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 | Strife in the Fast Lane Paul W.S. Anderson has forged a lucrative career directing cinematic adaptations of video games, including [b]Mortal Kombat[/b] and the aggressively unpleasant [b]Resident Evil[/b], and if his productions tend to share common flaws – confusing, rapid-fire camerawork and a gratuitous attention to extreme gore – they’re rarely boring.More |  | Take a Walk on the Mild Side I like Rainn Wilson. Yes, his hipster shtick in [b]Juno[/bb] typified that movie’s reliance on dialogue so resolutely quirky it felt more written than spontaneous. But as Dwight Schrute, the humorless, hyper-competitive drone from NBC’s "The Office", Wilson has pulled off a neat trick, taking a rigid hall monitor-type and making him slyly sympathetic, even endearing.More |  | Save Faris! It would be easy, even tempting, to dismiss [b]The House Bunny[/b] as a formulaic retread, if not for the irrepressible Anna Faris, whose turn as a former Playboy model unleashed on a misfit sorority is nothing less than a revelation. Without her, the latest from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production company might have seemed every bit as pedestrian as lame-brained misfires like [b]Strange Wilderness[/b] and [b]The Benchwarmers[/b]. Instead, Faris, a fearless physical comedienne who deserves a movie worthy of her talents, elevates the material with her unflagging enthusiasm.More |  | Woody Allen’s Summer of Bittersweet Romance The disparity between Woody Allen’s recent string of tormented meditations on murder and betrayal ([b]Match Point[/b], [b]Cassandra’s Dream[/b]) and his weightless farces ([b]Anything Else[/b], [b]Scoop[/b]) has led some to suggest that he dispense with his comic impulses altogether. So it comes as a welcome surprise that Allen’s latest, [b]Vicky Cristina Barcelona[/b], is a comedy of refreshing depth that finds the 72-year-old filmmaker invigorated by the picturesque backdrop of the Mediterranean coast and a perfectly matched cast led by Javier Bardem as a preternaturally confident Don Juan.More |  | Dumb and Dumberest Brennan and Dale are losers. What else can you say about a pair of unemployed forty-somethings who live with their parents and waste their days watching reruns of "Cops"? They are infantile, irresponsible and seemingly incapable of any emotion besides anger. And their pet peeves include…well, pretty much everything.More |  | Mulder & Scully’s (Somewhat) Excellent Adventure Even in the estimation of its most ardent followers, "The X-Files" has rarely been a model of consistency, if only because creator Chris Carter’s vision is so audaciously complex that it sometimes collapses beneath the weight of its own ambition. At its best, it is lurid, cerebral pulp fiction that deftly combines elements of Carter’s religious faith with his predilection for paranormal fantasy and maddeningly intricate conspiracy theories. In its lesser moments, it is convoluted and unfocused, undone by its myriad twists and needlessly baffling turns.More |  | Troma Trashes Fast Food Nation with Kentucky Fried Musical It’s been 22 years since Troma Entertainment last made a big-screen splash with [b]Class of Nuke ’Em High,[/b] a typically stomach-turning satire about small-town teens growing up, but not old, in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. Since then, infamous auteur Lloyd Kaufman’s fiercely independent studio has floundered with a series of mostly straight-to-DVD releases, including seminal titles like [b]Maniac Nurses Find Ecstasy[/b] and [b]Killer Condom[/b].More |  | Lust, No Caution Catherine Breillat, the French director of [b]Fat Girl[/b] and a celebrated provocateur, has acknowledged that her films tend to be preoccupied with female sexuality and its power to sway the hearts and minds of men. Her latest, the luscious, early-19th-century drama [b]The Last Mistress[/b], is no exception.More |  | Send in the Clown Even if [b]The Dark Knight[/b] didn’t represent Heath Ledger’s swan song, it would mark a high point in the young actor’s brief but illustrious career. Ledger’s accent has sometimes sounded geographically challenged when he’s been asked to abandon his native Australian, but here he reinvents himself entirely, trading in his authoritative baritone for a wispy nasal snarl worthy of a sadistic jester. Unlike Jack Nicholson, who turned the Joker into a diabolical ham, Ledger plays Batman’s most iconic foil as a demented sociopath whose very existence seems a mockery of civilized society.More |  | Close Encounters of the Third-Rate Kind Eddie Murphy can do better than this. Having rebounded from the critical and commercial failures of [b]I Spy[/b] and [b]The Adventures of Pluto Nash[/b] with a timely return to the [b]Shrek[/b] franchise and an Oscar-nominated role as a fading R&B singer in 2006’s [b]Dreamgirls[/b], the dynamic comedian can still electrify when he feels like it. The only problem, it seems, is that Murphy doesn’t feel like it often.More |
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