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Movies
It Brings out the Laughs
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
Mike Judge is one of those guys who everyone knows, but he’s still somewhat of a cult phenomenon. Perhaps best known for "Beavis and Butthead", grunge era’s greatest adolescent comedy duo, he’s also responsible for "King of the Hill" (which recently ended its thirteen-year run). While his TV record has been more consistent, his film career hasn’t quite taken off. Office Space only took off on DVD and Idiocracy was barely released. But with Extract it seems as if he may finally have a hit. More
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Movies
An Amiable Misfire
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
The strange, improbable story of Woodstock has been documented exhaustively in print and on the screen, making it somewhat curious that Ang Lee has chosen to make it the subject of his first bona fide comedy since 1994’s Eat Drink Man Woman. Yet that’s just what we get in Taking Woodstock, a lighthearted look back at three days of peace and music whose more magical qualities fail to materialize here. More
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Movies
Youth Without Youth
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Somers Town, the most lighthearted offering to date from This Is England director Shane Meadows, could easily be dismissed as slight. At little more than an hour, it is amiably aimless, following two bored teenagers -- Tomo (Thomas Turgoose), a mysterious runaway from the Midlands, and Marek (Piotr Jagiello), the son of a hard-drinking Polish construction worker -- as they idle away their days on the streets of London. More
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Movies
Alien Nation
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Director Neill Blomkamp’s allegorical flourishes are unsubtle but effective in District 9, a sometimes brilliant sci-fi concoction that pits the people of Johannesburg against a community of alien refugees (known as “prawns”) who arrive on earth and are quickly scuttled into a shantytown surrounded by barbed wire. Victims of government-sanctioned apartheid that seems to grow more virulent by the minute, the prawns are afforded little compassion, and begin to lash out accordingly. More
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Movies
Strictly for the Preteen Set
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
As a filmmaker, Robert Rodriguez has had two distinct careers. In one career, he writes, directs and produces independently financed and controlled, ultra-stylish, ultra-violent genre films (Grindhouse: Planet Horror, Sin City, Once Upon a Time in Mexico). In his other career, he writes, directs and produces family-oriented sci-fi or fantasy action comedies (e.g. the Spy Kids trilogy, Shark Boy & Lava Girl). His latest film, Shorts, fits unquestionably into the latter category. More
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Movies
A Delirious Genre-Bending Revenge Fantasy
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Far more focused and, despite its two-and-a-half hour running time, far better premised than Kill Bill (and less self-indulgent), Inglourious Basterds, succeeds narratively, thematically, visually, and emotionally. More
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Movies
Want to Be Soulless?
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.
Weighed down by your soul? How about taking someone else’s soul? Those are the questions that Sophie Barthes ponders in her feature debut as writer and director. The film, which stars Paul Giamatti as Paul Giamatti, is definitely going to draw comparison to the work of Charlie Kaufman, and that’s fair, but Cold Souls does stand apart from his work. Barthes isn’t as successful as Kaufman is in meandering through the metaphysical and psychological mysteries of life, but Cold Souls proves that she is a truly capable filmmaker. More
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Movies
Comedy Stuck in Neutral
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.
The Goods was co-produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay -- the guys behind Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, in case you missed the trailers -- so it claims enough of a pedigree to have attracted a gifted cast, including Jeremy Piven, Ving Rhames and Anchorman’s David Koechner. More
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Movies
To Be Human
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Hayao Miyazaki may be a superstar in Japan, but he’s not much more than a cult hero in America. Those who have discovered him, namely through his Oscar winner Spirited Away (for Foreign Language film), know that he possesses an imagination that is as captivating as it is awe-inspiring. Ponyo is no different. Loosely based off of “The Little Mermaid", Miyazaki takes the audience far and beyond where they’re prepared to go with the well-known Hans Christian Andersen story. More
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Movies
Mostly Satisfying
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Directed by Robert Schwentke (Flight Plan, The Family Jewels, Tattoo) and adapted by Bruce Joel Rubin from Audrey Niffenegger’s 2004 bestselling novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife blends or borrows elements from Slaughterhouse Five, Somewhere in Time, and The Notebook. Heavy on romance and light on science fiction, the film offers few narrative surprises and, for some, occasional befuddlement but what it does offer is unobtrusive direction by Schwentke and warm, engaging performances by Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. More
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