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The Men
Who Stare at Goats
   Many of us seem to be fascinated with the lunatic fringe that we
imagine controls the military. Films like Dr. Strangelove, Catch 22,
and M*A*S*H made us laugh at potentially tragic events and view military
leaders as the jokesters behind the gags. Now along comes The Men Who Stare at Goats,
which piques our interest from the start with its claim... (more) |
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This Is
It
What do you do when a tremendously expensive tour is scuttled by the
death of its star within days of its first show? In the case of Michael Jackson’s
comeback tour, clever editing of 120 hours of rehearsal footage, shot for Jackson’s
personal use, along with interviews with cast and ... (more) |
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Where
the Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice
Sendak’s children’s book written in 1963, has entertained two generations
and is starting out on a third. Though it consists mostly of illustrations -- the story
contains only ten sentences -- it has already been made into a short film and an opera,
and now director Spike Jonze has taken on the.... (more) |
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Surrogates
In a future that looks much like today, people stay at home while
robotic surrogates they’ve purchased go out into the world to work. Humans can lie on
comfortable sofas wearing headsets that let them experience and control the actions of
their surrogates.... (more) |
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The
Informant!
This tightly knit film shows us a Matt Damon who’s about as far
away from Bourne as you could imagine -- he has a moustache and lots of hair, he’s 30
pounds heavier, and he’s as crazy as a loon. Damon plays the real-life Mark Whitacre,
the vice president of Archer Daniels Midland in the 1990s who procured evidence to indict
his company on charges of global price fixing.... (more) |
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9
Many of the better films of the past few years have been animated.
But unfortunately, most people still see them as nothing more than cartoons. When I saw 9
yesterday afternoon, there were several families with small children in the audience, and
no one seemed to notice the PG-13 rating... (more) |
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Inglorious
Basterds
No living film director trumpets his sheer love of movies more
loudly than does Quentin Tarantino. Whether or not you like his latest work, you have to
admit that it’s one of the most cinematic movies to come along this year. It drips
with homage in a spirit of tribute so genuine as to be irresistible.... (more) |
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District
9
Once in a while a good independent film gets picked up and tucked
under the arm of a name producer or other Hollywood mogul and gets noticed. This one got
its day in the sun because it was produced by Peter Jackson.... (more) |
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Julie
& Julia
This delightful movie tells two different stories occurring in two
different places in time. Amy Adams plays Julie Powell, a present-day New York woman who,
upon turning 30, realizes her life has gone nowhere. A lover of food, she decides to... (more) |
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Orphan
If you go to this movie expecting a schlocky thrill ride with a
demon child on board, you’ll be happy. But if you expect some brilliant new twist on
the well worn horror genre or something a little deeper, you’ll be disappointed.
Ratings for this movie have been all over the map, but I’m placing it in... (more) |
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Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Harry Potter series has a track record of excellence.
None of the movies have been bad, and their average rating has been 3 or 3.5, good or very
good. But Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince goes beyond them to become the
best of the series so far (two more films, based on the final book, have yet to be
released). What strengthens this movie is... (more) |
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Ice Age:
Dawn of the Dinosaurs
With each new release, Pixar continues to establish itself as a
leader in animation. DreamWorks, though prone to resurrecting tired franchises, has
accepted the challenge and done some very good work with titles like Kung Fu Panda.
But Fox’s Blue Sky Studios seems content to be last in the... (more) |
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The
Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Remakes are tricky and usually unsuccessful. If the director is too
faithful to the original and produces a carbon copy, he can expect a "Why
bother?" reaction from filmgoers. And if he strays too far, he risks tainting the
original for those who remember it. Hollywood usually waits long enough before remaking a
classic that the new... (more) |
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Up
Judged by standards applied to animated features from DreamWorks and
Fox, Up should probably receive a higher rating. But compared with the rest of
Pixar’s illustrious catalog, which culminated in last year’s luminous,
transcendent WALL-E, it’s very good at best.... (more) |
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Drag Me
to Hell
For Drag Me to Hell, director Sam Raimi returns to his
schlocky Evil Dead roots. Like a master chef, he puts together tried-and-true
elements with wicked glee, serving up a ghoulish stew that’s the tastiest horror dish
of the year, and perhaps of the decade.... (more) |
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Star
Trek
With Star Trek, director J.J. Abrams
has achieved a seeming impossibility. He’s validated the concept of the original TV
series (1966-1969) while making one of the most thrilling action-adventure pictures of the
decade, one that successfully tells the backstories of ... (more) |
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X-Men
Origins: Wolverine
Hugh Jackman is a talented man. He can sing, dance, and act, all the
time keeping his handsome good looks to the fore. I thought he was splendid as Curly in
the stage version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, and the evidence is
there for all to see and hear on an.... (more) |
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Fast
& Furious
Vin Diesel is an interesting guy. First off, he’s proved, in
such movies as Saving Private Ryan, Boiler Room, and Find Me
Guilty, that he can act with wide range and sensitivity. And with his (usually) shaven
head, muscleman body, and gravelly voice, he’s also a screen presence. Diesel
has... (more) |
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Monsters
vs. Aliens
After seeing the trailers for this computer-animated film, I
attended a screening with eager anticipation. But what a letdown -- I’d already seen
all the best scenes in the trailers.... (more) |
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One Week
"What would you do if you had one week to live?"Those words appeared in the previews for One Week, and they
intrigued me. However, I was afraid the film’s protagonist would be afflicted with
some rare fictitious disease that would enable him to party like a frat boy for a week
before quickly succumbing... (more) |
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Knowing
Knowing, directed by Alex Proyas, stars Nicolas Cage as
John Koestler, a depressed, hard-drinking professor of astrophysics at MIT. Early on, we
see Koestler giving a lecture to his class, asking them if they feel that events are
random or predetermined. The students’ opinions are varied, but at the end of the
lecture Koestler... (more) |
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The Last
House on the Left
The Last House on the Left, in which horrific events
are filmed in such a way as to seem nearly pornographic, is not the sort of movie I
usually see. But on a Wednesday afternoon at the mall in Martinsburg, West Virginia, it
was the only thing playing with any promise. I bought a ticket, fully expecting to
walk out before the movie ended.... (more) |
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Watchmen
I haven’t read the series of graphic novels on which Watchmen
is based, but I assume that the filmmakers wanted to make something that could be watched
by anyone. Perhaps director Zack Snyder, who was so successful with 300, in trying
to remain faithful to the graphic novels, has crammed too much into too little time,
perhaps in hopes of inspiring viewers to seek out the originals. Well, I have no such ...
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Slumdog
Millionaire
A wonderful film, and my pick for Best
Movie of 2008, Slumdog Millionaire, codirected by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan,
tells the remarkable story of three children orphaned during India’s Muslim-Hindu
riots of the 1990s, who grow up on their own in the Mumbai slum of Dharavi. The story is
told through the eyes of ... (more) |
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The
International
Audiences tend to love movies that portray some vast bureaucratic
entity as conniving and evil. Perhaps it’s a way to foist off personal responsibility
as a mass-marketed fault. In The International, the bad guys are Luxembourg bankers
who deal in lots more than cash -- specifically, in sales of illegal arms. Their bank is
evil and very powerful, and those who get too close to... (more) |
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Quantum
of Solace
Director Marc Forster’s Quantum of Solace continues the
adventures of James Bond, beginning where Martin Campbell’s superb Casino Royale left
off. Daniel Craig, who first appeared as Bond in that 2006 film, again appears as the
flawed but ultratough secret agent. Bond has just captured master criminal... (more) |
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W.
After watching W., I left the theater in a daze, wondering
why it had been made. It’s not funny enough to be satire, nor deep enough to be
drama, not informative enough to be a documentary. It feels empty, a vehicle bumping along
trying to get its bearings, and directed by someone without opinions. It’s hard to
believe... (more) |
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Lakeview
Terrace
I’d seen the trailer for Lakeview Terrace four times
before the film hit the multiplexes, so I was pretty clear what would happen. A young
mixed-race couple (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington) move into an exclusive Los Angeles
suburb, where their neighbor is a commuting L.A. police officer (Samuel L. Jackson) who...
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Burn
After Reading
Reflecting on this movie, I thought of Mozart. An acknowledged
genius who wrote such masterpieces as Don Giovanni, piano concertos, and
symphonies, he was not above filling time by writing serenades and divertimenti. Though
not profound masterpieces, these lighter pieces, also written in forms at which the
composer was... (more) |
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Tropic
Thunder
This very funny film is the perfect summer flick. You can laugh
yourself silly, discuss it with your friends at the water cooler, and wait eagerly for the
DVD release, which will probably coincide with the Christmas holidays. It has some
side-splitting sight and word gags, but it’s anything but mindless; instead,
it’s often viciously satirical, even poignant.... (more) |
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The Dark
Knight
This is the second Batman film from director Christopher Nolan, who
has carried over his major players from the first installment, Batman Begins.
Christian Bale again stars as Batman, playing him as originally written for the comics: as
a vigilante haunted by the past.... (more) |
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WALL-E
Having created some of the top animated movies of
all time, including Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and Ratatouille,
what could Pixar do for an encore? Simple (for Pixar): Make another one....(more) |
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Wanted
The Chinese and Japanese film
industries have often given their martial-arts heroes superhuman abilities. Remember the
old Japanese movies in which ninjas could toss shuriken (throwing stars) with
machine-gun-like speed, and leap up to a corner of the ...(more) |
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Kung Fu
Panda
Pandas are among
Nature’s most loved animals. Any time something happens to or with one of the pandas
at the National Zoo, every TV station in Washington, DC carries the news. Hollywood’s
first beloved panda was popular in the 1940s: Andy Panda, a creation of ...(more) |
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Sex and
the City
After a long wait, Sex
and the City is back, this time as a big, glossy feature film perpetuating the lives
and loves of the four female characters brought to life in the original HBO series, which
ended in 2004. Written and directed by Michael Patrick King, the movie continues ...(more) |
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Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Nineteen years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the
franchise returns. Though this fourth installment is not a total embarrassment, it’s
evident that the well of ideas from which George Lucas and Steven Spielberg first crafted
Indiana Jones is running dry....(more) |
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The
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
In our world, a year has past
since the four Pevensie children discovered Narnia, the magical world they first visited
onscreen in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). They re-enter Narnia via a
subway station, only to find that there, 1300 years have elapsed, during which the kingdom
has been invaded by the ...(more) |
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Made
of Honor
These days, it seems the most
romantic thing a person can do is to leave one’s betrothed on the day of the wedding
-- or, better still, at the altar itself -- and sprint off with one’s true
love, to live forever in the glow of undying love. You’ve seen it in many films ...(more) |
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Iron
Man
Transformers,
Robocop, and this film all have robotic, metal-suited lead characters. But Iron
Man is different. Thanks to a literate script and superb acting from Robert Downey,
Jr., the tin can at the heart of this film has soul. And because he does, we care what
happens to him....(more) |
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Shine
a Light
About 12 years ago, I took a two-hour bus trip to see the Rolling
Stones play Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. I have no idea how many people were in the
audience, but the whole thing was a larger-than-life, awe-inspiring spectacle that’s
burned into my memory as ...(more) |
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Forgetting
Sarah Marshall
Many romantic comedies tell a story of two lovers who, as Hollywood
formula demands, should be together but can’t seem to hook up. None, to my
recollection, specifically depicts the difficulty of forgetting ...(more) |
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The
Bank Job
In 1971, a Lloyd’s bank in London was robbed. The story hit the
headlines one day, and quickly died the next. In a blend of fact and fiction, The Bank
Job offers an explanation ...(more) |
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U2 3D
Having been completely won over to three-dimensional digital
projection by last year’s Beowulf 3D, I bought a ticket for U2 3D
expecting a similarly all-encompassing experience. But while thoroughly entertaining, this
concert film is not the same sort of 3D experience. If you haven’t seen Beowulf
3D, you’ll be pretty ...(more) |
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Rambo
The previews had
finished, and my buddy Doug and I were hunkered down in our seats waiting for Rambo
to begin. We had perfect seats: a space between us, no one in front, and the three rows
behind us completely empty. Then five guys sat down right behind us. Dismayed, Doug leaned
over toward me. "F**k!" he ...(more) |
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There
Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood is a compelling study of a man
obsessed by greed, competition, and the unnamed demons of his past. It’s an early
chapter in the story of the dominion of oil over the American economy. It’s a profile
of a Christian evangelist as tainted as the oilman ...(more) |
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Untraceable
A psychopath catches the public’s attention by torturing
a cat on live streaming video. When he moves on to people, it becomes evident that there
is method in his madness: His placard, "Kill with Me," always appears onscreen
first, and it’s to be taken literally -- the more ...(more) |
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Cloverfield
After seeing Godzilla toys while visiting Japan with his son,
J.J. Abrams, the CEO of Bad Robot Productions (Lost), conceived of a new monster
with which he could terrorize the inhabitants of Manhattan. He pitched the idea to
Paramount Studios, the project was green-lighted, and Abrams teamed up with a ...(more) |
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The
Orphanage
If you want easy answers and a linear plot, The Orphanage
might not be for you. But if you enjoyed the ambiguity and enveloping style of The
Haunting, The Innocents, and, most recently, The Others, this film will
satisfy your yearning for an intelligent ghost story. It also has a lot of ...(more) |
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Juno
This single little low-budget movie might just balance out all the well-funded bad ones
and give the coming-of-age and teenage-romance genres a good name. It opens as something
of a screwball comedy, as 16-year-old Juno ...(more) |
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Before
the Devil Knows You're Dead
Not all great films are about pleasant subjects or leave one with a "feel good"
experience when leaving the theater. Sadly, great films are often seen only once by a
moviegoer and do not always do well at the box office. I’ve seen the ...(more) |
