Movie Reviews
Constantine
The world of "Constantine" is a complicated one, combining elements of Catholicism, philosophy, theology and good ol' comic-book horror. Our guide through this complex system is Keanu Reeves, who demonstrated in the "Matrix" films that, if nothing el...
Son of the Mask
When people decry the travesty of "Son of the Mask," it is based on the supposition that "The Mask," to which it is ostensibly a sequel, was a great film whose memory must be respected. But in fact that film was mediocre at best, being little more th...
Her Majesty
"Her Majesty" typifies two erroneous mindsets that are common among would-be filmmakers: first, the tired cry that "there are no good family films out there"; and second, that in order to make a "good family film," all you have to do is come up with ...
Schultze Gets the Blues (German)
The title character in "Schultze Gets the Blues" is a spiritual brother to the title character in "About Schmidt." Jack Nicholson's Schmidt and Horst Krause's Schultze had very different jobs -- Schmidt was an insurance man; Schultze was a coal miner...
Turtles Can Fly (Kurdish)
Regardless of your position on the American effort in Iraq, "Turtles Can Fly" might change your mind. It shows the wretched, deprived existence of many Iraqis under Saddam Hussein, suggesting his ouster was imperative by whatever means necessary. Yet...
Hitch
There are two movies running in tandem in "Hitch," and they both star Will Smith. In one of them, a rather delightful buddy comedy, he's a professional date adviser who coaches a schlubby man toward dating success. In the other one, a run-of-the-mill...
Pooh’s Heffalump Movie
I can vividly recall Disney's animated Winnie the Pooh stories from the 1960s and '70s: "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day," "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too," and so forth. What I remember most about them are the storybooks and records that tied i...
Uncle Nino
The bane of movie critics -- the very bane, I tell you! -- is these little family-friendly movies that were clearly meant for direct-to-video distribution but that wound up in theaters instead, perhaps due to a clerical error. These films are seldom ...
Inside Deep Throat (documentary)
Many documentaries end with words on the screen telling us something sobering -- what happened next to the people in the film, or a statistic about the film's subject, perhaps. You can often measure the effectiveness of the documentary by the impact ...
Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (Thai)
The martial arts film "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior" has become mildly famous on the festival circuit because of what it doesn't have: wires, stuntmen, or computers. There are tricks of camera placement and creative editing, of course, but for the most ...
The Wedding Date
By now you are familiar with the sitcom device where a person convinces someone to pretend to be his or her significant other for the purpose of fooling relatives and/or making ex-S.O.'s jealous. When this premise is transferred to the movies, it is ...
Nobody Knows (Japanese)
The horror of "Nobody Knows" descended upon me later, when the film was over and I was considering its effects. It is the very definition of "haunting," in that it has a strong impact in the viewing, but an even stronger one in the contemplating.
...
Assisted Living
With regard to retirement centers and nursing homes, "assisted living" means more than just helping old people eat and get dressed. It means helping them to be happy, too -- really assisting them in living, in other words. This idea isn't explored mu...
Boogeyman
Almost no imagination was used in the making of "Boogeyman," a thriller that is so generic it can only be dispensed if your doctor checked the "generic OK" box on the prescription. It borrows from other lame thrillers like "They" and "Darkness Falls,...
Sons of Provo
"Sons of Provo" is a mockumentary about a Mormon boy band. I laugh just thinking about it, but while the movie shows promise, it isn't as funny as a movie about a Mormon boy band ought to be.
Will Swenson, a fixture in LDS cinema ("The Singles War...
Fear X
Two-thirds of "Fear X" are a quiet, atmospheric psychological drama whose dread-inducing style holds a viewer's interest even though the events unfold slowly. The cards are being laid out so masterfully that you're sure the film has a good hand. Alas...
Hide and Seek
"Hide and Seek" is the kind of by-the-numbers thriller where a man says, "I was always afraid of the woods" just so someone can reassure him, "Nothing to be afraid of in THESE woods," and it's all some screenwriter's brilliant idea of foreshadowing. ...
Alone in the Dark
You know "Alone in the Dark" is going to be bad just by looking at the cast list. Tara Reid as a museum curator/archeologist? Who do they think they're kidding? The only role she's equipped to play is that of a drunken whore, which she does regularly...
Travellers & Magicians (Dzongkha)
The Internet Movie Database reports that "Travellers & Magicians" is the first feature film ever made in Dzongkha, a language spoken by some 160,000 people in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. It is also one of very few movies to be shot in the pri...
Frozen Angels (documentary)
It is now possible to patent human genes. If someone discovers and isolates the gene that causes, say, colorblindness, he can patent it so that only he (or his authorized agents) can do the procedures necessary to prevent someone's unborn child from ...
5th World
I don't know about you, but I forget about the Indians sometimes. We relegated them to reservations decades ago, effectively shutting them off from the rest of America both geographically and culturally, and the writers and artists who emerge from th...
The Shape of the Moon (documentary; Indonesian/Javanese)
The timing of "The Shape of the Moon" is coincidental and probably fortuitous, as far as the film is concerned. It is a documentary about a Christian family living in the world's largest Muslim nation -- the nation of Indonesia, which since Dec. 26, ...
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Not having spent any time in Butte, Mont., I cannot say whether life there is as dull as "Who Killed Cock Robin?," a movie that is set there. I do know, however, that if Butte really is boring and meandering, then at least it did not become that way ...
Love, Ludlow
If Sundance gave a prize to Most Original Film at each year's festival, "Love, Ludlow" would come in dead last. It would be behind the comedy about the 23-year-old slacker who doesn't know what to do with his life and the drama about the girl who exp...
Are We There Yet?
Are we there yet? Well, that depends. Is "there" the state of being annoyed, chafed and bored? Then yes! We are there, and our chauffeur has been Ice Cube.
"Are We There Yet?" is the sort of simple-minded, fill-in-the-blanks comedy where if a man...
When Zachary Beaver Came to Town
The title of "When Zachary Beaver Came to Town" is deceptive. It implies that something HAPPENED when Mr. Beaver arrived -- and not just that something happened, but that Monsieur Beaver or his arrival was the cause of it. But in fact, the presence o...
Head-On (German)
Cahit (Birol Unel) is a violent and drunken man, a bum whose weathered face looks every day of its 40-plus years. He works at a nightclub, picking up empty glasses and bottles, drinking to excess in his spare time. One night in a rage of depression a...
Assault on Precinct 13
"Assault on Precinct 13" is a thick, serious movie with foul-mouthed police officers, an old Irish cop who's about to retire, bad guys with unlimited resources, and a cop who's been haunted ever since he saw two of his team members die during a missi...
The Chorus (French)
Near the end of "The Chorus" ("Les Choristes"), the protagonist, a would-be composer who teaches at a school for troubled boys, declares in hindsight that he "felt a surge of joy and optimism" over his story's finale. I can relate to him. As a viewer...
Coach Carter
For as trend-setting as MTV is supposed to be, its filmmaking division sure exhibits a remarkable devotion to cliches. "Coach Carter," an urban hip-hop sports drama, is a mealy conglomeration of high-school-sports movies, teacher-who-motivates-studen...
Elektra
The title character in "Elektra" is a superhero, but only in the vaguest sense of that word. She's a hired assassin, for one thing, which makes her a bit less noble than, say, Superman, or even Batman, who may have killed a few people but who at leas...
Racing Stripes
When I wasn't paying attention to what was actually going on in "Racing Stripes" -- and if you saw it, you wouldn't blame me -- I spent time marveling at how far the technology of making animals appear to talk has come since "Babe."
The animals in...
She Gets What She Wants
(NOTE: "She Gets What She Wants" was originally titled "Slap Her, She's French" and was scheduled for a summer 2002 theatrical release. It was screened for critics about a month early, then pushed back to another date, and then another, and more and ...
White Noise
There is a pseudo-science called Electronic Voice Phenomenon, or EVP, that is the basis for the forgettable but mildly diverting film "White Noise." EVP suggests that when a TV or radio is tuned to nothing but static, that is the perfect medium for d...
Beyond the Sea
Kevin Spacey is one of the most interesting actors alive. He can be oily and disgusting, or he can be smooth and suave, and the two are only inches apart. His performance in "Seven" isn't all that different from the one in "Beyond the Sea," really; i...
In Good Company
A comedy doesn't need to have any underlying purpose to be a great film, but some of the most memorable ones do. "In Good Company" brilliantly walks the line between comedy and poignancy, being utterly funny without being shticky, and being touching ...
The Merchant of Venice
No one is eager to perform "The Merchant of Venice" anymore for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic. The play itself, set in the time period in which it was written, probably accurately reflects the way Jews were treated, and of course modern audience...
The Assassination of Richard Nixon
On Feb. 22, 1974, a disillusioned loner named Samuel Bicke boarded a plane at Baltimore Washington International Airport with a gun, intending to hijack the aircraft and kill President Nixon by crashing it into the White House. The plot, which never ...
Darkness
You have to hand it to Dimension Films. When they abandon a movie, they abandon it with gusto. Here is "Darkness," a film shot in 2001 and originally scheduled for a summer 2002 release. Dimension pushed it back on the schedule numerous times before ...
Fat Albert
The "Fat Albert" movie has carved out quite a dilemma for itself. The only people who might find it funny are under the age of 10 -- but anyone that young won't be familiar with the TV cartoon it's based on and therefore won't get all the jokes. So r...
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
A Wes Anderson film is always a thing of inspired, calculated madness, so much like his other films that you'd think he made them all in the same month. His previous movies, "Bottle Rocket," "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums," established his temp...
The Woodsman
Kevin Bacon's entire career has been leading up to "The Woodsman," where he finally gets to play a child molester.
His last two major roles were in "Mystic River" and "Trapped," both films about people who harm children. Between them, he appeared ...
Meet the Fockers
In the grand tradition of movie sequels, "Meet the Fockers" is a little coarser, a little more desperate and a lot less funny than its predecessor. But then it also has Dustin Hoffman, who single-handedly saves the day with a performance as single-mi...
The Phantom of the Opera
Those of us who love musicals will not be thrilled with the new big-screen version of "The Phantom of the Opera" -- not because it's a terrible film (though it is), but because of the bad name it gives movie musicals. "Chicago" revived the genre and ...
Hotel Rwanda
Joaquin Phoenix isn't in "Hotel Rwanda" very much, but he's on screen long enough for his character, a news reporter named Jack, to summarize exactly how the world will react when they see the unfolding massacre on CNN: "They'll say, 'Oh my God, that...
In the Realms of the Unreal (documentary)
"In the Realms of the Unreal" is the name of the 15,000-page children's fantasy novel written by Chicago janitor Henry Darger, who left it among his things when he died in 1973 at the age of 81. The title is borrowed for Jessica Yu's uncommonly inter...
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
It must get tiresome being unlucky all the time. You get into a scrape, you use your ingenuity to get out of it, and then plop, you're back in the jam again. Daniel Handler's pseudonymously written books "A Series of Unfortunate Events" have a bit of...
Spanglish
James L. Brooks is a well-respected man, having written and directed "Terms of Endearment," "Broadcast News," "I'll Do Anything" and "As Good As It Gets," not to mention being one of the creators of such beloved TV shows as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show...
The Aviator
It is a dangerous time for "The Aviator" to be released. Many biopics are already in theaters, and "The Aviator," telling the story of full-time billionaire and part-time madman Howard Hughes, is apt to seem exactly like them.
To be honest, it IS ...
Flight of the Phoenix
"Flight of the Phoenix" is a perfectly good B-grade adventure film about a group of people whose plane crashes in the Gobi Desert and they have to build a new plane out of the wreckage in order to fly to safety. Hmm. It sounds crazy when I say it, bu...
Kinsey
Sexuality is such a prevalent theme in today's culture that it's hard to see why Alfred Kinsey's research on it caused such a big stir in the 1940s. The film "Kinsey" paints a portrait of a complex, socially awkward man whose personal feelings played...
The Sea Inside (Spanish)
The subjects of euthanasia and the "right to die" have taken a back seat to sexier controversies in recent years, but it wasn't very long ago that Dr. Kevorkian was on the news every night and Ramon Sampedro was petitioning the Spanish government for...
Million Dollar Baby
I see maybe two or three films in a year that affect me like "Million Dollar Baby" did. They are the films that I enjoy as I watch them, but that I become positively rapturous about later, as it all sinks in and I process everything. The more I recal...
Ocean’s Twelve
I have a friend who hated "Ocean's Eleven" because he thought it was pretentious, nothing more than a bunch of big-shot Hollywood celebrities saying, "Look at us having fun! Don't you wish you could be like us?" I find his bitterness puzzling -- "Oce...
Blade Trinity
I'm reasonably fond of the sort of movies that the "Blade" films are, and yet when I saw "Blade II" I had no memory of "Blade I," and when I sat down to watch "Blade III" (titled, for no reason, "Blade Trinity"), I realized I had no memory of "Blade ...
Born into Brothels (documentary)
We begin with an understatement: "The men who enter our building are not so good." These are the words of a prostitute's daughter who lives with her mother in a Calcutta whorehouse, spoken at the beginning of "Born into Brothels." There are other chi...
Closer
You would have to search far and wide through the annals of film history to find a more complex, miscreant group of characters than those in "Closer," an uncommonly engrossing and romantically cynical drama about two men and two women who couple, unc...
I Am David
It is nearly impossible to fail to engage your audience's emotions when you're making a film about children fleeing evil grownups. "Life is Beautiful," "Rabbit-Proof Fence," "Ransom" -- heck, even "Home Alone" wins us over because we naturally root f...
House of Flying Daggers (Chinese)
When last we saw the great Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, he was undergoing a bit of a mid-career renaissance, writing and directing the awe-inspiring martial arts film "Hero" after previously focusing on poignant dramas. He continues on that path wi...
A Very Long Engagement (French)
What possesses a man to make a movie that could be described as "Amelie" meets "Cold Mountain," a film both whimsical and devastating in its depiction of war? And more to the point, how does a man so possessed manage to make it work?
French direc...
Straight-Jacket
"Straight-Jacket" is not to be confused with "The Jacket," which is about a man who can see the future when he wears a certain straitjacket. "Straight-Jacket," on the other hand, is a pun title, about a hunky Hollywood actor in the 1950s who must hid...
Alexander
I'll say this for Oliver Stone: When he makes a mess, he makes a HUGE MESS. He doesn't just create trainwrecks. He knocks the train off the rails, sets it on fire, then kills every person onboard. (And takes three hours to do it.)
"Alexander" is a...
Christmas with the Kranks
"Christmas with the Kranks" is about a family who decides to forgo all yuletide festivities one year. Well, you'd skip Christmas, too, if all you had to watch were "Surviving Christmas," "The Polar Express" and "Christmas with the Kranks." Movies lik...
Finding Neverland
I know just enough about the life of "Peter Pan" author J.M. Barrie to know that "Finding Neverland" has taken some liberties with the facts. But I know enough about movies to know that I don't care. The film's loveliness has nothing to do with wheth...
The Work and the Glory
The thousands of people who have bought Gerald N. Lund's historical fiction novel "The Work and the Glory" will probably be adequately entertained by the lavish new film version. I haven't read the book, so I can't say whether it is as overwhelmingly...
Notre Musique (French)
Jean-Luc Godard's influence on modern cinema is beyond dispute. Even if you haven't seen his films that were part of the French New Wave movement of the 1960s, you've seen homages to them, both intentional and subconscious, in the works of Quentin Ta...
National Treasure
Despite its obvious desire to be a Generic Summer Blockbuster, "National Treasure" has only one huge explosion, a single brief car chase, and just a smattering of gunfire. This restraint goes a long way, actually; the film isn't as loud or annoying a...
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
I'm one of the unenlightened souls who have never gotten around to watching the "SpongeBob SquarePants" TV cartoons that so many kids and adults are fond of these days, but now that I've seen the movie, I may have to start watching it, at least in sm...
Bad Education (Spanish)
The acclaimed Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar channels another legend, Alfred Hitchcock, in "Bad Education," a ribald story of desire, lust and obsession. Hitch knew these topics well, of course, though the social mores of his day didn't allow ...
Seed of Chucky
The opening credits play over a computer-animated sequence in which many sperm cells swim through dark tunnels in search of an egg. Immediately after this, an ugly living doll kills a family, whereupon he wets his pants. No, it's not the new Merchant...
After the Sunset
In a perfect world, there would be a place to send actors who have outlived their usefulness, some sort of home or ranch where they could live out their days peacefully without trying to wedge themselves into movies where they don't belong. Pierce Br...
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
For fans of "Bridget Jones's Diary," the sequel, "The Edge of Reason" (whatever THAT means), will feel like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a good picture. It falls into the traps that imperil almost all movie sequels: re-staging the sam...
The Polar Express
Here's what clout can get you: If anyone other than Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks were involved in making a film version of "The Polar Express," no one would suspect for a minute that it would be any good. The children's book it's based on is somethi...
Alfie
The title character in "Alfie," played with rakish charm by Jude Law, brags about his sex life so constantly and so single-mindedly that you begin to suspect he has never actually had sex. He's an improbably shallow and arrogant creature, made all th...
The Incredibles
With each successive film, Pixar has become more advanced. Look at the original "Toy Story" -- state-of-the-art and awe-inspiring in 1995 -- and compare it to the latest film, the adventure comedy "The Incredibles." "Toy Story" looks downright quaint...
Callas Forever
I may have missed the point when I jotted in my notes during "Callas Forever" that the film, a "what if?" scenario concerning the last days of legendary opera singer Maria Callas, had more opera scenes than it needed. "Callas Forever" is, I now reali...
Paper Clips (documentary)
It was a middle school in tiny Whitwell, Tenn., that set out to collect 6 million paper clips to commemorate the 6 million Jews killed during the Nazi holocaust. The irony of such an act coming from the rural South is not lost on Whitwellians in "Pap...
It’s All About Love
Is "It's All About Love" really all about love? That's funny, because what I thought it was all about was a scatter-brained writer/director being excessively odd while cameras are rolling.
That would be Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, who co-wr...
Saw
There are few modern directors more worthy of emulation than David Fincher, an iconoclast who can make an utterly black outlook seem like the most enjoyable two hours you've ever spent. So it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to James Wan, ...
Ray
For me, the measure of a biopic's greatness is whether it makes a person I wasn't particularly interested in before seem interesting. I was apathetic toward Muhammad Ali, and "Ali" didn't change that. I never gave a thought to Andy Kaufman, but "Man ...
Birth
"Birth" is not a comedy, but it's impossible to take it seriously, either. It is about a woman who comes to believe that a 10-year-old boy is the reincarnation of her dead husband, which means there are scenes in which the grown woman and the little ...
Enduring Love
There is a fatal accident involving a hot-air balloon at the beginning of "Enduring Love," with several bystanders attempting unsuccessfully to prevent it. Witnessing a gruesome event like that will change a person, usually for the worse in the short...
The Grudge
They're remaking foreign films into English-language ones so fast now that they've lapped themselves: "The Grudge" opens in theaters while "Ju-On: The Grudge," which it is based on, is still playing. I saw them within a week of each other (I saw the ...
Undertow
David Gordon Green's "Undertow" opens the same way his beautiful "All the Real Girls" did, with two teens in love gazing at each other and sharing whispered conversation. But in short order the film turns away from Green's usual style of atmosphere a...
I Heart Huckabees
"I Heart Huckabees" is the sort of self-consciously surreal comedy that Charlie Kaufman would write, a la "Being John Malkovich" or "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." In fact, I believe it would have benefited from Kaufman's involvement, for wr...
Surviving Christmas
The most offensive thing about "Surviving Christmas," of course, is that it was released two months before Christmas -- heck, nine days before HALLOWEEN, even. But watching it, I suspect it wouldn't produce an ounce of holiday cheer even if it were r...
Vera Drake
The title character in "Vera Drake" is a plump, middle-aged wife and mother who works cheerfully as a housekeeper for rich people and performs a dizzying succession of good deeds in her spare time. She visits shut-ins, invites lonely bachelors over f...
The Machinist
(Note: This review was done without the cooperation of -- indeed, against the wishes of -- Paramount Classics, which at this time denied online film critics access to press screenings of its movies. Apparently they weren't sure this whole "Internet" ...
Sideways
Now that Alexander Payne has made four films ("Citizen Ruth," "Election," "About Schmidt" and the new "Sideways") that have all been excellent, we can officially declare him one of the best directors currently working. A 1.000 batting average is noth...
Lightning in a Bottle (documentary)
Like all concert films, "Lightning in a Bottle" is only as good as the viewer's perception of the subject matter. If you don't care for blues music, the film will almost certainly hold no appeal for you. If you dig the blues, or are passionate about ...
Being Julia
It is startling to realize "Being Julia" is only Annette Bening's 17th film, and that she's only been on the scene since 1990. She has the grace and magnetism of a legend, a genuine sophistication and star quality that make her watchable in nearly an...
P.S.
"P.S." is the movie the Lifetime Network would make if they could get away with F-words on basic cable. It is about a woman who has to Find Herself, and who has a hot romance with a younger man while she's looking. What more do you want? Am I right, ...
Anatomy of Hell
Catherine Breillat begins her miserable new film "Anatomy of Hell" with a title card reminding us of the illusory nature of movies. "For the actress' most intimate scenes, a body double was used," we are told, as if this will somehow comfort us.
T...
Eulogy
"Eulogy" is little more than a string of jokes stuffed into a contrived storyline, but a lot of the jokes are funny, so maybe it all balances out. I've certainly had worse times at the movies, though I've had far, far better, too.
It's a dark-ish ...
Shall We Dance
The point that "Shall We Dance" thinks it's making is that dance has the power to change people's hearts and minds. But that point is underdeveloped and mishandled. So the point it winds up making instead is that Jennifer Lopez is SO PRETTY that a ha...
Team America: World Police
About 75 percent of the laughs in "Team America: World Police" would have remained intact even if the film were shot with live actors, because it's a funny script. The other 25 percent are there because the film was shot with marionettes, and anythin...
Primer
"Primer" deals with time travel, but not in a particularly science-fiction-y way. The science portion is explained, but not in simple enough terms for dumb guys like me to understand. I guess if they explained it TOO clearly, it would either demonstr...
Raise Your Voice
No one expects quality from these silly wish-fulfillment movies that tweenage girls like, but "Raise Your Voice" is more inept than most. It perpetrates every cliché of the "follow your dreams" genre, which is bad enough, and then compounds the agon...
Taxi
So Jimmy Fallon leaves "Saturday Night Live" and immediately starts making bad movies. And the circle of life continues.
"Taxi" is the sort of bad movie that any hack director with a big budget, willing actors, and a shortage of good ideas can mak...
Friday Night Lights
The people of Odessa, Texas, take high school football seriously, and "Friday Night Lights" treats it with just as much reverence. I saw the film in a theater full of high school football teams, and rather than being the rowdy, major league tools tha...
