Movie Reviews
MOVIE REVIEW- Assinine Aniston:<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp; </span>Giving divorce a bad name
Published on Jun 1st, 2006
0 comments There's no winner in the battle of the sexes, according to The Break-Up, a romantic comedy, or anti-romantic comedy, starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn in what could be a foreshadowing of...
MOVIE REVIEW- Opie v. Opus Dei: Howard's code for 'let down'
Published on May 25th, 2006
0 comments 'No one is more worshipful of the gods of cinema than I, yet I manage to keep them separate from the God I worship in a spiritual sense. When I can't distinguish fact from fiction in the movies, I...
MOVIE REVIEW- RJ's eleven: Furry friends take on suburbia
Published on May 18th, 2006
0 comments In The Wild a lot of familiar ingredients appeared to have lost their flavor, but master chefs have mixed them to the best effect yet in Over the Hedge, an early frontrunner for the year's best...
MOVIE REVIEW- Sketchy sketch pad: Ordinary movie disappoints
Published on May 11th, 2006
0 comments If almost anyone else had made Art School Confidential, it would be a perfectly enjoyable tale of a young artist's freshman year and the strange people he encounters; but after Crumb, Ghost World and...
MOVIE REVIEW- What a hoot: An environmental movie for tweens
Published on May 4th, 2006
0 comments It's easy to take Hoot at face value, as a family-friendly tale of teen environmentalists fighting greedy land developers to save endangered owls. It's just as easy, in this post-Brokeback era, to...
MOVIE REVIEW- Rich 'Friends': Aniston hangs with new gang
Published on Apr 20th, 2006
0 comments Uh-oh, I just enjoyed a chick flick! Does that mean I'm gay? The question is relevant, since a possibly misunderstood metrosexual is a major character in Friends with Money. Nicole Holofcener proved...
MOVIE REVIEW- Don't bother: Skip 'Wild,' look at the DVDs
Published on Apr 13th, 2006
0 comments Creative bankruptcy" is a relative term. The Scary Movie series assembles plots, scenes, lines, and characters from other movies in new contexts and calls it satire. The Wild does the same thing and...
MOVIE REVIEW- Cancer shticks: 'Thanks' not as smug as it might be
Published on Apr 6th, 2006
0 comments It's not that Thank You for Smoking isn't resoundingly entertaining, it just happens to have tremendous educational value. You'll learn as much about debate and manipulation in an hour and a half as...
MOVIE REVIEW- Not so cool: 'Ice Age' redux leaves viewers cold
Published on Mar 30th, 2006
0 comments Now we know how the mammoths died: sequelitis killed them. Ice Age: The Meltdown (the "2" was removed from the title a few weeks ago, perhaps to make it sound less like a sequel) is two movies in one...
MOVIE REVIEW- Career spike: Lee's the real 'Inside Man'
Published on Mar 23rd, 2006
0 comments You're in line at the bank. Armed thugs lock the doors and scream at everyone to "Get down on the f**king floor!" If this were anywhere but New York it might seem unusual. Then again, it's Spike Lee'...
MOVIE REVIEW- Fawkes you: One part 'Phantom,' two parts Moore
Published on Mar 16th, 2006
0 comments Fans who flock to V for Vendetta because they hear Natalie Portman is showing a lot of skin may be disappointed when they find out it's only the skin on top of her head. The movie has enough...
Fawkes you: One part 'Phantom,' two parts Moore
Published on Mar 16th, 2006
0 comments   Fans who flock to V for Vendetta because they hear Natalie Portman is showing a lot of skin may be disappointed when they find out it's only the skin on top of her head. The movie has enough...
MOVIE REVIEW- Hedon seek: Depp's 'Libertine' a pompous bore
Published on Mar 9th, 2006
0 comments "You will not like me," John Wilmot (Johnny Depp), the 2nd Earl of Rochester, promises at the opening of The Libertine. "The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled– I do not...
Hedon seek: Depp's 'Libertine' a pompous bore
Published on Mar 9th, 2006
0 comments   "You will not like me," John Wilmot (Johnny Depp), the 2nd Earl of Rochester, promises at the opening of The Libertine. "The gentlemen will be envious and the ladies will be repelled– I...
MOVIE REVIEW-Going the distance: '16 Blocks' is a long way
Published on Mar 2nd, 2006
0 comments Have you heard the one about the old drunk who finds redemption? If you haven't heard it, you've surely seen the movie. It's a Hollywood staple that often scores Oscar nominations for actors of...
Going the distance: '16 Blocks' is a long way
Published on Mar 2nd, 2006
0 comments   Have you heard the one about the old drunk who finds redemption? If you haven't heard it, you've surely seen the movie. It's a Hollywood staple that often scores Oscar nominations for actors...
MOVIE REVIEW- Dysfunctional: Family novelty wears thin
Published on Feb 23rd, 2006
0 comments A year ago, few Caucasians had ever heard of Tyler Perry, but he was well known to African Americans. If they hadn't seen him touring in his plays, they had made him a multi-millionaire by buying the...
MOVIE REVIEW- Moore is less: Burn but no 'Crash'
Published on Feb 16th, 2006
0 comments When you have two top talents like Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore acting their asses off in a movie, why would you open it in February? You could be hoping for another "S.O.L." (Silence of the...
Moore is less: Burn but no 'Crash'
Published on Feb 16th, 2006
0 comments When you have two top talents like Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore acting their asses off in a movie, why would you open it in February? You could be hoping for another "S.O.L." (Silence of the...
MOVIE REVIEW- Simiantics: Hard to keep kids awake
Published on Feb 9th, 2006
0 comments In Madagascar, some animals left a New York zoo and sailed for Africa. In Curious George, one monkey makes the reverse trip, leaving the African jungle for Manhattan's urban one. (Technically it's a...
MOVIE REVIEW- 'Something New': Is Mr. White Mr. Right?
Published on Feb 2nd, 2006
0 comments You can't exactly say Bridget Jones's Diary meets Crash in Something New, but for a romantic comedy, it gets pretty heavily into racial issues. Sanaa Lathan stars as Kenya McQueen, a workaholic...
Sign language: War of 'The New World'
Published on Jan 26th, 2006
0 comments [NOTE: The film has been recut and shortened by 16 minutes since it was screened for critics in December. This review is of the original version.] Didn't we just see a movie about strange aliens...
MOVIE REVIEW- 'Match Point': Is Woody Allen's magic back?
Published on Jan 19th, 2006
0 comments   Woody Allen must watch a lot of Turner Classic Movies, the network that feted his 70th birthday with a documentary and quintuple filmathon. Match Point, widely hailed as the Woodman's return...
Obi-wan Latifah: Film snobs stay away
Published on Jan 12th, 2006
0 comments   I don't want to be a spoiler, but the only person who would want to see a romantic comedy in which Queen Latifah dies at the end is Mo'Nique, who would expect to pick up some good roles for a...
Not sheepish: Ledger, Gyllenhaal rise to roles
Published on Jan 5th, 2006
0 comments Brokeback Mountain is one of the year's most romantic films, and the romance happens to be between two men. Apparently Focus Features' focus groups determined that enough gay men and straight women...
2005 in review - Call it 2004, version 2.0
Published on Dec 22nd, 2005
0 comments Just when it seemed impossible for Hollywood to get any less creative, along came 2005 looking like a rerun of 2004. And they wondered why the box office was down most of the year. If this year's...
Simian sizzler: <I>King Kong</I> apes earlier versions
Published on Dec 15th, 2005
0 comments A simian the size of "King Kong" has a lot of meat on his bones, even if they would seem to have been picked clean by a succession of filmmakers. The 1933 apeflick, one of the most influential films...
Narnia 1: The passion of the lion
Published on Dec 8th, 2005
0 comments In the Queen's English, a wardrobe is a freestanding closet, what we, preferring French to English, would call an armoire. In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the...
Iceman cometh: Cusack's every guy's idol
Published on Dec 1st, 2005
0 comments John Cusack is the guy most guys want to be– or think they are. It would be interesting to see him play a terrorist or a serial killer because he would probably make them likable, as he did a...
Harry's back: But magic's getting old
Published on Nov 24th, 2005
0 comments In addition to facing the three tasks of the Triwizard Tournament, the revived Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), and a gossipy tabloid reporter (Miranda Richardson) who keeps insisting he's 12, 14-year...