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Movies
Another One Bites the Dust
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.
How the toys of our youth lose their subtle charms when thrust onto the big screen. First, it was the Transformers, reduced to inelegant CGI monsters by Michael Bay’s effects crew. Next up? The real American heroes of G.I. Joe, whose back stories are at least acknowledged by director Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, Van Helsing), but whose charisma is all but eclipsed by the movie’s raison d’être – namely, deafening explosions and expensive-looking set pieces. More
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Movies
This Soufflé Falls a Bit Flat
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is a bit bored and disenchanted with her life. Living in a squalid apartment in Queens, Julie spends most of her waking hours laboring fruitlessly at a dead end secretarial job fielding phone calls from the disgruntled denizens of New York. Her only source of pleasure comes in the form of cooking. A few continents away (and a few decades earlier), Julia Child finds herself in France with her husband wondering what to do with herself. Thus begins Julie & Julia, a cinematic amalgamation of two memoirs. More
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Movies
There Will Be Blood
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
It’s not easy to write an original story about vampires, but Chan-wook Park has done it. Thirst is a buoyantly refreshing story about a priest who turns to sucking blood after an ill-conceived transfusion leaves him hungry for human flesh. More
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Movies
God Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.
There’s no shortage of pain in The Answer Man, the opening-night selection at last April’s Sonoma Film Festival. Nearly everyone in it seems paralyzed by hopelessness, fear of rejection and emotional numbness. They’re looking for a savior, and in one famously reclusive author -- think J.D. Salinger, if he’d written a bestselling spiritual guide instead of Catcher in the Rye -- they think they’ve found him. More
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Movies
Apatow Becomes a Filmmaker
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.
If you don’t know who Judd Apatow is by now, you must be living under a rock. And yet while his name has become synonymous with a rejuvenation of quality comedic movies, he has actually only directed two films prior to Funny People. Of course those were the wildly successful The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. He’s also been attached to many other projects for years as producer or writer (including two cult TV shows), but that’s really beside the point here. All anyone wants to know about is how this new film stands up to his previous successes. More
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Movies
You’re Lost, Little Girl
Somebody was bound to be offended. As has been widely reported, adoption advocates plan to boycott Jaume Collet-Serra’s Orphan, which tells the story of a couple who lose their baby and arrange an adoption that turns into a nightmare. Sensitive to such protests, Warner Brothers edited a line out of the movie’s trailer in which the adoptee, nine-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman, formerly a “Tonight Show” extra), questions any parents’ ability to love an adopted child as much as their own. More
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Movies
A Romance About Growing Up
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.
Adam, despite its flaws, is a charming romantic film about a man with Asperger’s Syndrome and a woman with family troubles, both at a crossroads. Seemingly normal, Adam (Hugh Dancy) appears to be just a tad off, especially when he rattles on about space to anyone who will listen. But, there aren’t many who will listen and following his father’s death, he’s left alone in a large New York City apartment. The feeling of such a large apartment in such a dense city feeds the feeling of isolation and anxiety as Adam, nearly 30, attempts for the first time to cope with life on his own. More
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Movies
Indie 500
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.
“This is the story of boy meets girl.” So begins the bittersweet odyssey of greeting-card writer Tom Hansen, the love-starved twenty-something in (500) Days of Summer who harbors dreams of becoming an architect and romancing puckish co-worker Summer Finn. More
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Movies
Man-Love
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
Masculinity and its discontents has always been a ripe subject for dissection in film and literature. Writer-director Lynn Shelton (My Effortless Brilliance, We Go Way Back) does just that in her latest film, Humpday, an indie comedy-drama that asks “What happens if two (presumably) straight guys decided to make gay porn?” To Shelton’s considerable credit, the answer isn’t simple or straightforward, but layered with contradictions, complications, and confrontations. More
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Movies
A Half Baked Film
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) has his hands full as he enters his sixth year of wizardry and magic at Hogwarts Academy. For starters, adolescence is in full bloom and Harry has his own raging hormones to deal with as well as those of his two pals, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint). As if that wasn’t bad enough, it appears Voldemort, the Lord of Darkness, is rising and no one is safe. Thus begins a grim start to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. More
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