Movie Reviews
Prose flows: Gatsby's over the top, but book shines through
Published on May 16th, 2013
0 comments By RICHARD ROEPER Given the wretched and sometimes wonderful excesses of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge, not to mention a trailer that gave the impression Luhrmann's interpretation...
Elusive wonder: Director's bold vision gets last Ebert thumbs up
Published on May 9th, 2013
0 comments This was the last movie review Roger Ebert filed. Released less than two years after his The Tree of Life, an epic that began with the dinosaurs and peered into an uncertain future, Terrence Malick's...
Still got it? Redford stars, not quite like old times
Published on May 2nd, 2013
1 comments By Richard Roeper For nearly 50 years, Robert Redford has been on quest to prove he is more than a golden boy matinee idol. Of course, Redford has succeeded in spectacular fashion, starring in such...
The Other Fanning: Elle acts beyond her years
Published on Apr 25th, 2013
0 comments by Richard Roeper Born in 1945 in the shadow of Hiroshima, Ginger and Rosa grow up in a London of weary shortages of food, living space and cheer. Who could have guessed Swinging London and the...
Going beyond: Gosling excels as daredevil
Published on Apr 18th, 2013
0 comments by Richard Roeper We begin the movie by following a tattoo-spangled man as he makes his way through a carnival crowd, arriving in a tent containing a few hundred cheering fans and a globe-shaped...
Hosting aliens: Meyer flick invades
Published on Apr 11th, 2013
0 comments Stephenie Meyer, whose books inspired the Twilight movies, now presents a new way for true love to struggle against itself. In the Twilight world, characters were invited to become vampires to share...
Beautiful 'Road': Kerouac adaptation has charms but does it have soul?
Published on Apr 4th, 2013
0 comments Although Jack Kerouac's On the Road has been praised as a milestone in American literature, this film version brings into question how much of a story it really offers. Kerouac's hero, Sal...
Rejection: Tina Fey's Admission fizzles
Published on Mar 28th, 2013
1 comments by Richard Roeper Has Tiny Fey ever played a character we weren't rooting for? In smart features such as Mean Girls, Baby Mama and Date Night, on the just-completed NBC series 30 Rock, on Saturday...
Incredible Carell: If Michael Scott were a magician
Published on Mar 21st, 2013
0 comments by Richard RoeperWelcome back, Hilarious Jim Carrey. We've missed you.In The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, a predictable but often terrific absurdist comedy, Carrey plays Steve Gray, a long-haired,...
Witch backstory: New 'Oz' offers twist on an old classic
Published on Mar 14th, 2013
0 comments By Richard Roeper You can be a good witch or a bad witch or even a little of both, but a bland witch? Then we'll have to talk. Some of the surprises in Oz the Great and Powerful, the much-...
Between a Rock and a Snitch: Dad saves the day
Published on Mar 4th, 2013
1 comments by Richard Roeper Who would have guessed Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would deliver the best work of his career playing a guy who squares off against a pack of small-time street thugs — and winds up...
Understated Ultima: Iconic book gets worthy film treatment
Published on Feb 28th, 2013
0 comments Although it was published only in 1972, Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima has achieved the iconic stature as such novels as The Grapes of Wrath and To Kill a Mockingbird. Now comes a...
'Identity' crisis: Bateman, McCarthy can't save this comedy
Published on Feb 20th, 2013
1 comments By Richard Roeper It's really tough to have it both ways.     Let's say you want to do a broad, shtick-filled comedy filled with "Three Stooges humor, e.g., a character is hit head-on...
Deadly medicine: Side Effects exposes darker side of prescription drugs
Published on Feb 13th, 2013
0 comments The music tells us what kind of movie Side Effects is going to be. It coils beneath what seems like a realistic plot and whispers that something haunted and possessed is going on. Imagine music for...
The worst: Big names can't save 'Movie 43'
Published on Jan 31st, 2013
0 comments By Richard Roeper Since 1999 I've been carrying a blue pill in my pocket, holding onto it for the moment when I'd truly need it. The pill, I was told, would instantly erase the memory of any movie...
Wild girls: Chastain goes motherly
Published on Jan 24th, 2013
0 comments by Richard Roeper Very few horror movies would last past the second act if the characters in these films were actually fans of horror movies. Sometime after the first occurrence of Scary Old-Timey...
Beauty in age: 'Amour' charms its audience
Published on Jan 18th, 2013
0 comments "Old age ain't no place for sissies," Bette Davis is said to have said, and the longer age lasts, the less of a sissy you can be. The opening shot of Amour, Michael Haneke's new film, shows...
'Impossible' impact: Tsunami film an Oscar contender
Published on Jan 2nd, 2013
0 comments The tsunami that devastated the Pacific Basin in the winter of 2004 remains one of the worst natural disasters in history, and although I assumed its climax as shown in Clint Eastwood's film ...
Ebert's picks: Tigers, beasts, heroes, and therapists compete early for Hollywood's biggest prizes
Published on Dec 18th, 2012
0 comments With the 2013 Oscarcast moved up to February 24, movie fans are already in a lather over the possible nominees, especially since again this year there can be "up to" 10 finalists in the best picture...
Unlikely duo: Story of two women nominated for 7 indie awards
Published on Dec 17th, 2012
0 comments In another time and another place, Starlet could have inspired a short story by Chekhov or O. Henry — a story about two women, one 22, the other 85, who are linked by one of those accidental plot...
Campus crushing: Radnor's film is delightful escapism
Published on Dec 10th, 2012
0 comments Josh Radnor's Liberal Arts is an almost unreasonable pleasure about a jaded New Yorker who returns to his alma mater in Ohio and finds that his heart would like to stay there. It's the kind of film...
Too much Karenina: New adaptation upstages the tale
Published on Dec 4th, 2012
2 comments Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary are two of the most notorious fallen women in literature. Karenina is prepared to lose all the advantages of high society in favor of the man she loves. Bovary...
Life of Pi: Ang Lee films the unfilmable; poetic idealism triumphs
Published on Nov 27th, 2012
1 comments Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" is a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery. Inspired by a worldwide best-seller that many readers must have assumed was unfilmable, it is a...
Spielberg's Lincoln does not disappoint
Published on Nov 20th, 2012
3 comments I've rarely been more aware than during Steven Spielberg's Lincoln that Abraham Lincoln was a plain-spoken, practical, down-to-earth man from the farmlands of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. He had...
Farewell, stereotypes: Queen movie reveals same-sex desires and class issues
Published on Nov 13th, 2012
0 comments "Farewell, My Queen" begins early in the day of July 14, 1789, at the royal palace of Versailles. It was not yet a date fraught with destiny. In the rat-swarming servants' quarters, a young woman...
Free Ralph: Fresh premise for new Disney flick
Published on Nov 7th, 2012
0 comments "Wreck-It Ralph," the latest Disney animated feature for families, begins with a creative brainstorm: The movie occurs mostly inside the worlds of several arcade-style video games, providing an...
In the clouds: Cloud Atlas confounds and delights
Published on Nov 1st, 2012
0 comments Even as I was watching Cloud Atlas the first time, I knew I would need to see it again. Now that I've seen it the second time, I know I'd like to see it a third time — but I no longer believe...
Nursing robot: Futuristic companion not quite the real thing
Published on Oct 17th, 2012
0 comments Robot & Frank tells the story of relationship between a retired burglar and a household appliance more relentless than an alarm clock. Frank is a man who lives alone in a bucolic house in...
No wallflowers: Young cast shines in YA adaptation
Published on Oct 17th, 2012
0 comments All of my previous selves still survive somewhere inside of me, and my previous adolescent would have loved The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The movie has received glowing reviews, and some snarky...
Ghostly pup: School science project goes monstrously awry
Published on Oct 10th, 2012
0 comments In 1984, Tim Burton launched his career with a live-action short named Frankenweenie, and now he returns to that material for the new Frankenweenie, a stop-motion, black-and-white animated comedy...