in material tailor-made for them, and they go a long way toward making it work. They play a London journalist and a Los Angeles film-industry pro who, seeking to escape their failed romances, trade houses for Christmas, whereupon each finds a local man to fall for. The film avoids a lot of romantic-comedy cliches (though not all), but it also neglects to give the story any major conflict. Winslet and Diaz are sparkling, and if the film weren't so long -- more importantly, if it didn't FEEL so long -- I'd be able to give it a more glowing recommendation. It has some laughs, but it's too bloated and precious, a little too adorable even for this adorable time of year.
Unaccompanied Minors
OK, maybe the most enjoyable part of "Unaccompanied Minors" for me was identifying the places in Salt Lake City where it was filmed. (The downtown library doubling as an airport?! Crazy!) For kids, it's an agreeable, not-too-dumb comedy about a handful of 12-year-olds stranded by a blizzard at a Midwestern airport on Christmas Eve. They want to escape the confines of the "unaccompanied minors" room and get to a nearby hotel where the other kids have been taken; the crusty airport manager (Lewis Black) wants to keep them in the airport. So it's "The Breakfast Club" meets "Home Alone," with the disparate characters -- the nerd, the rebel, the rich girl, the weird guy, etc. -- becoming friends and perpetrating increasingly slapsticky schemes to get out of the airport. It gets less believable and more Christmas schmaltzy as it goes, but hey, 'tis the season. (Bonus for TV geeks: multiple cameos by people from "Arrested Development," "The Office," "Kids in the Hall," and "The Daily Show"!)
Blood Diamond
This week's lesson in good citizenship comes from "Blood Diamond," the unsubtle film (with the unsubtle title) that is meant to make us think twice about buying diamonds that may have been mined in brutal, slave-like conditions in war-torn Sierra Leone. Directed by Important Issues filmmaker Edward Zwick ("Glory," "Courage Under Fire," "The Last Samurai"), the film spotlights the brutality of the "conflict diamond" trade without seeming gratuitous or exploitative, and provides some fairly compelling personal stories to give it dramatic weight. Djimon Hounsou plays a local man who is forced into diamond-mining while his family flees; Leonardo DiCaprio is a smuggler who helps get the conflict diamonds on the market; and Jennifer Connelly is a do-gooder American journalist seeking to bring down the diamond companies. DiCaprio and Connelly's relationship is unnecessary, while the contrast between DiCaprio's mercenary and Hounsou's martyr is enlightening. Still, the movie makes the depressing mistake of bringing to light a sad problem, and then basically saying there's not much we can do about it. Sigh.
Apocalypto (Maya)
"Apocalypto" is a crazy film. It is the work of a crazy person, a raving lunatic whose name is Mel Gibson. Even without his Jew-bashing escapades earlier this year -- and honestly, is it possible to TOTALLY disregard that when viewing his work now? -...
Family Law (Spanish)
"Family Law" is proof that America has not cornered the market on angsty comedy-dramas about twentysomethings who don't know what to do about adulthood. The film is from Argentina and stars South American actors, but it could just as easily be from H...
Turistas
Regardless of your expectations of it, I don't see how "Turistas" can fail to disappoint you. You're in the mood for some torture porn a la "Saw" or "Hostel"? Surprise! There isn't any! You get one scene -- ONE SCENE! -- of someone being hacked up, and even then, the victim is under anesthesia and the hacking is done antiseptically, even medically. So maybe instead you're hoping for a taut psychological thriller, comparable to "Deliverance," where the actual violence is minimal but the tension is high? Surprise! It fails there, too. The characters -- attractive young Caucasians who get lost while vacationing in Brazil -- are one-dimensional stereotypes whose only motivations are to have sex and to avoid being killed. And wouldn't you know it, most of them fail at that, too.
The Nativity Story
You can see why "The Nativity Story" got the blessing of the Vatican and had its world premiere there. It's a safe, conventional fictionalization of the events leading up to the birth of Christ, with heavy emphasis on Mary as an iconic (read: persona...
National Lampoon’s Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj
"National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj" is a movie we can pretty much review based on its title alone. The "National Lampoon" part means it will be awful, and the fact that it's a sequel to a movie that was already bad certainly doesn't bode well. Sure enough, "The Rise of Taj," in which Kal Penn's Indian-American character goes to a stuffy British university and helps a group of misfits become cool, is a completely desperate and mindless exercise in juvenility. I was a little surprised, though, at how lackadaisical it is. You can usually count on these things to at least be lively and madcap, but this one goes for long stretches without even TRYING to be funny, apparently content to let its half-baked characters wander around unsupervised while the audience waits impatiently for the next sperm joke.
Bobby
The point of "Bobby" is not to dissect Robert F. Kennedy's life but to suggest what America lost when he died. With a huge, stellar cast, the film is set at the Ambassador Hotel on the day of Kennedy's death, with dozens of (fictional) characters going about their lives unaware of what will happen later that night. Emilio Estevez wrote and directed it (and I'm as surprised as you are by his seriousness and maturity), and the acting is good all around. Estevez very astutely uses news footage at the beginning of the film to remind us of the turmoil America was in at the time, and footage of the real Bobby Kennedy's final speech at the end of the film to suggest what a charismatic, idealistic candidate he was. You can see why people were excited about him, and why his death was so devastating. What it has to do with the fictional characters who populate the film, that's not quite as clear.
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
If the rest of "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny" were as funny as its rock-opera-infused first 10 minutes, it would be next to "Borat" as one of the year's most riotous. But the rest of the movie is uneven, ranging from the deliriously funny to the belabored and overdone. Tenacious D is a band consisting of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, and the film purports to tell their story of finding the guitar pick that will make them rock gods. They walk the line between adoring the self-serious progressive-rock stylings of groups like Rush and Pink Floyd, and mocking them. It's a one-joke movie -- sort of how Tenacious D is a one-joke band -- but it's a joke that can be pretty funny sometimes. Any movie that calls itself "the greatest motion picture of all time" deserves at least a smile.
Deck the Halls
With all due respect to Bill O'Reilly (which is to say no respect whatsoever), HERE'S your war on Christmas. "Deck the Halls," which is not just appallingly unfunny but a gag-for-gag rip-off of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," is so bad it makes me want to never celebrate Christmas again. Danny De Vito plays a grubby jerk who wants to decorate his house so brightly that it can be seen from space; Matthew Broderick plays the one person in town who finds De Vito annoying rather than charming. Not a single moment in the film is plausible, honest, or real, yet somehow at the end, after all the fakeness and contrivances, we're supposed to feel our hearts warmed by the merry yuletide ending. Humbug! Humbug and bullcrap! This derivative, sloppy, imbecilic, simple-minded, dim-witted, miserable excuse for entertainment is on the short list for worst films of the year. In closing, a song: "'Deck the Halls' is crap unbridled / Fa la la la la la la la la / Watching made me suicidal / Fa la la la la la la la la." Merry Christmas, and pass the Tylenol.
Deja Vu
After the seizure-inducing circuses that were "Man on Fire" and (especially) last year's "Domino," it is a properly subdued Tony Scott who has made "Deja Vu," a smart, fleet-footed action drama that has some sci-fi thrown in for good measure. Denzel Washington plays Carlin, an ATF agent investigating the bombing of a ferryboat in New Orleans. With the help of some suspiciously futuristic FBI technology, he's able to piece together citywide surveillance footage of the victims and perpetrators before the bombing took place -- but it doesn't take a genius to see that there's more going on here than just watching surveillance tapes. That's where the sci-fi comes in, and that's where I stop talking. I can't say the screenplay, by Terry Rossio ("Pirates of the Caribbean") and Bill Marsilii, completely explains all the paradoxes it introduces, but there is generally much more cleverness in evidence here than you usually get from these cat-and-mouse cop-chasing-killer capers. It's a good bit of fun, with Denzel Washington as appealing a hero as ever.
The Fountain
I usually like to know what I'm talking about, or at least give the impression that I do, but I'm going to tell you something about "The Fountain" up front: I don't know what to make of it. I was utterly absorbed in watching it, yet when it was over ...
The History Boys
The acting is the most outstanding thing in "The History Boys," the wonderfully literary, wordy, and wise new film based on Alan Bennett's acclaimed play. The London cast reprised their roles on Broadway, and now the same troupe appears in the film. Even the director, Nicholas Hytner (who won one of the play's several Tonys), has come along. One can see why the play earned all those raves. It's set in the mid-'80s at a British prep school, where the top eight lads are having their senior year tailored to help them get into Oxford or Cambridge. Though on its surface the story -- in which an unusual teacher inspires private-school boys to greater heights -- sounds hopelessly derivative, there are some eyebrow-raising twists here, including a teacher who touches his students inappropriately yet who remains a harmless, pitiable figure with a brilliant mind. Sexuality is a significant factor in the story, as is appropriate for a film about eight 17-year-old boys, but themes of identity, friendship, and academia are in play, too. It's a fine, entertaining film with believable characters.
Fast Food Nation
For his adaptation of "Fast Food Nation," the non-fiction exposé of the burger-joint industry, Richard Linklater has turned it into a fictional movie, with actors, characters, and plots, apparently in the hopes that by not being a documentary, it will get a wider audience and thus preach the anti-fast food message to more people. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. It's too busy, with too many subplots, too many angles, and too many characters, all in the interest of telling us something we already know: that fast food corporations use low-grade beef, take advantage of their employees, and exploit illegal immigrants. For this we need a movie full of characters we don't particularly care about?
Let’s Go to Prison
"Let's Go to Prison" has laughs, it has some cleverness, and it has a lot of problems. But it's not "bad," exactly. "Dysfunctional" is more like it. It tells of a dirtbag (Dax Shepard) who gets himself re-sent to prison just so he can make life miserable for an enemy of his who's in there, a prissy judge's son (Will Arnett) who got locked up on false charges. The film suffers from inelegant pacing, and from violence that's a bit stronger than you'd expect in a raucous comedy. It's a dark, strange comedy that should probably be funnier than it is. But then, who ever said prison was going to be funny?
Casino Royale
The most successful and long-lived character in movie history gets a makeover and a restart in "Casino Royale," and it's all for the better. This is the best James Bond film in at least 17 years, and Daniel Craig might be the best 007 ... ever.
I...
For Your Consideration
In "For Your Consideration," Christopher Guest and company ("Waiting for Guffman," "Best in Show," "A Mighty Wind") take on Hollywood -- specifically, the silliness around "Oscar buzz." In this good but unfortunately not great semi-improvised satire, B-list actress Marilyn Hack (Catherine O'Hara, lovable as always) is playing a dying woman in a sappy drama when she learns there's some talk she might get an Academy Award nomination for it. There's chatter about her co-stars, too. How these rumors change them and the film they're making is part of the funny/sad comedy that Guest excels at. All the regular players are on hand (Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge, etc.), plus a few new ones, and many of the running gags and nutty characters are hilarious. But it feels incomplete, with character arcs that are begun but not finished. Still, it's nice to see a comedy that leaves you wanting more instead of making you wish it had ended 20 minutes sooner.
Happy Feet
Australians! Is there anything they can't do? Aussie director George Miller ("Mad Max," "Babe: Pig in the City") and three of his countrymen co-writers bring us "Happy Feet," a toe-tappin' animated musical that combines "March of the Penguins" zoological trivia (the males care for the eggs!) with "Moulin Rouge"-style integration of pop songs (they sing while they're doing it!). In this loopy, surreal version of Antarctica, emperor penguins use song to express themselves, which spells trouble for a new hatchling named Mumble (voice of Elijah Wood), who can't carry a tune to save his life. Even worse, he's an amazing dancer -- a skill his fellow penguins find distasteful and off-putting. The film's eventual "just be yourself" message is pretty standard for a kiddie flick, but the plot -- in which Mumble encounters a colony of penguins with Hispanic accents, runs into some humans, and seeks to determine why there's been a fish shortage -- is admirably weird and unpredictable. The penguins are cutely anthropomorphic, and the song-and-dance numbers are all grin-worthy. In a year that's had a glut of animated films, it's nice to see one so different from the norm.
Flannel Pajamas
On their very first date at the beginning of "Flannel Pajamas," Stuart tells Nicole that he thinks her best friend is evil. He may have a point -- the woman in question is dating several men at once and is dishonest about it -- but is that really the...
Come Early Morning
In that plain brown wrapper over there, behind the name-brand stuff, you'll find "Come Early Morning." It's a generic drama that has good performances but no substance. We keep it on the shelf behind "North Country."
Actress Joey Lauren Adams make...
A Good Year
Watching "A Good Year" is like spending two hours with someone who is tiresome but who thinks you should find him exceedingly charming. This botched Guy Learns What's Really Important comedy -- starring Russell Crowe as a London stockbroker who reexamines his life after inheriting his uncle's French vineyard -- was directed by Ridley Scott ("Alien," "Hannibal," "Gladiator"), and Crowe and Scott both exhibit a remarkable lack of skill when it comes to comedy. A dog pees on a man's leg; a man falls face-first into a pile of manure; a careless driver accidentally runs a bicyclist off a road -- this is what passes for mirth around here. The images of the French countryside are gorgeous, though, and Albert Finney steals the show in flashbacks as Crowe's gadabout uncle.
Stranger Than Fiction
Many things stand out about "Stranger Than Fiction," so I'll first mention one that may not be as readily apparent as the others: Every character in the movie is smart. This is a rare treat in 2006, when the jackassification of American cinema is nea...
The Return
Long ago, Sarah Michelle Gellar made a career decision. On television, she would star in one brilliant cult hit, impressing people with both her dramatic range and her butt-kicking abilities. In movies, meanwhile, she would only star in complete crap. "The Return" represents the furtherance of her career goals, and I applaud her for sticking to her principles. (It's decidedly non-scary and unsuspenseful, about a woman haunted by visions of an old murder, and even at 85 minutes it feels stretched out and padded.)
F*** (documentary)
As Shakespeare wrote in "Henry IV Part II," "'Tis needful that the most immodest word be looked upon and learned." That is the stated agenda of "F***," a ribald and riotous documentary about the word I just bleeped, a word so notorious that all I had...
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
There are so many brilliant things about "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" that I don't even know where to start. It's breathtakingly funny, and I mean that during some scenes I literally laughed so...
Flushed Away
The blokes responsible for the delightful "Wallace & Gromit" films have temporarily forsaken Claymation and delivered "Flushed Away" with computer animation. But it's the story that matters most, not the technology, and "Flushed Away" tells a simple yarn about an upscale London mouse (voice of Hugh Jackman) who gets lost in the sewers and must rely on an adventuresome mercenary mouse (Kate Winslet) to get him home, fleeing bad guys all the while. There is daffy British humor, split-second sight gags and smart dialogue in abundance. The film doesn't tug the heartstrings the way the very best animated films do, nor are the characters timeless. But they are funny and lovable, and the jokes fly so fast that there's barely time to appreciate them all. Plus, there are singing slugs, and I don't know what else you could want.
The Santa Clause 3
Has it been four long years since we were last favored with a "Santa Clause" movie? Four Christmases since we got to watch Tim Allen fall off a roof, or listen to an animatronic reindeer fart? How the time flies! These movies -- the 1994 original and the 2002 sequel, both starring Tim Allen as an ordinary guy who inherits the job of Santa Claus -- have never been the highest-quality family entertainment, but they’ve been passable. "The Santa Clause 3," in which Jack Frost (Martin Short) wants to kick Santa out and take over himself, feels strained, like a troupe of actors being forced at gunpoint to perform comedy. Short brings some much-needed energy as the egomaniacal Jack Frost, while Allen and the screenwriters are just phoning it in and cashing their paychecks.
Volver (Spanish)
Pedro Almodovar is gay, but he loves the ladies. The Spanish writer/director has focused on women or transsexual men in most of his best films, from "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" to "Talk to Her." In fact his latest, "Volver" ("to retur...
Saw III
There are some heartwarming lessons to be learned in "Saw III," the latest blood-soaked installment in the increasingly implausible horror franchise. First, that good help is hard to find. Second, that it is important to forgive your enemies and not ...
Death of a President
"Death of a President" pretends to be a documentary from the future, recounting that fateful day, Oct. 19, 2007, when George W. Bush was assassinated. Through interviews with FBI agents, Secret Service personnel and others, we learn of the manhunt, arrests and trials that ensued. It's a British film, directed by Gabriel Range, who does an excellent job maintaining the look and feel of a documentary. The actors are commendable, too, their lines sounding like real testimonials and not like pre-scripted dialogue. There are structural problems -- if this were a real documentary from 2009, there wouldn't be any mystery over who the killer was, yet the film insists on hiding it from us until the end -- but the ideas are notable. No, the film isn't calling for the death of President Bush (which we see thanks to some nifty CGI manipulation of existing Bush footage). Bush's fictional death turns out to be the result of his own Iraq policies, but while the movie is critical of Bush, it shows his death as leading to a worse fate: the ascendency of Dick Cheney to the Oval Office. Much of what happens after the president's death is plausible given the administration's real-life track record, and the film is a neat little experiment and an alarming "what if?" scenario.
Shut up & Sing (documentary)
All Natalie Maines said was that she was embarrassed George W. Bush was from the same state she was. For that she and her band, the Dixie Chicks, were pilloried and vilified. Bill O'Reilly said "they deserve to be slapped around." Pat Robertson calle...
Babel
In case you didn't get the message from last year's "Crash," this year's "Babel" is here to remind you that we are all connected in this crazy world of ours, that violence ruins lives, and that we should stop being so mistrusting of foreigners. How you could possibly miss that point in a movie as obvious as "Crash," I don't know, but you definitely won't miss it after a movie as obvious as "Babel." Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu and his writing partner, Guillermo Arriaga, have diluted the formula of non-linear storytelling and interconnected plotlines since their outstanding debut in "Amores Perros." Now they've added self-importance and heavy-handedness. Four stories -- two Moroccan boys get a rifle; a Mexican immigrant tends two white children in San Diego; a deaf Japanese girl yearns to explore her sexuality; an American couple in Morocco are waylaid by a serious accident -- begin promisingly but ultimately are bogged down by repetition and self-indulgence, as Iñárritu lingers on scenes for longer than necessary and extends sequences beyond their natural limits.
Catch a Fire
"Catch a Fire" tells a true story, and that might be its downfall. Not all true stories are created equal, after all. Some are more dazzling, more interesting or simply more cinematic than others. "Catch a Fire" deals with a theme ripe for filmic representation -- South Africa's system of apartheid -- but the specific story it chooses is weak. Set in 1980, the film is about Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), a foreman at an oil refinery who is accused by government detective Nic Vos (Tim Robbins) of collaborating with radical anti-apartheid terrorists. The allegations aren't true, but the treatment he receives drives him to join the radicals anyway. The film, directed by Phillip Noyce ("Clear and Present Danger"), wants us to root for Patrick and consider Nic a bad guy, but it's not that black-and-white (as it were). I see both men as ordinary, flawed characters with questionable motives, neither of them grand or noble enough to warrant biopic treatment. Derek Luke's performance is impressive, though, as he infuses Patrick with a fiery, combustible passion. I wish I could somehow cut the performance out of this mediocre film and paste it into a better, richer, more deserving one.
Running with Scissors
Movies with odd, eccentric characters are usually fine ... until you get something like "Running with Scissors," where the quirkiness feels forced and self-conscious. Based on Augusten Burroughs' bestselling memoir, the allegedly true story has Augusten (Joseph Cross) abandoned by his narcissistic mother (Annette Bening) and left in the care of her bizarre psychiatrist (Brian Cox) and his dysfunctional family. The film, adapted and directed by Ryan Murphy (creator of TV's "Nip/Tuck"), takes a shockingly cavalier attitude toward 14-year-old Augusten's sexual relationship with the 35-year-old man (Joseph Fiennes) who lives at the shrink's house; other elements in the film, like Augusten's mother/son interaction with the shrink's dotty wife (Jill Clayburgh), are a bit more encouraging and often funny. But this cavalcade of kooky souls, all boundary-less yet full of unexpressed rage and fear, grows stale after a while. A two-hour film needs characters we believe, like, and feel connected to, not freaks from a sideshow.
Sleeping Dogs Lie
Think of your most embarrassing secret. Now multiply the embarrassment by 10. Now recast the secret to somehow involve a dog. Do all that and you're approaching the humiliation felt by the central character in "Stay" (renamed "Sleeping Dogs Lie" for ...
Flags of Our Fathers
It might be hard to assess the true value of Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" until we see "Letters from Iwo Jima," the companion piece that addresses the World War II battle from the Japanese perspective. The opening narration in "Flags" says...
Flicka
In case you're not sure what "Flicka" is all about, the main character, a teenage girl named Katy (Alison Lohman), spells it out in the opening narration as she describes the Wyoming mountains where she lives. "I can see in them an expression of my own restless spirit," she says floridly. She has a restless spirit, you see. And guess what? She finds a wild mustang whose spirit is also restless, and thus girl and horse become friends. Based ever-so-loosely on the 1941 young adult novel "My Friend Flicka," this tween-girl-friendly adaptation emphasizes Katy's relationship with her father (Tim McGraw), a rancher who hates hates HATES mustangs and won't let Katy try to tame Flicka, much less ride her, but then goldurn it, sometimes you just gotta let them restless spirits roam free, you know? Director Michael Mayer doesn't bring a lot to the table beyond basic competence, and the screenplay (by Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner, the duo who brought you "Mona Lisa Smile") seems confused on whether Katy is petulant, rebellious, disobedient or merely ADD. The movie is inoffensive and forgettable, which is probably what they were going for.
Marie Antoinette
Sofia Coppola's has jammed "Marie Antoinette" with contradictions and anachronisms, apparently wanting us to take it seriously while simultaneously not taking it seriously. Some parts are funny. Other parts are also funny, but unintentionally so. Against the lavish sets and costumes, Coppola focuses on her characters' melancholy boredom, with Marie (Kirsten Dunst) a young frivolous girl with no idea how to reign, and Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) likewise floundering. The film sometimes slips into doldrums, too -- it's hard to depict boredom without being boring -- but that is not its chief problem. The trouble here is that while many of the characters are quaintly amusing, they are not full-bodied individuals. They don't seem real and so we don't feel connected to them. The film is better as a curiosity than as entertainment.
The Prestige
Forget "The Illusionist"! The preeminent twisty-plotted European-magicians-at-the-turn-of-the-last-century movie of 2006 is "The Prestige"! "The Prestige" is "A Bug's Life" to "The Illusionist's" "Antz," the intelligent "Deep Impact" to its silly "Ar...
The Grudge 2
"The Grudge 2," a sequel to the 2004 hit, believes that the scariest thing a movie could possibly feature is a ghostly Japanese woman or little boy appearing suddenly on the screen. Furthermore, if the event is accompanied by a shriek of violins on the soundtrack, then you have perpetrated the most frightening thing ever committed to film. By those standards, "The Grudge 2" must surely be a terrifying experience, for hardly five minutes can pass without some pale, bug-eyed ghost appearing. The story -- in which Amber Tamblyn goes to Tokyo to figure out what happened to her sister in the first film -- goes in multiple directions and, all those jump-scares aside, is never actually frightening. Half the time we don't even know what the hell's going on, and it's hard to be scared and baffled at the same time.
