REVIEW: Amber Heard Brings Some Intrigue to Otherwise Uninspired The Ward
The Ward, John Carpenter's first directorial effort in 10 years, is not an ideal hiatus-buster. The premise itself -- a psych ward for young women is the site of a…
REVIEW: Even for a Talking-Animal Movie, Zookeeper Hits a New Low
A possible calculus for Kevin James films: The more pathetic his typically schlubby, confidence-challenged character, the bigger the cash-grabbing cojones behind the…
REVIEW: Project Nim Is Partly About Chimp Behavior, But Mostly About Humans
In Project Nim we are invited to observe the tics, tweaks, and expressive details embedded in the story of a behavioral experiment as told by the social scientists who…
REVIEW: Leighton Meester Hits the Charm Jackpot in Monte Carlo
Paris's transformative powers have been well documented on screen: Audrey Hepburn took the Gallic cure to become a woman (or at least become alluring to men) in Sabrina…
REVIEW: David Hyde Pierce Anchors an Otherwise Wobbly Perfect Host
You'll have to hang on to something to get through the hairpins in The Perfect Host, a chamber piece hostage thriller black comedy undone less by its twists than by the…
REVIEW: The Best and the Brightest Not Sharp Enough to Skewer NYC's Kindergarten Elite
Are some real-life farces too perfectly stupid to accommodate an onscreen take-off? The Best and the Brightest, set in the self-satirizing world of pre-school placement…
REVIEW: Chris Weitz Brings the Italian Neorealist Touch to L.A. with A Better Life
My heart sank a little when Carlos (Demián Bichir), a Mexican working as a gardener in Los Angeles to support his teenage son Luis (José Julián), lays out all of the…
REVIEW: Buck Paints a Stirring Portrait of the Real-Life Horse Whisperer
The formidable subject of Buck shares his initials and ideals with another, even more imposing romantic hero. Black Beauty, a horse with a human range of intellect and…
REVIEW: The Art of Getting By Barely Masters the Art of Perfunctory Teen Romance
A friend once told me that his gold standard for new acquaintances involved the Leonard Cohen song "Anthem." "There is a crack, a crack in everything," the song goes…
REVIEW: Monte Hellman's Road to Nowhere Gets Lost Along the Way
Despite its tai chi pace and genre-friendly characters, it's almost impossible to tell what's happening in the intriguing, intractable Road to Nowhere, Two-Lane Blacktop…
REVIEW: Modest Trollhunter Offers Its Share of Knobby, Gnarled Delights
There are precious few mysteries left in a world scoured by satellites, street-cams, and all other manner of ravening photographer's eye. It's tough to believe in…
REVIEW: Maria Bello Shines Amid Emotional Rough-Going of Beautiful Boy
Storytellers have sought effective ways to engage the fairly recent, unfathomable phenomenon of children committing mass murder of other children. With Elephant, in…
REVIEW: Submarine Borrows, Coyly, From the Coming-of-Age Canon
In a pivotal scene of The 400 Blows, sweet-tempered Antoine, forever and unjustly underfoot, discovers Balzac while smoking a rollie on his parents' sofa. Everything in…
REVIEW: Kung Fu Panda 2's Meandering Story Doesn't Dim Its Visual Delights
A quest movie that's too long on destination to make for much of a journey, Kung Fu Panda 2 is nevertheless scenic, inventively playful, and successfully serious when it…
REVIEW: Ludicrous True Legend Doesn't Sustain Ingenuity
Watching True Legend, a wuxia film crossed with classic vaudeville, it's hard to figure out who's borrowing from whom anymore. The storybook set-up places us in the…
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