Movie Reviews
MOVIE REVIEW- Armless and dangerous: <i>127 Hours </i>harrowing, compulsively watchable
Published on Nov 25th, 2010
2 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Sometimes a person will make an enormous mistake and get a lot of time to think about it. There was a man who went over Niagara Falls sealed inside a big rubber ball. It never made...
MOVIE REVIEW- Villainous fun: <i>Megamind</i> is clever family fare
Published on Nov 18th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Megamind was the third 3D movie I'd seen in a row, and as I struggled to free my glasses from their industrial-strength plastic envelope, I wasn't precisely looking forward to it....
MOVIE REVIEW- Work perk: <i>Morning Glory </i>is light comedy done right
Published on Nov 11th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Morning Glory is a funny entertainment to begin with, and then Rachel McAdams transforms it. And Harrison Ford transforms himself. She plays as lovable a lead as anyone since Amy...
MOVIE REVIEW- Damaged damsel: <i>Hornet's Nest </i>a stirring wrap to trilogy
Published on Nov 4th, 2010
1 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Lisbeth Salander makes a transfixing heroine precisely because she has nothing but scorn for such a role. Embodied here for the third time by Noomi Rapace, she's battered, angry and...
MOVIE REVIEW- Beyond belief: <i>Hereafter</i> an open-minded exploration of death
Published on Oct 28th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Clint Eastwood's Hereafter considers the idea of an afterlife with tenderness, beauty and a gentle tact. I was surprised to find it enthralling. I don't believe in woo-woo, but then...
MOVIE REVIEW- Brave and honest: <i>Secretariat</i>'s a winner
Published on Oct 14th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO When Secretariat died at 19, my friend Bill Nack told me, the autopsy revealed that his heart was 2 1/2 times the size of an average horse. Bill had followed the horse for its entire...
MOVIE REVIEW- <i>Social</i> genius: Facebook flick programmed for success
Published on Oct 7th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The Social Network is about a young man who possessed an uncanny ability to look into a system of unlimited possibilities and sense a winning move. His name is Mark Zuckerberg, he...
MOVIE REVIEW- Greed lives: <i>Wall Street</i> sequel slick, not angry
Published on Sep 30th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Oliver Stone's 1987 film Wall Street was a wake-up call about the financial train wreck the Street was headed for. Had we only listened. Or perhaps we listened too well, and Gordon...
MOVIE REVIEW- Affleck's effort<i>: The Town</i> shoots, but does it score?
Published on Sep 23rd, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO There's a scene in Ben Affleck's The Town that expertly exploits the conversations we have with movie characters. In critical moments we urgently send mental instructions to the...
MOVIE REVIEW- Phoenix's ashes: <i>I'm Still Here</i> a tragedy... or a hoax?
Published on Sep 16th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO A mind is a terrible thing to waste. The tragedy of Joaquin Phoenix's self-destruction has been made into I'm Still Here, a sad and painful documentary that serves little useful...
MOVIE REVIEW- Zen masterpiece: Clooney's <i>American</i> has samurai soul<i> </i>
Published on Sep 9th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The American allows George Clooney to play a man as starkly defined as a samurai. His fatal flaw, as it must be for any samurai, is love. Other than that, the American is perfect:...
MOVIE REVIEW- Sissy's latest: <i>Get Low </i>reunites Spacek, Duvall
Published on Sep 2nd, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO We're asked to take Felix Bush on faith, and since he's played in Get Low by Robert Duvall, we must. Duvall is authentic right down to the bone, and lends his credibility to almost...
MOVIE REVIEW- Idiot's delight: Carrell's a brilliant <i>Schmuck</i>
Published on Aug 26th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The truly goofy comes shrouded in innocence. If a man is trying to be goofy, it's just an act that quickly grows old. But if he lacks the slightest notion of his peculiarity, there's...
MOVIE REVIEW- <i>Eat, Pray</i>, navel gaze: Gilbert's travels not for everyone
Published on Aug 19th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love, unread by me, spent 150 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and is by some accounts a good one. It is also movie material,...
MOVIE REVIEW- <i>Winter's</i> wonder: Sundance winner finds hope amid despair
Published on Aug 12th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The movie heroes who affect me most are not extroverted. They don't strut, speechify and lead armies. They have no superpowers. They are ordinary people who are faced with a need and...
MOVIE REVIEW- Beauty and brains: <i>Salt</i>'s a thriller done right
Published on Jul 29th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Salt is a damn fine thriller. It does all the things I can't stand in bad movies, and does them in a good one. It's like a rebuke to all the lousy action movie directors who've been...
MOVIE REVIEW- Better than <i>'bender</i>: Cage's<i> Sorceror </i>aims for tweens
Published on Jul 15th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Having seen The Last Airbender gross untold millions despite the worst reviews in many a year, I confess myself discouraged at the prospect of reviewing The Sorcerer's Apprentice....
MOVIE REVIEW- Worst for <i>Last: </i>Nothing goes right in <i>Airbender</i>
Published on Jul 8th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone...
MOVIE REVIEW- Chaste romance: Newest <i>Twilight</i> titillates teens
Published on Jul 1st, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The price for surrendering your virginity is so high in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse that even Edward Cullen, the proposed tool of surrender, balks at it. Like him, you would become...
MOVIE REVIEW- <i>Toy</i> joy: Woody, Buzz and friends still delight
Published on Jun 24th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The first two Toy Story movies centered on the relationship between a boy and his toys. In Pixar's Toy Story 3, young Andy has grown to college age and the story leaves the toys...
MOVIE REVIEW- Just for kicks: <i>Karate Kid</i> charms the second time around
Published on Jun 17th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO If you've seen The Karate Kid (1984), the memories will come back during this 2010 remake of the original. That's a compliment. The original story was durable enough to inspire three...
MOVIE REVIEW- <i>Greek</i> revives: Brand shines in relapse comedy
Published on Jun 10th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Aldous Snow is the sort of rock star who can seriously propose himself for the role of White African Jesus. What would his duties be? He has no idea. It's just the sort of thing he...
MOVIE REVIEW- Despicably shallow? <i>Sex and the City 2</i> will horrify... or delight
Published on Jun 3rd, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Some of these people make my skin crawl. The characters of Sex and the City 2 are flyweight bubbleheads living in a world which rarely requires three sentences in a row. Their...
MOVIE REVIEW- Pre-hero: This <i>Robin Hood</i>'s a poor version of the rich classic
Published on May 27th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Little by little, title by title, innocence and joy is being drained out of the movies. What do you think of when you hear the name of Robin Hood? I think of Errol Flynn, Sean...
MOVIE REVIEW- Wonderfully predictable: <i>Letters to Juliet </i>an expected delight
Published on May 20th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO I know Letters to Juliet is soppy melodrama, and I don't mind in the least. I know the ending is preordained from the setup. I know the characters are broad and comforting...
MOVIE REVIEW- Quirky hero: Downey shines again in <i>Iron Man</i>
Published on May 13th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Iron Man 2 is a polished, high-octane sequel, not as good as the original but building once again on a quirky performance by Robert Downey Jr. The superhero genre doesn't necessarily...
MOVIE REVIEW- Nightmare snoozer: Freddy comes out of retirment, again
Published on May 6th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Forget about the plot, the actors and the director. What you require to make a new Nightmare on Elm Street are these three off-the-shelf sound effects: 1. A sudden, loud clanging...
MOVIE REVIEW- <i>Losers</i> wins: Don't miss the last of the 2Ds
Published on Apr 29th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO The Losers is a classical action movie based on a comic strip. It does just enough nodding toward the graphics of drawn superheroes, and then gets that out of the way and settles...
MOVIE REVIEW- Failed satire: Spare your kids (and yourself) from<i> Kick Ass </i>
Published on Apr 22nd, 2010
1 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Shall I have feelings, or should I pretend to be cool? Will I seem hopelessly square if I find Kick-Ass morally reprehensible, and will I appear to have missed the point?   Let'...
MOVIE REVIEW- Understated: Against all odds, <i>Date Night</i> works
Published on Apr 15th, 2010
0 comments PUBLICITY PHOTO Steve Carell and Tina Fey play a nice, unassuming couple in Date Night, and that's one of the reasons the movie works so well. Their Phil and Claire Foster are a normal, overworked,...