Movie Reviews


MOVIE REVIEW- Fight for Peace: Battle for Terra-ble Published on Apr 30th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Their parents may have been conceived in a hippie commune, but today's kids don't want to watch movies about people sitting in a circle singing "Kumbaya." Hence the hypocrisy of...
MOVIE REVIEW- Heavenly <i>Earth</i>: Are polar bears the new penguins? Published on Apr 23rd, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Some of the beautiful nature photography in Earth is enough to make Bill Maher believe in God. Some of the savagery shown in Earth (or implied, to keep it G-rated) is enough to...
MOVIE REVIEW- Albe-quirky: Second <i>Sunshine's </i>sweet Published on Apr 16th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Independent films are known for their quirks, some endearing and some annoying. Sunshine Cleaning has a surfeit of the former but enough of the latter to keep my enthusiasm in check...
MOVIE REVIEW- Rebel redux: This <i>Che</i> convoluted, confusing Published on Apr 9th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO There's a history lesson in Che Part One, but it's the kind that puts kids off history lessons. Peter Buchman's screenplay bombards you with details without establishing any...
MOVIE REVIEW- Losing it: <i>Adventureland</i> is virgin territory Published on Apr 2nd, 2009 1 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO There's a lot of talk in Adventureland about how guys are "wired" to crave meaningless sex. There's no mention of men's need to share their sexual experiences, especially their first...
MOVIE REVIEW- Cast vs. script: <i>Monster</i>'s voices soar; story sinks Published on Mar 26th, 2009 0 comments A great voice cast battles an undernourished script to a draw in Monsters vs. Aliens, which doesn't involve drawing because it's all computer-animated. In the annual Oscar smackdown, an occasional...
MOVIE REVIEW- Bro-mance: <i>Love You</i> full of laughs Published on Mar 19th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO I Love You, Man is a "pleasure-giver," though not the way the term is defined in the movie. This bro-mantic comedy has fun upsetting preconceived definitions of gender roles and...
MOVIE REVIEW- Re-tried scenes: <i>Last House</i> will thrill... sickos Published on Mar 12th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO In an age of somewhat more original movies Wes Craven was able to remake The Virgin Spring as The Last House on the Left without spawning a rash of horror remakes of Ingmar Bergman...
MOVIE REVIEW- Unfilmable? <i>Watchmen </i>thrills fans, confuses the rest Published on Mar 5th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO There are two kinds of people in the world: "Watchdawgs," or whatever the out-and-proud geeks who are familiar with the Watchmen comic books/graphic novel call themselves; and "...
MOVIE REVIEW- Big box: Not-so-funny Madea packs 'em in. Published on Feb 26th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO "Do you have to be in control of everything all the time?" Dr. Phil (playing himself) asks Madea (Tyler Perry) during anger management counseling in Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail...
MOVIE REVIEW- Reel life: Docu-drama shows truth behind family pictures Published on Feb 19th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Once upon a time, if a person learned some shocking news about their family's dysfunctionality they either repressed it or shared it with their best friend. Another generation told...
MOVIE REVIEW- Art imitates: International intrigue conjures current crisis Published on Feb 12th, 2009 0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The International may be the first movie of the post-post-ironic age. The screenplay by Eric Warren Singer acknowledges the unstoppability of the economic forces that control our...
MOVIE REVIEW- Oscar survey: Academy gets it right, competition still fierce Published on Feb 5th, 2009 0 comments The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has gotten a lot of things right in their nominations for the 81st annual Academy Awards. Of course being "right" means they agree with me. All five...
MOVIE REVIEW- A Marriage: From perfect match to cage match Published on Jan 29th, 2009 0 comments If enough young people see Revolutionary Road, the marriage rate should drop significantly. It could even inspire Constitutional amendments to defend the sanctity of marriage by forbidding...
MOVIE REVIEW- Rourke's comeback: <i>Wrestler </i>is fallen actor's best Published on Jan 22nd, 2009 0 comments Everybody loves a comeback, and The Wrestler gives you two for the price of one. Three, if you throw in director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream), who needed one after The Fountain. First...
MOVIE REVIEW- More holocaust: <i>Defiance </i>can't match <i>Reader</i> Published on Jan 15th, 2009 0 comments It wouldn't be Award Season without a Holocaust-related movie or two– or, this year, four or five. Defiance, which is better than Valkyrie but not as good as The Reader, has the most direct...
MOVIE REVIEW- <i>Gran</i>'s grand: Eastwood is older and better Published on Jan 8th, 2009 0 comments This may turn into a love letter to Clint Eastwood, for which I apologize in advance. The guy is the personification of, "I'm not getting older, I'm getting better." At 78, he's still doing some of...
MOVIE REVIEW- Season's jeer: Nothing cheerful about <i>Holidays</i> Published on Dec 18th, 2008 0 comments The 12 Plots of Christmas, courtesy of Nothing Like the Holidays: 1. The family converges on the Chicago home of Edy (Alfred Molina) and Anna Rodriguez (Elizabeth Peña) for Christmas. 2. Son...
MOVIE REVIEW- Get <i>Milk</i> : Penn gives award-worthy performance Published on Dec 11th, 2008 0 comments Having lived in San Francisco for 15 years, starting two months after the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, I felt too close to the events and people depicted in Milk to be...
MOVIE REVIEW- <i>Oz-stralia</i> : Down under flick's a downer Published on Dec 4th, 2008 0 comments If you're keeping track of the supposed award contenders being released at the end of the year, you can cross Australia off the list. Baz Luhrmann's pseudo-retro mystical historical Western romance...
MOVIE REVIEW- Forgettable: <i>Four Christmases</i> no holiday classic Published on Nov 27th, 2008 0 comments "You can't spell ‘families' without ‘lies.'" That's the best line in Four Christmases, a movie that looks like it was written by a focus group and sounds like it was scored by an iPod...
MOVIE REVIEW-<i>Bolt</i> is no dog: Disney effort delivers Published on Nov 20th, 2008 0 comments Once, when John Travolta's career was in the toilet, he starred in the third of the Look Who's Talking movies, in which Diane Keaton and Danny DeVito provided the voices for talking dogs, before he...
MOVIE REVIEW- Heaven or hell: <i>Rachel </i>is sometimes better, sometimes worse Published on Nov 13th, 2008 0 comments With apologies to newlyweds, Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married is much like marriage itself: Sometimes it's heaven, and sometimes it's hell. This is the kind of movie that gets rave reviews...
MOVIE REVIEW- Huggable: <i>Role Models</i> will make you laugh Published on Nov 6th, 2008 2 comments If I ever wanted to hate a movie, it's Role Models. It's got a tired, formulaic, derivative plot about two guys who learn to be better men by mentoring boys, and it's got wall-to-wall homophobic...
MOVIE REVIEW- ‘Frozen River': Giving indie films a good name Published on Oct 30th, 2008 0 comments During the Great Depression, people went to the movies for Busby Berkeley musicals and other escapist fare. There's still escapism out there during our current maybe-recession, but there's also...
MOVIE REVIEW- Countdown: Sad history of sad little man Published on Oct 23rd, 2008 1 comments There was no way W. could completely satisfy anyone. The President's detractors want a total hatchet job, whether serious or satirical, while his few remaining supporters want a hagiography that...
MOVIE REVIEW- Box ticket: No classic, but <i>Ember</i> entertains Published on Oct 16th, 2008 0 comments The old story about rebels escaping from an oppressive underground civilization gets a visually interesting, family-friendly retelling in City of Ember. Based on the novel by Jeanne Duprau, the...
MOVIE REVIEW- East is east: But western same-old dominates Published on Oct 9th, 2008 0 comments Ridley Scott makes movies in which things go bang and boom. They're usually more intelligent than movies by Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer in which things also go bang and boom, but if Scott has...
MOVIE REVIEW- Gervais' awakening: 'Ghost' has more chance than that Published on Sep 25th, 2008 0 comments Western Albemarle member of the class of '79 and movie star Billy Campbell plants one on bride-to-be Gwen (Téa Leoni), unaware that the ghost of Naked Guy (Jeff Hiller) is watching in Ghost...
MOVIE REVIEW- Ready for Lifetime: Elegy lacks elegance Published on Sep 4th, 2008 0 comments Like a rollercoaster, Elegy moves along slowly, slowly– then plunges downhill at dizzying speed, finally making a turn so sharp it will eject anyone who's not strapped in. Adapted by Nicholas...