Movie Reviews
Man of the Year
"Man of the Year" is about a very funny late-night comedian who runs for president. He gains support because his hilarious jokes cut right to the heart of the matter and eliminate the B.S. that is most politicians' stock in trade.
The fundamental...
The Marine
In "The Marine," a WWE-produced "Rambo" rip-off, pro wrestler John Cena plays an ex-Marine who must save his wife from a band of diamond thieves who have inexplicably kidnapped her. Given wrestling's popularity, I'm sure there are people who will see it just because it features John Cena. And those people will not be disappointed: The movie does, in fact, feature John Cena. John Cena is visible in nearly every scene. The one thing you can count on is that "The Marine," starring WWE titan John Cena, has ample quantities of John Cena in it. If you're looking for anything else, though, you might walk away a little unsatisfied.
Infamous
My heart goes out to Douglas McGrath. The writer/director was hard at work on "Infamous," telling the story of how Truman Capote researched his book "In Cold Blood," when he learned someone else was making a movie on the same subject -- a movie called "Capote," which would go on to win an Oscar and be nominated for four others. "Infamous" will forever be the also-ran, the follow-up. As it turns out, the runner-up status is deserved. Toby Jones looks enough like Truman Capote, but his voice sounds like an impersonation, not a performance. (Philip Seymour Hoffman imitated the voice, too, but fleshed out the performance so well that it seemed natural.) Far more compelling is the supporting cast, which includes Sigourney Weaver, Hope Davis, Isabella Rossellini, Juliet Stevenson and Peter Bogdanovich as Truman's wealthy New York friends, and an endearingly even-keeled Jeff Daniels as a small-town sheriff. The best thing about the movie? Sandra Bullock, believe it or not, as Truman's lifelong friend Harper Lee. Bullock's warm portrayal of the reclusive author back before she was a recluse makes me think I'd rather be watching a different movie: a biopic of Harper Lee.
Deliver Us from Evil (documentary)
There are two villains in "Deliver Us from Evil," an enraging documentary about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. One, of course, is Father Oliver O'Grady, the saintly looking old Irish priest who molested dozens, perhaps hundreds, of children in central California in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. The other is Cardinal Roger Mahony, now the archbishop of Los Angeles, who consistently and repeatedly let O'Grady get away with it, at one point lying to Stockton police to keep O'Grady out of jail and the story out of the papers. O'Grady, now defrocked, openly admits his crimes, though he speaks of them detachedly and in vague euphemisms, clearly not grasping their enormity. Mahony and the Catholic Church wouldn't cooperate with filmmaker Amy Berg, so their side isn't presented, but the facts on record (which include videotaped depositions) are damning enough. Several victims, now adults, are courageous enough to tell their stories, and Berg presents everything even-handedly, almost like a news program, without injecting herself into it. Every Catholic leader should see this movie.
The Departed
Two dozen films under his belt, and Martin Scorsese can still crank out a gem worthy of comparison with "Taxi Driver," "Goodfellas" and "Raging Bull." "The Departed" doesn't have quite the same air of brilliance about it as those classics did, but it...
Employee of the Month
"Employee of the Month" takes place in a parallel universe. It's a universe where customers have favorite cashiers at their neighborhood Costco and will literally cheer as they ring up their purchases in a flamboyant fashion. A universe where an empl...
Little Children
Todd Fields' follow-up to his somber but well-acted debut "In the Bedroom" is "Little Children," a much more spry, satiric, more visually interesting affair about a sunny upper-class suburb full of dangers both physical and emotional. Sarah (Kate Winslet), a young mother in a joyless marriage, feels out of place amid the desperate housewives she meets in the park every day. Brad (Patrick Wilson), a former football hero who wonders where his youth went, is an unfulfilled househusband whose wife is too busy working to notice him. Sarah and Brad become friends, ostensibly so their children can play, but really to share the afternoons together. The film, narrated by an omniscient, unseen voice (that of PBS's Will Lyman), frequently expands its story to include new characters, and we learn the sad, funny, and sadly funny circumstances of their lives as they relate to each other. Presenting sunny suburbia as having a dark side is not a new tactic, of course, but Fields and company present this grim, smirking fable with refreshing ingenuity. It combines sardonic humor with a piercing glance at the soul-crushing blandness of daily life.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
Having seen either the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or the 2004 remake, you probably wondered where Leatherface came from, what drove him to chase people through forests while wielding a chainsaw, why his face is all effed up like that. And guess what: The graphically unlikable prequel, subtitled "The Beginning," doesn't tell you much. It's mostly an excuse for the maniac and his loathsome sheriff friend (R. Lee Ermey) to terrorize another batch of pretty young people, with plenty of torture, mayhem, screaming, almost escaping, escaping, coming back, being tortured, some more screaming, a little revenge, and finally some death. Since we know all the bad guys will still be alive at the end (it's a prequel, remember?), there's not much suspense over the outcome. I get tired of saying this about splattery horror films, but I get even more tired of it being true: The film has no wit, imagination, creativity or ingenuity. It's wearisome and dull, offering plenty of gore but no brains to back it up.
Shortbus
"Shortbus" begins with a man sitting in his bathtub, videotaping himself as he urinates. What he does after he gets out of the tub, I can't even tell you. I can't tell you most of what goes on in "Shortbus," in fact, at least not the particulars. It's a movie about people whose lives revolve around sex -- and if you just thought, "Doesn't EVERYONE'S life revolve around sex?," then you are definitely the film's target audience -- and it doesn't shy away from the most intimate details of the characters' sexual encounters. It revels in them, in fact, not in a salacious way, but in a manner that is joyfully matter-of-fact. Centered around several dysfunctional New Yorkers who meet at sex club, the film offers poignant and comedic insight into sex and relationships through some very honest, forthright performances. And it's certainly a memorable film, I'll give it that.
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
"A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" is a New York City coming-of-age story that's so vivid you can practically smell the urine wafting out of the subway. The tiny apartment the family lives in, the way the parents interact with each other and their children, the way the kids behave on the streets, it all feels genuine. Dito Montiel wrote and directed the film based on his own experiences growing up in Astoria, Queens, in the 1980s. Young Dito (Shia LaBeouf) is a fairly typical teenager, an overall good kid slouching his way through adolescence with a small group of friends. What plot there is in the film is mostly compressed into brief spurts, allowing the rest of the movie to be a simple slice of life. Some scenes set in 2005 are mostly unnecessary, but the overall flavor of the film is exactly right, with the humor, innocence, drama and anxiety of youth all just the way you remember them, regardless of where you grew up.
The Guardian
Not 10 minutes have elapsed in "The Guardian," a feel-good drama about the U.S. Coast Guard, before the fractured main character's wife vocalizes the whole point of the movie while arguing with her rescue-swimmer husband:
"It's time for me to res...
Open Season
"Open Season" isn't very funny or clever or particularly well-animated, but you gotta admire a film with enough chutzpah to go out into the world without a single original idea. It's about a grizzly bear named Boog (voice of Martin Lawrence) who has been completely domesticated and put into a live show at a national park, only to be released into the wild after a misunderstanding makes his handlers believe he's no longer tame. He develops a Shrek-and-Donkey-like relationship with a deer named Elliot (Ashton Kutcher), and together they save the animals from an onslaught of hunters. It's the third cartoon this year alone in which animals band together to fight humans who want to kill them (see also "The Ant Bully" and "Over the Hedge"), with the climactic battle strongly resembling the castle assault in "Beauty and the Beast." The jokes about "wild" animals not knowing how to fend for themselves are wearily reminiscent of "Madagascar" and "The Wild," with "Open Season's" tribe of squirrels are virtually indistinguishable from the lemurs of "Madagascar." So what's left? Martin Lawrence, Ashton Kutcher, and plenty of do-bears-poop-in-the-woods jokes. Excelsior!
School for Scoundrels
None of "School for Scoundrels" is plausible, exactly, but if you can accept the premise of a man teaching wimpy guys to be more aggressive -- i.e., to be jerks who lie their way into women's beds -- then you can probably buy most of what happens. At least until the end, which goes off the rails and doesn't make any sense. In the meantime, Napoleon Dynamite plays a timid parking enforcement officer while Bad Santa plays the rascal who teaches the course in lady-wooing. There are laughs scattered throughout the production, many of them reliant upon the comedy inherent in a man being hit in the crotch. Todd Phillips' work as writer and director has always been uneven (cf. "Old School" and "Starsky & Hutch"), but this is his most uneven yet, a fitfully amusing but overall unsatisfying film.
The U.S. vs. John Lennon (documentary)
Some documentaries are investigative, using new research to uncover hidden truths; others simply compile facts that are already out there. “The U.S. vs. John Lennon†falls into the latter category, being produced by VH1 and indeed resembling a “Behind the Musicâ€-style history lesson on John Lennon’s post-Beatles years. If you’re a fan, you probably already know a lot of the basics -- how Lennon’s anti-war activism earned him the scrutiny of the paranoid Nixon administration, how Yoko Ono influenced his “performance art†sensibilities, how he nearly got deported in 1972 thanks to Nixon’s interference. Of course, directed by TV music-doc veterans David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, the film never fails to engage, chock-full as it is of circa-1970 Lennon and Ono footage and new interviews with Ono, G. Gordon Liddy, Walter Cronkite, Gore Vidal and others. Liddy comes across as a remarkably compassionless jackass, blaming the victims of the 1970 Kent State shootings for their own demise and continuing, 35 years later, to take the Nixon party line on Lennon’s “threat†to America. Even if you're too young to remember it, you can see why Lennon and others were so riled up back then.
The Queen
"The Queen," a completely absorbing and meticulously well-acted drama, recounts a perilous week in Queen Elizabeth II's reign: the seven days after Princess Diana's death, when the public wanted the queen to weep and mourn with them and the queen wanted to remain stoic, as she always had done. Old-fashioned stiff-upper-lippedness and modern touchy-feeliness butted heads, and for a while public opinion was decidedly against Elizabeth's old ways. Helen Mirren plays the queen so vividly and completely as to be a virtual master class in Acting Without Overacting. As she interacts with newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) -- a modernist who fancies the monarchy rather old-fashioned but who likes Elizabeth herself -- she comes to see that adjustments must be made, but at what cost to the dignity of the monarchy? That Mirren is able to convey so much emotion in the role of someone who doesn't show much emotion is, of course, miraculous. By definition, there is no big, melodramatic clip to show at the Oscars, because every second of Mirren's performance is specifically non-showy, non-flashy and non-sentimental. But it's there. You could pick it apart to find the exact things she does to convey the character, but it's more satisfying to simply look at the whole: When the film is over, you feel like you know everything about her.
The Last King of Scotland
"The Last King of Scotland" is about two men who plunge themselves headlong into situations they are ill-equipped to handle. One has the excuse of being young and naive. The other's only excuse is that he's insane. The crazy one is Idi Amin, the notorious Ugandan dictator who killed thousands of his countrymen in the 1970s. He is played with mesmerizing charisma and ferocity by Forest Whitaker, who perfectly captures Amin's contradictions in what is surely one of the year's best performances. The naive one is a composite character named Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a cocky 25-year-old Scottish doctor who comes to Uganda to do humanitarian work and winds up being Amin’s personal physician instead. The feature debut of documentary filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, this is a rich, engrossing drama with a documentary feel to it (the constantly moving camera, the grainy colors), but the way the film explores its two central figures goes beyond simply documenting what happened. Without any theatrics or thunderous underscoring, Macdonald reveals both men's strengths and weaknesses, letting us feel sympathy and horror at the same time.
The Science of Sleep (French)
Who better to make an imaginative, playful movie about dreams than Michel Gondry, whose "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" captured the inner workings of the human mind in rich, whimsical detail? "The Science of Sleep," which he again wrote and directed, feels like it could be autobiographical: It's about a man who spends so much time in his own head that he starts to confuse dreams with reality. The man is Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal), a Mexican-born young artist living in Paris, dealing with his dead-end job by escaping into his dreams, which are shown in fanciful, whimsical detail, so perfectly dreamlike that you wonder why more filmmakers can't do dream sequences this well. The film isn't as emotionally compelling as "Eternal Sunshine" -- Gael Garcia Bernal is adorably likable as the befuddled Stephane, nothing deeper -- but it's a nice companion piece to it. Together, they explore the power of dreams and memory with more childlike goofiness and wistful humor than nearly any other set of films.
All the King’s Men
Robert Penn Warren's novel "All the King's Men" was the source material for a 1949 film that won three Oscars, including Best Picture. Now here's a new adaptation of the novel from writer/director Steven Zaillian ("Searching for Bobby Fischer"), and ...
Jackass: Number Two
A viewer of "Jackass: The Movie" might have concluded that Johnny Knoxville and his troupe of giggly, beer-fueled pranksters couldn't possibly top that film's parade of crass and homoerotic shenanigans. Yet here is "Jackass: Number Two," even grosser, louder and more naked than its predecessor. I can only assume that this makes the film "better" than the first one, though quality is relative when you're talking about a movie where a man ingests beer through a tube inserted into his rectum. Some of the stunts are undeniably funny, if only for the “Why would you even THINK of that?� factor, while others are so grotesque as to be unwatchable. It is what it is. If you liked the first movie, the second one is more of the same. My powers as a critic are useless here.
Fearless
Huo Yuanjia was a Chinese martial arts master at the turn of the last century whose strength and bravery inspire fighters to this day. His story, told epically in "Fearless" by director Ronny Yu and writer Chris Chow, is a fitting coda for what Jet Li says will be his last big martial-arts film, though like so many biopics, a blind devotion to the subject renders the film a little stale at times. It's a character study of Yuanjin's rise, fall and redemption as a fighter, with fewer fight scenes than you'd expect (though what combat sequences are included are fantastically choreographed and lovingly filmed), and when it's over I'm not sure we truly know anything about him.
Confetti
Most of Christopher Guest's imitators have failed to capture the semi-improvised quirkiness of his mockumentaries but "Confetti," a new bit of British drollery, is one of the better offerings. It centers on a topic ripe with possibilities -- weddings -- as a magazine chooses three finalist couples for its "most original wedding" prize. We see them planning their nuptials (one wants a "Hollywood musicals" theme; another wants everyone nude), fighting with the wedding planners, and competing with each other for the magazine's grand prize. It is, ultimately, more a "warm" film than a hysterically funny one. It has its moments, certainly, but it doesn't fully capitalize on the possibilities of its premise. One sees elements reminiscent of the Guest films -- the competition of "Best in Show," the fractured couples trying to relate as in "A Mighty Wind," and the earnestly tacky performances (wait'll you see these weddings!) of "Waiting for Guffman." "Confetti" was inspired by the best, in other words, and though it feels like it should be funnier, it is a smiley and amusing affair full of happy endings and goodwill.
Flyboys
"Flyboys" will make a good double feature with "The Guardian," which opens next week. Both are noble, well-intentioned military stories, and both are at least 30 minutes longer than they should be. Honest attempts to inspire and enlighten us are appr...
American Hardcore (documentary)
The day will come when everything that has ever happened will be the focus of a documentary. As we work toward that goal, we have "American Hardcore," which tells of punk music in the United States in the first half of the 1980s. As with too many of these docs, if you weren't there or don't already have a strong interest in the material, it gets old fast. Aside from a few sentences about how the Reagan era brought back white, preppy, 1950s-style conservatism, the film makes little attempt to put its subjects in context, much less to universalize the themes so that everyone can appreciate what's happening. The movie preaches to the choir, in other words, and bores everyone else. Directed by Paul Rachman and based on Steven Blush's book "American Hardcore: A Tribal History," the film does boast an impressive number of interviews with the movers, shakers, screamers, and wailers of the punk movement, though. Rachman digs up a significant amount of archive footage, too, showing the bands when they were in their aggressive, angry prime. But history must include context, causes and effects, actions and consequences. Simply showing what happened in a specific set of years to a specific genre of music is of interest only to people who, well, are already interested.
The Black Dahlia
It's been four years since Brian De Palma made a movie, by far the longest break in his 45-year career. He hasn't changed much in the interim. "The Black Dahlia" is every inch a Brian De Palma Movie, ambitiously well-made, sometimes laughably trashy,...
Everyone’s Hero
"Everyone's Hero" is a good-natured, innocent cartoon about a talking baseball and a talking bat and the little boy who helps restore the bat to its rightful owner, one Mr. Babe Ruth. The story makes little sense, what with the lad hopping trains from New York to Chicago by himself, and the finale where the Yankees let him play in the World Series with them, but what can you do? It's Americana and baseball and green pastures and sunny days and there are two fart jokes and what else do you want in a cartoon? (The long review is much more entertaining than this capsule.)
Gridiron Gang
"Gridiron Gang" is an allegedly inspiring football movie that, while itself merely average, has been assembled from the spare parts of great movies. Why, here's a little bit of "Stand and Deliver" (or whichever inner-city-school-teacher film you prefer). There's a chunk that looks like "Hoosiers" (or whichever underdog-sports-team-is-motivated-by-unorthodox-coach flick you like). And that music I'm hearing, heavy on the horns -- isn't that "Rudy"?! The earnest, fact-based film stars a rather subdued Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Sean Porter, an L.A. juvenile detention center counselor who forms his charges into a football team in the hopes that it will teach them discipline and respect and thus lower their recidivism rate. The team plays poorly, then plays well, then rebels against Porter's coaching methods, then learns valuable life lessons. Directed proficiently but without distinction by Phil Joanou, it's the type of film that has nothing wrong with it, but that doesn't have anything particularly right with it, either. It can't compare with the truly great films of this sort, but it passes the time.
The Last Kiss
"L'Ultimo Bacio" ("The Last Kiss") was one of Italy's most acclaimed films of 2001, a fact which virtually assured it would be remade for American audiences. That inevitability is now a reality, but I still recommend the original -- not because I'm a...
Haven
You know how white-collar criminals in movies are always talking about their hidden bank accounts in the Cayman Islands? What are the islands like? Is it just street after street lined with nothing but banks, a Caribbean version of New York's financial district? That's how I always pictured it. But no! I was mistaken. "Haven" has taught me that people actually LIVE in the Caymans, and that their lives are a nonstop procession of lies, violence and infidelity. Writer/director Frank E. Flowers has constructed his film in a non-linear fashion, jumping around in time and changing protagonists on us regularly. Involved are a Miami businessman (Bill Paxton) who flees to the Caymans to escape the Feds, his skanky teenage daughter (Agnes Brucker), the local thug she hooks up with (Victor Rasuk), and a shy white kid (Orlando Bloom) whose black employer doesn't want him dating his daughter. I love a good twisty-turny-overlapping-plots caper as much as anyone, but "Haven's" non-linear story is its only virtue. The tone is moody and bleak, the characters are petty jackasses, and Flowers' heavy-handed messages about colonialism are trite. Eventually the plot contrivances and coincidences -- no surprise this was produced by the same people who brought you "Crash" -- become too much to bear and the whole dismal production collapses into hilarity.
Keeping Mum
I've about had it with daft comedies about daft British people doing daft British things, but "Keeping Mum" has restored my faith in the genre. This is a dark comedy, something we don't get much of these days, and the Brits in it aren't just daft; some of them are certifiably, dangerously mad. An elderly Mary Poppins type named Grace (Maggie Smith) comes to a tiny village to be housekeeper and nanny to the vicar's family, who are unaware that as a young woman, Grace killed her husband and his mistress. She goes about improving the vicar's family's lives, merrily and cheerfully setting things right by any means necessary, up to and including killing those who vex them. No one in the film behaves the way normal people do, but that's kind of the point. They're not normal. Neighbors like these are deliciously fun to watch in a movie as long as you don't have to live near them in real life.
Jimmy and Judy
"Jimmy and Judy" is both an experiment and a trainwreck, and I confess to being eager to see how it turned out in both respects. I think it fails, which technically should make it a "bad" movie. But it's so engrossing in its attempt that I have a hard time completely dissing it. Just because the tightrope walker slipped and fell to his death doesn't mean you didn't enjoy the show. With liberal borrowings from "Natural Born Killers," the film tells of a troubled teenage couple (Edward Furlong and Rachael Bella) who go on a cross-country sex-and-violence rampage, filming the whole thing with Jimmy's camcorder. Trouble is, the title kids are loathsome, unsympathetic punks. Their nihilism and boo-hoo-nobody-understands-me pessimism are neither new nor noteworthy. Their behavior is sickening -- not in a way that makes you think, "Gee, today's youth sure are messed up," but in a way that makes you think, "Gee, these filmmakers sure are trying awfully hard to be 'edgy.'" And yet the film is undeniably well-acted, Furlong's dirtbag rage and Bella's misplaced sexual energy shining through impressively. Is it worth watching this grim, cynical experiment just out of curiosity, to see what they do with it? Maybe so.
Jesus Camp (documentary)
Oh, what an unfair documentary is "Jesus Camp." Unfair and riveting and alarming and highly watchable -- but outrageously unfair. It's the kind of documentary where you assume the subjects didn't know what the finished product would look like when they agreed to be filmed. The general topic is evangelical Christians, focusing specifically on Becky Fischer, a stout, friendly pastor in Missouri who runs a youth Bible camp every summer. The film is concerned with how powerful evangelical Christians are becoming in this country, and also with the way they indoctrinate -- some would say brainwash -- their kids at a very young age. What strikes me about the kids at Fischer's Bible camp is how INTENSE they are. They get caught up in the enthusiasm of the prayer meetings and wind up sobbing with sorrow over their sins, or crying out in desperate pleas to have a transcendent spiritual experience. But they're KIDS. What sin could a 9-year-old possibly have committed that would require so much abject remorse? How deeply could a 10-year-old truly desire to be "saved"? Where do you draw the line between teaching children solid values and turning them into too-serious mini-preachers? If the film is any indication, these kids are missing out on the fun parts of childhood.
Al Franken: God Spoke (documentary)
Here's a movie you can form an opinion on based on the title alone: "Al Franken: God Spoke." Love Al Franken and his left-wing political views? This is for you! Prefer right-wing commentators? Skip it! Hooray! My work is done here. It's a rather unfocused documentary about the former "Saturday Night Live" writer's efforts to launch Air America Radio, to campaign for John Kerry in the 2004 election, and to memorialize Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone after the latter's death in 2002. It's not a biography of Franken, nor does it have a central story that it seeks to tell. It's simply a video diary, a two-years-in-the-life fly-on-the-wall account of Franken's public deeds, which are often very funny, owing to his quick draw on the one-liners.
The Covenant
There must be a lot of embarrassment in the Screen Gems offices this week. They had this schlocky direct-to-video movie "The Covenant" waiting to be shipped out to America's Wal-Marts and Best Buys, and then somehow it accidentally got released into ...
Hollywoodland
George Reeves had minor roles in dozens of studio films in the 1940s but was unable to secure anything noteworthy until 1951 when, at the age of 37, he became TV's first Superman. Eight years later, he shot himself in the head.
Or maybe he didn't....
The Protector (Thai/English)
Harvey and Bob Weinstein loved the Thai martial-arts flick “The Protector� so much that they chopped 25 minutes out of it, randomly chose scenes and dialogue to dub with atrocious English, and rendered the whole thing nearly incomprehensible. Hurray for the Weinsteins and their devotion to world cinema! The remnants feature Tony Jaa as a warrior skilled in the art of Muay-Thai who must travel to Australia to rescue two sacred elephants. Director Prachya Pinkaew (who worked with Jaa on the insanely entertaining “Ong-Bak�) wisely avoids extraneous cutting or choppy editing in the fight scenes, allowing us to see Jaa in all his acrobatic, gravity-defying glory -- no wires, CGI or stunt doubles for Mr. Jaa -- and if the plot has been rendered incoherent by the Weinsteins, at least the extraordinary action sequences are more or less intact.
Crossover
Full disclosure: I did not see the last 15 minutes of "Crossover." A problem with the projector caused the print to melt, and the damage was so extensive it couldn't be repaired in a timely manner. I suspect this was the result of the projector committing suicide. Surely it was no more interested in seeing how the film played out than the rest of us were. Like us, the projector was probably bored by the flat acting and over-the-top melodramatic plotline, which follows two Detroit inner-city kids who want to be basketball stars but must first deal with golddigging girlfriends and ruthless sports bookies. Perhaps the projector also thought the whole affair seemed more like an After School Special than a serious drama. Whatever the case, the projector did us all a favor, and if I ever see it around town, I will buy it a drink.
The Wicker Man
Not having seen the 1973 British cult classic "The Wicker Man," I cannot say whether the 2006 remake is faithful. Did the original include a scene in which the leading man puts on a bear costume in an effort to infiltrate cultists? Did that leading man also yell, "Killing me won't bring back your G--d--- honey!"? I suspect not. I suspect it takes a Nicolas Cage (or a Charlton Heston or a William Shatner) to holler that kind of nonsense without a trace of self-consciousness. You need a ham of the highest order to make this malarkey funny, which is what "The Wicker Man" remake ultimately is. Adapted and directed by once-beloved indie misanthrope Neil LaBute, our story is about Edward Malus (Cage), a California cop called upon by his ex-fiancee, Willow (Kate Beahan), to come to the strange Puget Sound island where she lives and investigate the disappearance of her daughter. The island is home to a matriarchal cult, led by the radiant Ellen Burstyn, who is a good enough actress to make her cheesy, wannabe-spooky dialogue sound natural. It is possible to make a genuinely creepy movie about bizarre pagan societies, but LaBute has not done it. This one is laughable, and the more Cage yells and sputters, the funnier it gets.
Trust the Man
Do you enjoy watching smug, self-involved, upper-class New Yorkers complain about their problems, most of which are their own fault? Then take a cab from your wood-floored Upper West Side apartment down to the nearest movie house and catch a showing of "Trust the Man." It's the whiniest comedy Woody Allen never made! Julianne Moore and David Duchovny are one couple; Maggie Gyllenhaal and Billy Crudup are the other. Writer/director Bart Freundlich (Moore's husband) believed he was making a smart, sophisticated comedy, and there are funny moments and good performances here and there. But having grownups talk about sex does not automatically mean your movie is sophisticated. The characters must be relatable and likable, and these are not.
Crank
Two random Hollywood guys, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, co-wrote and co-directed "Crank." It was their first time in charge of a movie, and it shows, both in the film's enthusiastic disregard for filmmaking conventions, and in its mistakes.
T...
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (documentary)
"This Film Is Not Yet Rated" is a passionate and entertaining agenda film. The agenda? The Motion Picture Association of America -- the board that determines what rating movies get -- is secretive, arbitrary, unfair and hypocritical. Documentarian Kirby Dick interviews filmmakers who have gotten the shaft from the MPAA and shows how the board routinely rates sex more harshly than violence, and gay sex more harshly than straight sex. Most outrageously (and giddily satisfying), Dick hires private investigators to find out the identities of the people on the ratings board, information that is inexplicably held secret by the MPAA. Dick gets off-track here and there with tangents about the MPAA's fight against piracy (irrelevant to the main topic), but what he's done overall is clever, funny and enlightening for anyone who's ever noticed how flawed the ratings system is. Turns out we had no idea just how messed-up it is.
Beerfest
With the mildly disappointing "Club Dread" out of the way, Broken Lizard, the infectiously vulgar comedy troupe behind "Super Troopers," is back in form with "Beerfest," a jaunty lark about a beer-drinking championship and the lovable losers who want to win it. The film is much too long and too plot-heavy, but it earns quite a few laughs, too, with absurdity, wordplay and juvenile non-sequiturs. Drunkenness, binge drinking and German-hating have never seemed so appealing.
How to Eat Fried Worms
Young girls are the target audience for so many films, yet it seems like there aren’t many aimed at boys. So “How to Eat Fried Worms� gets points for that, its title alone surely piquing the interest of 8-11-year-old lads everywhere. It’s a pleasant enough little two-act film about a fifth-grader named Billy (Luke Benward) who, as the new kid in school, is subject to the taunts of the head bully, Joe (Adam Hicks). Billy responds to a worm-related taunt by claiming he eats worms all the time, Joe calls his bluff and demands he eat 10 in the course of one day or suffer extreme humiliation, and all the other boys gather ‘round (and choose sides) as the Junior Fear Factor games begin. Writer/director Bob Dolman (“The Banger Sisters�) turns Thomas Rockwell’s kids’ book into a sunny lesson about bullying and friendship, and his cast of li’l actors is charismatic and relatable. There are extraneous details (like Billy’s dad’s problems at his new job), but the film feels only slightly padded. And don’t worry, kids: The narrative is almost completely free of icky, cootie-ridden girls.
Old Joy
Nothing really happens in "Old Joy," but that's only a liability if you go into it expecting something to happen. On its own terms, as a contemplative tone poem about thirtysomething anxiety, it's lovely and poignant.
It's also gorgeous to look at...
Invincible
Disney keeps cranking out these fact-based inspiring sports movies, throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Now and then, something does. "Invincible" does. It's a lean, efficient, classy film, uplifting without being schmaltzy. It clearl...
Idlewild
OutKast may have brought something fresh to the world of hip-hop, but their contribution to the world of movie musicals is stale. "Idlewild," their quirky Depression-era story set to modern music, has an intriguing concept, but it's executed so dully you'd never know it. 'Tis a shame, for the OutKast boys -- Andre "3000" Benjamin and Antwan A. "Big Boi" Patton -- are personable fellows, instantly likable as screen luminaries and very talented in the recording studio. The musical numbers in "Idlewild" are lively, with amazing dance choreography and spot-on performances. So what's the problem? Not enough of those musical numbers. You wouldn't think a musical would suffer from a lack of music, but here we are. "Idlewild" runs two hours and has maybe five songs. That scarcity is made worse by the flatness of what occurs in between, as the plot -- dealing with bootlegging and a Moulin Rouge-ish speakeasy/brothel -- is cliché-ridden and uninspired. And so we are left with the mediocre remnants of a squandered opportunity.
The Illusionist
Calling "The Illusionist" a romantic thriller is like calling a chihuahua a guard dog. It might technically be true, but you shouldn't expect much from it. It has the trappings of romance -- a turn-of-the-last-century Viennese setting, gorgeous period costumes, a lush Philip Glass musical score, and a plot involving star-crossed lovers from opposite sides of the tracks -- but it’s passionless and antiseptic. Eisenheim (Edward Norton), the son of a cabinetmaker, is now a popular stage magician who one night discovers in his audience a woman named Sophie (Jessica Biel), a duchess with whom he shared a brief affair when both were teens. Her jealous fiance (a scenery-chewing Rufus Sewell) behaves evilly, there is bloodshed, and it befalls the living to vindicate the dead and uncover the villain. Paul Giamatti is exceptional as a police inspector, while Edward Norton, sadly, seems lost at sea, unsure who he’s playing or even what his accent is supposed to be. Lackluster performances and marginal story aside, though, the film evokes its time and place exceptionally well. That may be enough for some viewers, though they might be disappointed to discover the film has nothing up its sleeve after all.
Accepted
"Accepted" is a true surprise: a teen comedy with nary a fart joke and a genuinely interesting subversive streak rather than the usual shock-for-shock's sake mentality that plagues this genre. It's about a high school slacker-genius named Bartleby (Justin Long) who's rejected by every college he applies to and so, to pacify his parents, creates a fake acceptance letter from a fictional college. Except then they want to VISIT the school, so an actual campus must be created, with a fake dean and so forth, and then real students show up, and the whole thing escalates. Yes, it's ludicrous, but darned if it isn't charming in its bald-faced preposterousness, and its underlying ideas -- what does it take to be "accepted" by society? -- are stimulating. Most of all, it's funny, with the cast displaying remarkable comedic timing and a knack for sly, smart humor.
Snakes on a Plane
After so much anticipation, it’s a relief to discover that “Snakes on a Plane� actually is what we hoped it would be: a really, really enjoyable bad movie. It has no intention of being scary, or even believable. It wants only to offer broad, cheesy thrills, outlandish scenarios and cartoonish over-acting, to be a sort of parody of ridiculous disaster movies while also being a ridiculous disaster movie. Directed David R. Ellis, with two other fun-bad movies under his belt (“Cellular� and “Final Destination 2�), admirably maintains the pace once the chaos begins, and while Samuel L. Jackson is a bit hamstrung by the film’s claustrophobic setting, he still exudes coolness. There’s no shelf life for this kind of thing, but for here and now, it’s laugh-out-loud, holler-at-the-screen fun.
Factotum
Henry Chinaski wants to be a writer, but he wants to be a drinker and a gambler, too, maybe even more than he wants to be a writer. He does not want to have a regular job unless it's something mindless that won't interfere with his primary vocations. Henry is the central character in "Factotum" and is also the alter ego of Charles Bukowski, who wrote the book the film is based on. Matt Dillon plays him here, gruff, comical, drunk and seldom giving two craps what anyone else, including his various employers, thinks. He's the sort of self-destructive wreck of a man that you watch with both amusement and concern. The plot is minimal, following Henry from job to job and from woman to woman. As a character, he is more interesting to write about than he was to watch. The film is caustically funny, though, often in a vulgar way, and rather enjoyable in its life-of-a-starving-artist miserableness. There are many would-be writers who will find something of a hero in Henry, I'm sure, just as many have idolized Bukowski. More power to 'em, I say.
Material Girls
If I were a teenage girl, I would be insulted to know that Hollywood thinks I will watch any piece of trash, no matter how lame, ill-conceived or sloppy, just because it stars Hilary and Haylie Duff. On the other hand, if I were a teenage girl, maybe I would find something appealing about “Material Girls,� in which the Duffs play socialite heiresses to a cosmetics fortune who suddenly find themselves penniless and must clear their dad’s company’s good name. The film is strangely illogical (when the girls’ house catches on fire, they simply ... get in the car and drive away) and maddeningly unfunny, with far too many jokes centered on the girls’ unfamiliarity with the non-rich world. And the Duffs themselves? I barely even believe them as sisters, let alone as debutantes.
Little Miss Sunshine
There are laughs aplenty in “Little Miss Sunshine,� though they’re not the kind that make a movie a classic. I laughed a lot when I saw it and then promptly forgot most of it. Anyway, like hundreds of indie films before it, it’s about a dysfunctional family where everyone is screwed up in some particular way. Dad (Greg Kinnear) is a failed motivational speaker, Grandpa (Alan Arkin) is a heroin addict, Uncle Frank (Steve Carell) is a suicidal gay Proust scholar, 15-year-old Dwayne (Paul Dano) has sworn a vow of silence after reading too much Nietzsche, and pudgy 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin) wants to enter beauty pageants. Only Mom (Toni Collette) has her act together. The six embark on a road trip to California, where Abigail is a contestant in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, and all manner of bickering, sulking and vehicular wackiness ensues. It’s a comedy of angst, with bitter, dark laughs that belie its eventual “families gotta stick together� message, and while some elements are derivative -- the extended corpse-stealing sequence is a bit too “National Lampoon’s Vacation� -- the sharp comic performances from Kinnear and Carell help you overlook it.
Pulse
In "Pulse," a recently deceased college student sends instant messages to his living friends, which understandably freaks them out. Turns out there's some kind of timeless evil, and it was unleashed, and it infects you through phones and computers, and sometimes it makes you commit suicide and sometimes it just kills you itself, and I bet this movie was better when it was Japanese. This remake, written by the original's Kiyoshi Kurosawa and American horror commodity Wes Craven and directed by Jim Sonzero, is maddeningly vague about its intentions. There is a general creepiness -- lights flickering, strange noises, the weather is always overcast (even indoors, it seems), etc. -- rather than a specific threat. But if we don't know what we're supposed to be scared of, we're not going to be scared. As usual, this cheaply made PG-13 horror flick is all atmosphere and no horror.
Zoom
Wow, does "Zoom" ever suck. One expects very little from a film that is obviously a rip-off of something else ("Sky High," in this case), that is released without any advance screenings, and that comes from Peter Hewitt, whom one recalls was the director of "Garfield." But one could not have anticipated just how inept, unfunny and embarrassing "Zoom" would be. It surpasses all expectations. It is the mirthless story of a cynical former superhero (Tim Allen) who is harassed by the government into training a new squad of "X-Men"-style kids who exhibit superpowers. Jokes related to bodily functions abound, as do pratfalls and other desperate attempts at humor. Chevy Chase, once a master of comedy, plays an egghead scientist in a bug-eyed performance that reminded me of seeing an old man crap his pants at the grocery store. I felt bad for the guy, and I felt ashamed for having seen it.
Step Up
As far as "Save the Last Dance"/"Center Stage"/"Dirty Dancing"/"Fame"/"Footloose"/etc. rip-offs go, about two-thirds of "Step Up" isn't bad. The dancing is energetic and skillful, and the predictable, hackneyed plot is benign, following the sullen adventures of a troubled youth (Channing Tatum) who, while doing community service at a school for the arts, becomes a student's (Jenna Dewan) dance partner. It's in the last act, however, that the film takes a random detour into maudlin territory, dragging out the running time and stalling the central story. Suddenly introducing drama into a shallow story doesn't magically make it deep; it only makes it longer. We know they're going to perform at the big Senior Showcase and get a standing ovation and college scholarships and all that. Just get to it already!
Half Nelson
In wrestling, the half nelson hold is hard to get out of, but not impossible. It's a hold that controls you only until you break free of it, or until your opponent moves to a tighter hold and pins you. Your fate is not yet sealed. It's important to remember that while watching "Half Nelson," a powerfully gripping drama about a middle-school teacher (Ryan Gosling) who is beloved by students in the classroom and addicted to crack the rest of the time. The drug has a tight hold on him, make no mistake, and Gosling's performance -- subtle and distinct and heartbreakingly good -- reflects it. But when a student (Shareeka Epps) with a troubled home life of her own discovers her teacher's problem, it forces a wake-up call. Shot in an unpolished, realistic style by writer/director Ryan Fleck, the film has all the hallmarks of a sad, morbid film. But it's not one. It's serious, yes, but not oppressively so. There is hope in it. It has a whiff of brilliance about it.
World Trade Center
Oliver Stone's trademark freneticism is scarcely visible in "World Trade Center," the second 9/11 film (after "United 93") to dramatize a true story from that day. Flashy editing, quick cuts, skewed angles and general insanity are in short supply. Th...
The Descent
Don't let the coincidental similarities between "The Descent" and last year's "The Cave" fool you. Both are about good-looking young people who go spelunking and are attacked by otherworldly creatures, but while "The Cave" was a dull wreck, "The Descent" is a truly terrifying horror flick, with suspense, gore and grip-the-armrest thrills doled out in equal measure. Six women in their early to mid-20s gather in the Appalachian Mountains for a weekend of camping and exploring, and the uncharted caves beckon them. Writer/director Neil Marshall builds tension slowly and episodically, first allowing the women to suffer setbacks common to spelunking -- injuries, cave-ins, and so forth -- before introducing them to the supernatural terrors. But Marshall is so good at creating creepiness in the near-darkness that this would be a pretty enthralling suspense film even without the Gollum-like beasts that eventually beset the ladies. Even the "ordinary" sequences of crossing perilous ravines and dealing with a particularly gruesome broken leg are gripping. This is good old-fashioned terror here, bloody and frightening and skin-crawlingly spooky. Bring a change of pants, because this one's a soiler.
The Night Listener
"The Night Listener" is a slick, mostly engaging drama starring Robin Williams (in a beard, so you know he's serious) as Gabriel, a public-radio host whose personal life is in a state of upheaval, as his boyfriend of some years has just left him. As the film begins, Gabriel encounters the memoirs of a 14-year-old boy named Pete (Rory Culkin), who suffered years of abuse at the hands of his mother and is now safely adopted by a reclusive woman named Donna (Toni Collette). Certain elements of Pete's existence don't ring true, however, and Gabriel sets out to prove or disprove the story. By the end, Gabriel has reached an understanding of some kind -- not just of Pete and Donna but of his own troubles -- but the problem is that somehow we didn't quite make the journey with him. Williams has adopted his customary persona as the wise, gentle clown, a character these days more infuriating than ingratiating. Still, there is intrigue in the story, thanks largely to Toni Collette's underplayed performance as Donna, a woman with a set of issues all her own. She brings sympathy to a character who might have been too weird otherwise.
Barnyard
In "Barnyard," cows can be either male or female. Both genders have udders. The way you can tell a boy cow from a girl cow is that the girl cows have bows in their hair, like Ms. Pac-Man. What’s up with that? Where’s Gary Larson when you need him? He could explain this cow confusion. The humor of the film, from writer/director Steve Oedekerk, is breezily mainstream, focusing on a devil-may-care cow named Otis (voice of Kevin James) who has responsibility thrust upon him when his father, leader of the barnyard animals, is incapacitated. The story is slight; I just told you almost the whole thing. Numerous scenes exist merely to show the animals partying while the farmer's away. Luckily, those sequences are generally zippy and chuckle-worthy, and if the film is devoid of memorable lines or characters, at least it’s devoid of superfluous pop-culture references, too. It's harmless silliness that kids will enjoy and parents will smile at. Just be prepared to answer some tough questions afterward regarding the difference between boys and girls.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
There are people who don’t find Will Ferrell funny, I realize, and I’m glad I’m not one of them. “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby� has him as an arrogant NASCAR driver brought low by a gay French competitor (Sacha Baron Cohen), and by a car wreck that leaves him psychologically scarred. As with “Anchorman,� the film was directed by former “SNL� scribe Adam McKay and written by him and Ferrell, and it has that freewheeling, loose-limbed oddness that marks most of Ferrell’s work. These guys aren’t afraid to spend five minutes on one joke, repeating variations of it over and over until it stops being funny -- then continuing with it until it gets funny again. It’s that level of commitment that makes the film work, albeit not as well as “Anchorman� did.
Quinceañera
In the Mexican community, a girl's quinceañera is like prom, sweet sixteen and a coming out party all rolled into one, with parents spending thousands of dollars to escort their 15-year-old princesses into womanhood. "Quinceañera," an upbeat gem of a film, is bookended by two such celebrations. In between is a moving tribute to something else common in the Mexican community: a devotion to family. This particular family of Mexican-Americans living in Los Angeles is somewhat fractured to begin with, as young Carlos (Jesse Garcia) and his 14-year-old cousin Magdalena (Emily Rios) have been kicked out of their houses and are living with great-great-uncle Tomas (Chalo Gonzalez). Magdalena's crime is being pregnant, though she swears she never actually had sex with her boyfriend. Written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, the film manages to feel sunny and vibrant even when the characters' circumstances are sobering. It's no spoiler to reveal that it ends happily and no exaggeration to say I walked out of it with a spring in my step.
Scoop
If last year's "Match Point" was Step 1 of the Woody Allen Revitalization Project, "Scoop" is a confident Step 2. An American journalism student named Sondra Pransky (Johansson), vacationing in London, is visited by the ghost of recently departed journalist Joe Strombel (Ian McShane), who tells her the notorious Tarot Card Killer might be Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), son of a British lord. With the help of hack magician Sid Waterman (Allen), Sondra manipulates a meeting with Lyman, which leads to romance -- but what if he really is a killer? The film moves swiftly and blithely with giddy one-liners, and dialogue that ranges from snarky to sublime. Is it a classic? Nah. It's light as air. But it's a zippy good time for 90 minutes or so.
John Tucker Must Die
Oh, how you tease, "John Tucker Must Die." Your title hints at black comedy but you give us only the usual high school nastiness. In this snarky, modestly enjoyable teen flick, three popular hotties are horrified to learn they've all been dating the same guy, BMOC John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe, of "Desperate Housewives"), and now they want revenge. Not murder, alas, just the infliction of embarrassment and shame, coordinated by Kate (Brittany Snow), a new girl whose intention is to get John to fall for her so she can break his heart. It borrows from "Mean Girls," "Bring It On," the Hilary Duff fiasco "The Perfect Man" and even the "Longest Yard" gag where they secretly give a guy estrogen and watch him start acting womany. So no points for originality, but as far as teen comedies go, it's not bad.
Miami Vice
The plot of "Miami Vice" is a typically convoluted affair involving drug smugglers, undercover cops and a lot of gunfire. Such merriment has long been fodder for all manner of TV shows, of course, including a certain '80s trendsetter called "Miami Vi...
The Ant Bully
"The Ant Bully" has a premise straight out of the horror comics of the 1950s, the ones where maybe a kid loves sharpening pencils and then one day the pencils come to life, rise up, and sharpen the kid's head. In the film, a boy torments the anthill in his front yard, then is shrunk to ant size and taken prisoner by his former victims. They don't go the horror route, though, of course. Based on a children's book by John Nickle, this is a sweet and adventurous story about the value of working together as a community to make life better for everyone -- like Marx's "Communist Manifesto," in other words, only funnier. The boy is Lucas (voice of Zach Tyler), a nerdy, bespectacled kid who is frequently harassed by neighborhood bullies. After an ant wizard named Zoc (Nicolas Cage) reduces him to bug size, Zoc's girlfriend Hova (Julia Roberts) offers to take him under her wing and teach him how to be an ant in the hopes of creating an understanding between ants and people. The film is filled with wide-eyed wonderment and Pixar-style heart and soul, and the animation is top-notch, too. It's good stuff, overall -- funny, fast-paced and lively, and better than most of the animated films released this year.
Brothers of the Head
I've never seen a movie quite like "Brothers of the Head.� It’s a mock-rockumentary about a pair of conjoined twins who were plucked from obscurity in 1974 and made into rock stars. It’s all fictional, but directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (who have experience as real documentarians) go to great lengths to give it the air of authenticity. The footage supposedly shot in the ‘70s looks real, and the modern-day interviews with the participants are equally effective. There are even scenes from a movie starring the lads that real-life indie filmmaker Ken Russell made but never released. (Russell is even on hand to introduce the scenes, going along with the joke admirably.) The film is not a comedy, exactly, though it has laughs. It's more an off-kilter exercise in uniqueness, like someone said, "Here's a weird story. Let's tell it in a weird way." In the end, it’s almost a cautionary tale about the excesses of fame -- but come on, it’s about Siamese-twin rock stars. How can you not smile the whole way through?
Another Gay Movie
"Another Gay Movie," a spoof made by gay filmmakers for gay audiences, falls into the same traps as "The Singles Ward," a 2002 spoof made by Mormon filmmakers for Mormon audiences. These movies have little in common aesthetically, but they make the same mistakes: random cameos by quasi-celebrities familiar to the target audience, a scattershot storyline full of obvious jokes and references masquerading as parody, and a tendency to get sappy when it should be turning the satire on full-blast. "Another Gay Movie" spoofs "American Pie" and other horny-teenager flicks, with four gay teens vowing to lose their virginity by summer's end. The cast is eager, and the film occasionally shows signs of life with its reckless abandon. But it falls flat more often than it succeeds.
Lady in the Water
As an ardent defender of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense,� “Unbreakable� and “Signs� (but not “The Village,� because that one stank), it pains me to dis “Lady in the Water,� a boldly peculiar film that is simply a retread of Shyamalan’s usual themes. Crises of faith, loved ones’ deaths, watery symbolism: check, check, check. The story itself -- about a reclusive man (Paul Giamatti) who finds a sea nymph (Bryce Dallas Howard) living in the swimming pool at the apartment complex he manages -- is rife with curious details, yet it seems to have no point. Shyamalan calls it a bedtime story, and I can see what he means: There are some Characters, and they face an Obstacle, and in the end they Overcome the Obstacle and All Live Happily Ever After. That’s the basic structure of most stories, of course, but most stories have a little meat on their bones, too, with characters learning and growing and so forth, and most bedtime stories aren’t 105 minutes long. Much of the film is funny (usually intentionally, sometimes unintentionally), and it’s certainly not boring. But when it’s over you think: “Really? That was it?� Maybe that’s the twist.
Monster House
The first thing you'll have to get past in "Monster House" is the fact that it's an animated film aimed at kids but it's not a comedy. It's more or less a straight-up scary movie, the junior version of those glib horror flicks where the heroes make wisecracks even in the face of terror. The problem here is that the lightness of the wisecracks keeps the terror from being very frightening, and the lameness of the wisecracks keeps them from being very funny. Set in sunny suburbia, the film is about two 12-year-old boys a neighborhood girl who discover the local "haunted house" is actually a living beast that actually eats things. Apart from an adventurous, exciting finale and a few small chuckles and mild thrills throughout, the movie is nothing special. Had it been released at Halloween (where it surely belongs), you might count it as marginal seasonal fun. In the middle of summer, though, it barely registers.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
A terrific idea for a comedy would be where a guy breaks up with a jealous, clingy girlfriend who turns out to have superpowers that she can use to his detriment. A terrific execution of that idea is not to be found in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," which has occasional spurts of laughter but is otherwise benign and dopey. Uma Thurman plays the superhero, G-Girl, who in her daily life is a mousy art gallery employee named Jenny Johnson. Her new boyfriend, Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson), dumps her upon realizing she's kinda crazy, at which point she turns the full wrath of her superpowers against him. The movie has little regard for women, making all of them shrieky, one-dimensional and/or psychotic -- and what's worse, it's not very funny, either. This is a waste of good talent and a waste of a good idea.
Clerks II
The heroes of Kevin Smith's 1994 classic "Clerks" are still working their dead-end jobs in "Clerks II," set 12 years later. Alas, those dead-end jobs burn down in the film's first seconds, and so Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) get new dead-end jobs at a fast food place called Mooby's. Fans of "Clerks" will be comforted to know that the characters have not changed -- they still speak obscenely about geeky topics like "Star Wars" and the Internet -- but Smith has. He's become sappy and sentimental, and he occasionally tries to wedge that kind of foolishness into the otherwise vulgar, smart-mouthed, hilarious film. So the movie is uneven, but when it's on, it's really on: sharp, funny and geeky, just like you remember.
The Oh in Ohio
In "The Oh in Ohio," Jack (Paul Rudd) and Priscilla (Parker Posey) are high school sweethearts who got married and now, several years later, are bored with each other. The root of the problem is that Priscilla has never, in all her life and certainly not since getting married, had an orgasm. As she finds a solution to the problem (a mechanical solution), Jack feels emasculated, and their marriage suffers further. The movie is often very funny in its first hour, with barbed dialogue delivered by comedy pros Rudd and Posey. But in the third act, Priscilla embarks on a bizarre relationship with a character played by Danny DeVito and the film wanders off-course. We wind up feeling like Priscilla after sex with her husband: It was really fun at first; we just hoped it would end differently.
Little Man
"Little Man," The Wayans family's latest dim-witted fart comedy, is about an extremely short crook (Marlon Wayans) who disguises himself as a baby in order to infiltrate a suburban home where a diamond is hidden. You may recall the same plot being used in the 1954 Bugs Bunny short "Baby Buggy Bunny." Of course, that film was a cartoon, and it was only seven minutes long. "Little Man" (directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written by him and his brothers Marlon and Shawn) is a full 90 minutes and features live actors, which means it needs to have SOME basis in reality. Yet everything that occurs in the film is illogical, impossible, contrary to common sense, or all three. And poop/pee/breast milk/sex jokes? Oh, yeah. We got 'em.
You, Me and Dupree
Funny that Owen Wilson should star in a film about a guy who wears out his welcome, because "You, Me and Dupree" marks the point where he's juuuuust starting to do that himself.
The one character Wilson ever plays -- the footloose, sincere-soundi...
A Scanner Darkly
Maverick director Richard Linklater (late of "Bad News Bears" and "School of Rock") is back to his experimental roots with "A Scanner Darkly," a futuristic sci-fi story told, as was his 2001 film "Waking Life," through the magic of rotoscoping, a process where a movie is shot normally and then traced over, frame by frame, giving it a real-but-animated look. "Waking Life" was rotoscoped to enhance the movie's feeling of surreal dreaminess; "A Scanner Darkly" seems to be doing it just for the sake of doing it. Based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, it is set in a futuristic America where citizens are heavily surveilled and many are addicted to a new illicit drug called Substance D. Officer Fred (Keanu Reeves) works undercover to expose a drug ring and is assigned to monitor his own housemates. For all its intriguing visual elements, the film turns out to be a rather mundane story, not particularly surprising or twisty or inventive. Don't be tricked by the rotoscoping into thinking the film is more interesting than it is.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
I was surprised when "Pirates of the Caribbean" became an enormous box office hit three years ago, and mystified by people's ardent, enthusiastic love for it. Sure, Johnny Depp was funny. But wasn't the film too long and too plot-heavy? I wrote at th...
The Devil Wears Prada
Feeding on the fact that nearly everyone has had an unreasonable boss before, and that we all love a good bit of randy gossip, the film adaptation of the 2003 bestseller "The Devil Wears Prada" overcomes some of the novel's weaknesses to become a snarkily enjoyable story. And the best part? Meryl Streep. With a carefully coiffed wave of white hair and impeccably stylish clothes, Streep's Miranda Priestly looks like Cruella De Vil and reigns over the office of Vogue-like Runway magazine like the Queen of Hearts, crisply delivering instructions that are impossible to decipher, impossible to execute, or both. Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is the bright-eyed college graduate working as her assistant, and while I can't confess to being terribly interested in her personal life (she has a boyfriend who fears she is becoming one of the fashion snobs she works for), Streep's performance is more than enough to carry the film. The movie is fun, if nothing else, directed by "Sex and the City" vet David Frankel with an appropriate measure of panache and sarcasm.
Strangers with Candy
The first 30 minutes of “Strangers with Candy� are among the funniest first 30 minutes of any film, brimming with absurdist, whacked-out verbal comedy as 47-year old Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris) -- an ex-con junkie bisexual whore -- goes back to high school and has a series of Afterschool Special moments. But then, alas, the film (a prequel to Comedy Central’s cult-favorite TV show) then gets bogged down in its plot, about an intra-school science fair, and neglects its comedy. Still, it’s an often-hilarious, giddy little treat for fans of the show.
Superman Returns
Lois Lane won a Pulitzer for an editorial called "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman," written during the five-year period in which the Man of Steel was gone, vanished without a trace and presumably not coming back. He does come back, of course, in ...
Click
Somewhere beneath the fart jokes and the libidinous-dog jokes and the general Sandlerism of "Click" lies a movie with a good heart and an uplifting message. And that movie is called "It's a Wonderful Life."
This is the second time (after "Mr. Deed...
Waist Deep
Tyrese Gibson as an ex-con trying to go straight who must rob banks in order to raise the ransom money to free his son from a South Central gangsta played by rapper The Game? Do I smell Oscar?! It's called "Waist Deep," and my, is it ever a deep waste. With Meagan Good as Tyrese's reluctant partner in crime and Larenz Tate as his useless friend, the film is a witless urban drama that's too serious for its own good and that never met a cliché it didn't like. It also goes on for a full 25 minutes after the crisis with Tyrese's son is resolved, i.e., after it should have ended. If there's one thing I learned from growing up on the streets, it's when to end a job and get the heck out.
Wassup Rockers
A Larry Clark movie ("Kids," "Bully," etc.) tends to have documentary-style camerawork and a fairly creepy exploitation of teenagers, often non-actors. "Wassup Rockers" continues this trend (though it's light on actual nudity, which is a departure for Clark), focusing on a group of pubescent Hispanic boys as they ride their skateboards through Los Angeles. Some of the kids' interactions feel very natural and honest, but for the most part the film is neither controversial nor interesting enough to warrant much attention.
The Great New Wonderful
There are five stories in "The Great New Wonderful," each of them mildly droll and passably interesting, usually in a quirky way. They are all well-acted. What they do not have is a unifying theme.
This will be news to the screenwriter, first-time...
Nacho Libre
Oh sure, you'd THINK Jack Black and the guy who wrote and directed "Napoleon Dynamite" would make a great team. Jared Hess is funny, and Jack Black is funny; why, together they should have newly minted comedy gold spurting out their comedy orifices!
...
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Did you know that if your teenager does something illegal, and you don't want to see him put in juvenile hall, you have the option of deporting him instead? It's true! And I learned it from watching "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift."
This is...
The Lake House
They don't make a lot of movies for grown-ups nowadays, but "The Lake House" is one. Both of its stars are over 40, neither is blond, and not one of the songs on the soundtrack is sung by anyone you've seen on MTV recently. (Carole King, anyone?)
...
Lower City (Portuguese)
The dull, dimly lit Brazilian drama "Lower City" has some distractions like cockfights and barroom brawls in it, but don't be fooled. The film's only message is that it never works out when two men are sleeping with the same woman at the same time. S...
The Outsider (documentary)
Nicholas Jarecki, a young film student who wrote the book "Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start," reports that the most interesting life story of the directors he interviewed was James Toback's. This inspired him to make a movie, "The O...
Wordplay (documentary)
It's growing safer and safer to be a nerd in our society, and "Wordplay" is the latest clarion call, a delightfully unimportant and entertaining documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzle and its editor, Will Shortz. Crossword aficionados know what a difference Shortz has made since becoming editor of the daily puzzles in 1993, introducing more playful and imaginative clues and answers in what was previously a very stodgy institution. This film, directed by Patrick Creadon, gives some background on Shortz, follows beloved puzzle constructor Merl Reagle as he creates a puzzle from start to finish, interviews notable personalities who are avid Times puzzle fans (including Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton), and has its finale at the 28th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, Conn. The film should appeal to anyone with a love of crosswords, or even just a love of the English language. The people interviewed are lively and funny, and Creadon maintains a buoyant pace as he takes us through the black-and-white world of the crossword puzzle.
The 4th Dimension
In "The 4th Dimension," Jack (Louis Morabito) is a daydreaming antiques repairman who fixes old jewelry boxes and such-like for a German shopowner. But Jack (Miles Williams) is also a little boy in the third grade who has an outrageously precocious k...
Running Stumbled (documentary)
The people in "Running Stumbled" are old and caustic, and they speak casually of death, even of murder. They pop prescription pills constantly and live in total squalor in a dilapidated Louisiana shack. All of this makes for a film that is very funny...
A Prairie Home Companion
Garrison Keillor and Robert Altman, two love-him-or-hate-him entertainment icons, are together at last in “A Prairie Home Companion,� which is much less polarizing: It’s possible to have very mild, unimpassioned feelings about this one. The film is set backstage at Keillor’s famed radio show in what likely to be its last performance (don’t worry, fans, the movie is fiction), with folks like Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin and Lindsay Lohan playing his regular guest performers. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman in white (Virginia Madsen) wanders the corners of the theater, with security agent Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) keeping tabs on her. The film retains Keillor’s wry, cornball sensibilities (the script is credited to him), and Altman makes his presence known with long, unbroken takes from Steadicams that float around the theater like a silent and omniscient observer. Two scenes set onstage are highlights, both masterpieces of gleeful, carefully orchestrated comedy. The rest of the movie is typical Altman, with his overlapping conversations and de-emphasis on plot. Keillor's fans will probably consider the film a masterwork, while Altman's people will file it away as one of the director's average efforts, better than "Popeye" but worse than "Short Cuts."
Cars
"Cars" is the longest Pixar movie so far, probably the least engaging, and certainly the least funny. And yet somehow it's still better than two-thirds of the movies I've seen this year. Some of the Pixar magic may have been misdirected on this proje...
The Heart of the Game (documentary)
First-time filmmaker Ward Serrill comes off the bench shooting with "The Heart of the Game," a compelling, dramatic documentary about a Seattle high school's girls basketball team. New coach Bill Resler, a local tax professor and eloquent motivator ("Sink your teeth into their necks! Draw blood!" he urges metaphorically), turns the team around, and new players like the fiery and troubled Darnellia Russell become superstars. There's enough drama, both on and off the court, for a season's worth of TV shows, and Serrill organizes it like a pro.
The Omen
Of all the sources they could choose to be slavishly faithful to, they pick "The Omen"? In case you forgot, the 1976 suspenser about the devil-spawned kid was no prize to begin with (slowly paced, with bland acting by Lee Remick). So here's a remake (more quickly paced but with bland acting by Julia Stiles and Liev Schreiber), and most scenes are line-for-line repeats of the original. A lot of the shots even match, though director John Moore can't match Richard Donner for serviceable elegance. But why remake the film at all if you're just going to do a carbon copy? This film is for people who've never seen the original, and who are easily scared by mediocre horror films.
The Puffy Chair
The title item in "The Puffy Chair" is an old recliner found on eBay that resembles the one slacker Josh and hippie Rhett's father had when they were growing up. Josh thinks he and his girlfriend Emily should drive to North Carolina to pick it up, and then on to Atlanta to surprise Dad with it, and that Rhett should come along. The result is a funny, un-strenuous movie that glides through life as amiably and with as much endearing awkwardness as Josh himself does. It's shot in a natural style, and the dialogue, though in fact scripted, sounds goofily improvised. It feels like we're watching true, honest moments, the comedy of real life coming through in the mishaps that befall the trio, many of which are brought on by their own awkwardness, selfishness and general Seinfeld-ian pettiness.
The Break-Up
The surprising thing about "The Break-Up" is not how funny it is, as that's to be expected, but how serious it is. Also surprising: It works.
Here is a believable, non-sappy, unforced breakup comedy that dares to defy expectations of what a "break...
District B13 (French)
In the ridiculously entertaining action flick "District B13," it's the year 2010, and Paris has walled off its more troublesome ghettoes from the rest of the city, essentially giving them up for lost. But one man still has hope for cleaning up his neighborhood, and he joins forces with a cop to stop a local drug lord from firing a missile that will destroy all of Paris. Oh, and the guy's sister is chained to the missile. Oh, and nearly everyone communicates through a nifty style of urban martial arts known as parkour. It's from the team that brought you "The Transporter," and it's loaded with energy, wit, and jaw-dropping feats of physical prowess, with fight scenes that are wickedly choreographed and nicely shot. The characters don't matter much, but they do what's required of them, which is to kick butt and save Paris.
Peaceful Warrior
If I never see another movie where a mysterious Mr. Miyagi figure offers cryptic Zen-like advice to a brash young grasshopper, I will not consider myself any poorer. "Peaceful Warrior" can be the last one, and I'll be fine with that. Based on Dan Millman's autobiographical "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" and adapted by Kevin Bernhardt, the film begins with Dan (Scott Mechlowicz) as a hyper-confident U.C. Berkeley gymnast who meets a strange auto mechanic dubbed Socrates (Nick Nolte) who teaches him to clear his mind so he can focus on his gymnastics. The quasi-philosophy of the film is maddening, and so is the character of Socrates, who never does reveal who he is or how he does some of the impossible mental gymnastics that he's shown doing. The artiness of certain scenes is nice -- child molester/director Victor Salva films some sequences almost poetically -- but the "life lessons" are annoyingly pedantic.
Between
Caroline Libresco, a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, writes in her synopsis of "Between" that it is a "smart, stylish and utterly original metaphysical thriller." Smart and stylish are in the eye of the beholder, I suppose, but "utterly or...
