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Movies
| Some things really should stay in Vegas | |
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Oh, if only the cast and crew of “What Happens in Vegas ...” had taken the famous slogan literally and, yes, stayed there. The fewer people privy to this slobbering, emotionally incoherent rom-com bender, the better. Read more... |
| This Helen Hunt movie has way too much Helen Hunt in it | |
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The question came up during a recent screening of “Then She Found Me”: When did Helen Hunt stop, you know, being appealing? Read more... |
| Mamet hits high with 'Redbelt’ | |
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“Redbelt” is a middle-of-the-pack David Mamet movie at best, but in the artistically impoverished ghetto of martial arts flicks, it’s practically “The Godfather.” Read more... |
| Rank: 'Shine a Light' is illuminating, but 'Smart People' aren't that interesting |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: 'Shine a Light' illuminates Tempe Imax, but 'Smart People' just isn't interesting at all. Read more... |
| Crispin Glover wonders out loud: 'What Is It?' | |
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One does not interview Crispin Glover without certain expectations. Specifically, I expect the interview to be alternately weird and amusing. Read more... |
| Chandler Cinemas owners hope venue catches on | |
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There are a lot of movie theaters in the Valley. If I wanted to see “Iron Man” tonight, there are about 10 places within a 20-minute drive of my home where I could do just that — all lovely, relatively generic multiplexes owned by chains like Harkins, AMC and Cinemark. Read more... |
| Dempsey takes on 'Made of Honor’ duties, minus the dress | |
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In “Made of Honor” Patrick Dempsey plays a swinging bachelor who — hold on to your funny bones here, lest they shatter from impact — agrees to be the MAID of honor at his platonic gal pal’s wedding. Read more... |
| Star power makes 'Iron Man’ a solid sci-fi hit |
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Starring the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard, “Iron Man” boasts the kind of rarefied call sheet one would typically associate with an Oscar-customized ensemble drama, not a smash-mouth sci-fi blockbuster about a guy in flying robot suit. Read more... |
| Documentary ‘King Corn’ exposes America’s scary diet | |
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When a marketing flack offered to send me a review copy of “King Corn,” which comes out on DVD today, I promised “to take a look at it.” I never thought I’d enjoy it. After all, it’s a documentary about corn. Read more... |
| Rank: Iron Man is golden while Made of Honor misses |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: Iron Man delivers non-stop action, but Made of Honor is nothing more than a veiled 'My Best Friend's Wedding'. Read more... |
| Harold, Kumar stagger back to the big screen | |
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If you loved the reefer-fueled hijinks of "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (2004), are you preordained to laugh yourself stupid when the duo goes waaaay down south in "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay"? Read more... |
| 'Deception’ hides a limp tale under sexy gloss | |
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Beware, filmmaker, the dread “erotic thriller.” It has stunted greatness. It has smashed careers. And it’s given audiences little besides “Fatal Attraction” and an inexhaustible reservoir of late-night Cinemax alone-time specials. Read more... |
| Infertility comedy ‘Baby Mama’ fails to deliver | |
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As Kate Holbrook, the unfashionably infertile heroine of “Baby Mama,” Tina Fey embodies the reproductive flip side of “Juno,” “Knocked Up,” “Waitress,” et al. Read more... |
| Rank: 'The Visitor' stays, 'Deception' mismatched |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: "The Visitor" is compelling, while erotic thriller "Deception" is anything but. Read more... |
| A so-so film goes down better with Farrelli food | |
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Jack Nicholson is grinnin’ a face-full of piano keys. Five minutes into “The Bucket List,” and the cinema is quiet and dark as the three-time Oscar winner sells his opening scene with every ivory he’s got. But you can almost see him looking around for a better script, and so are we. Read more... |
| ‘The Visitor’ takes a trip down immigration lane (A-) | |
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Like a shrewd salesman who keeps his suitcase to the side, Thomas McCarthy’s “The Visitor” doesn’t immediately announce itself as a movie about immigration policy. Read more... |
| ‘Street Kings’ fires its guns a bit too high (B-) | |
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As a police-corruption soap opera set on the mean streets of Los Angeles, “Street Kings” could hardly boast a better pedigree than director David Ayer (who wrote the screenplay for “Training Day”) and screenwriter James Ellroy (who wrote the source novel for “L.A. Confidential”). Dirty-cop thriller-wise, those are Secretariat-caliber bloodlines. Read more... |
| Rank: 'Shine a Light's' mighty bright, 'Leatherheads' stumbles | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: "Shine a Light" is bright, but "Leatherheads" fumbles. Read more... |
| ‘Smart People’ takes the fun out of dysfunction (C-) | |
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Whether one chooses to be generous and call “Smart People” a companion piece to Noah Baumbach’s dryly hilarious dysfunction screed “The Squid and the Whale” (2006), or critical and call it a cheap imitation, the fact remains: It’s not nearly as good. Read more... |
| ‘Snow Angels’ depicts a cold, bitter reality (B+) | |
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In the strange, sad terrain of broken love that is “Snow Angels,” Kate Beckinsale plays Annie, a woman stranded in a captivating intersection of divorce, adultery and mental collapse. She is, by far, the most dimensional, plausible character yet portrayed by the “Pearl Harbor” starlet — by no means extraordinary, but excitingly real. Read more... |
| A light shines on old pros Scorsese, Rolling Stones | |
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It’s not exactly a state secret that Martin Scorsese has a huge man-crush on the Rolling Stones. Read more... |
| The ball takes some bad bounces in 'Leatherheads’ | |
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George Clooney’s turn-back-the-clock sports comedy “Leatherheads” takes place in the roaring 1920s, when the most flamboyant thing any football fan put on his head was a wool cap and the most affected thing any star player wore on his body a coonskin coat. No cheese hats. No bling. Read more... |
| Americans tackle British humor in 'Run Fatboy’ (B+) | |
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“Run Fatboy Run” isn’t necessarily full of surprises. It’s absolutely packed with belly-laughs, and proves a high-performance comic vehicle for actor Simon Pegg (“Shaun of the Dead”). Read more... |
| Rank: See 'Blindsight,' fold on '21' | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: "Blindsight" feels its way to ironic warmth; Outhier's got nothing but a cold hand for "21." Read more... |
| 'Married Life’ grasps at mediocrity | |
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“It was a funny story ... in a way,” the narrator reflects in “Married Life,” and even with the qualification, it’s an extraordinarily generous assessment of this ponderous, toneless and pointedly unfunny postwar drama. Like, not even funny in the ironic way. Read more... |
| 'Stop-Loss’ tries to tackle anti-war/pro-soldier paradox | |
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As a battle-tested Iraq war hero who cuts and runs when Uncle Sam invites him back for more, Ryan Phillippe embodies the progressive protest-politics of Kimberly Peirce’s “Stop-Loss.” It’s anti-war but pro-soldier; love the player, hate the game. Read more... |
| ‘Blindsight’s’ Himalayan climb is enlightening (B+) | |
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Here’s a scoop: Human rights in Tibet, not that awesome. It turns out that ruthless political oppression is only half the story. Read more... |
| 'Under the Same Moon' not-so-full (C) | |
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“Under the Same Moon” is a sweet but forgettable togetherness yarn, poised ever-so-lightly on the knife edge of America’s immigration debate. That the movie manages not to bloody itself speaks both to its twinkle-toed charm and meager dramatic weight. Read more... |
| Torture films have already played out most 'Funny Games’ | |
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One could call Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” the “feel-bad movie of the year” and not be incorrect — to be sure, Haneke’s shot-for-shot remake of his 1997 German-language thriller about a family terrorized in their vacation home by a pair of ever-so-polite killers is a powerful downer. Read more... |
| 'Chaos Theory’ is definitely, maybe too familiar, already | |
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If it seems like only last week that you saw Ryan Reynolds playing a young father who exhumes the secrets of his love life via flashback, here’s the reason why: It was only last week. Read more... |
| Rank: Miss Pettigrew tickles, but Semi-Pro? Probably not |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: Miss Pettigrew is lively, while Semi-Pro is Semi-probably not. Read more... |
| ‘10,000 B.C.’ may just lead to extinction (D+) | |
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Emmerich’s dopey prehistoric adventure flick lacks the rawness and authentic spirit of, say, Mel Gibson’s underrated “Apocalypto,” while simultaneously laying an egg as giddy popcorn escapism. Read more... |
| In ‘The Bank Job,’ the heist takes a back seat (B+) | |
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Admittedly, “The Bank Job” does have a bank job in it, but that only scratches the larcenous surface of a greater and more wickedly thrilling whole. Read more... |
| ‘Miss Pettigrew’ mines the screwball comedy era for gold (A-) | |
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Take away the admirably frank shots of Amy Adams’ half-naked body, and “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” could pass for the kind of Golden Era screwball comedy that went extinct — oh, around the same time as spats and whale-bone girdles. Read more... |
| Rank: 'Pettigrew' is a direct hit; 'Witless Protection' says it all | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: "Miss Pettigrew" is a direct hit, while Witless Protection’s name says it all. Read more... |
| Low-octane 'Bonneville’ drifts into a ditch | |
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The road to ruin is paved with good intentions, and so is the highway to dullsville. Or “Bonneville,” as the case may be. Read more... |
| Rank: Maybe? Yes, Definitely, but Semi-Pro dribbles | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: The romantic comedy 'Definitely, Maybe' is definitely worth seeing, but Will Ferrell's flabby, pale body? Don't think so. Read more... |
| 'Semi-pro’ fails to score | |
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“It’s such a fine line, between stupid and clever,” a wise man once said. Tell it to Will Ferrell. Read more... |
| 'Boleyn Girl’ naughty but shallow | |
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Oh. My. God. Did you know that, like, ancient England was ruled by this really good-looking man-slut? And there were these two sisters who totally wanted him? Read more... |
| ‘Vantage Point’ a rickety assassination puzzle (C) | |
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Imagine throwing a disassembled jigsaw puzzle into the air. Now imagine the pieces landing on your coffee table in perfect, interlocking harmony. Miraculous, huh? Totally preposterous, huh? Read more... |
| ‘Be Kind’ tries too hard to be funny (C-) | |
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Filmmaker Michel Gondry builds his movies out of clutter — dream fragments, old jazz, balls of yarn and the like — but somehow, they don’t feel messy. Read more... |
| Rank, Oscars Edition: Bloody good 'til it kicks the bucket | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week's special Oscars Edition features some of the films whose cast members were nominated for the prestigious award. Plus ... Larry the Cable Guy. Read more... |
| 'Bonneville' rides into Valley | |
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Arizonans are no strangers to the red carpet. During Super Bowl XLII, every nightclub from Glendale to Scottsdale seemed to sport one. Read more... |
| ‘Spiderwick’ fails to deliver an emotional punch | |
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You’d have to be a folklore Ph.D. or an 11-year-old child to keep track of all the fantasy “epics” that have rambled through theaters in the wake of “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” films. Read more... |
| Not much of a lift in ‘Jumper’ | |
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With a string of credits that includes “Swingers,” “The Bourne Identity” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” director Doug Liman could literally have his pick of the Hollywood screenplay litter. So why pick “Jumper,” a corny exercise in middle-school wish fulfillment? Read more... |
| 'In Bruges’ is a travelogue the audience is happy to take | |
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Watching Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell shoot the breeze — and the odd Belgian — as a pair of vacationing hit men in the riotous black comedy “In Bruges,” one can’t help but think of Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in “Pulp Fiction.” Read more... |
| Are you a ’90s kind of guy? ‘Definitely, Maybe’ you’ll love this film | |
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If you’re like me — which is to say, an aging Gen X male — maybe you remember the first time you heard a Nirvana song. It was 1991. I was at a party. The track was “About a Girl,” and it rocked my little flannel-and-Birkenstocks world. Read more... |
| Rank: 'Bruges,' 'Dead' hot; 'Jumper' bellyflops | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week, he puts "In Bruges" in the hot seat and kicks "Jumper" to the icebox. Read more... |
| 'Welcome Home,’ Martin Lawrence, to the booty gag | |
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In “Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins,” Martin Lawrence goes back to his roots. No, silly, not Louisiana — pratfalls and crass booty humor! Just like old times. Read more... |
| Film fest asks: Make a movie in 48 hours? |
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Part scavenger hunt, part gonzo filmmaking, organizers of the Almost Famous Film Festival challenges participants to write, shoot and edit an original short film in just 48 hours. The event begins Friday, February 15 and ends Sunday, February 17. Read more... |
| On film, Vince Vaughn comedy tour is more like a detour (C+) | |
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If I were a Hollywood talent agent, this is the advice I would give my clients: All things being equal, take the gig that obliges you to work with Vince Vaughn. Read more... |
| 'Hottie’ is as empty as Paris Hilton’s pool of talent (D-) | |
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Folks, Paris Hilton is reformed. It’s true! Why, just last month, the heiress sang the praises of hybrid cars and lectured the public on the plight of Rwanda — all just months after her infamous post-DUI courtroom meltdown. Read more... |
| ‘Fool’s Gold’ is barely skin-deep (C) | |
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Sometime between Matthew McConaughey’s third shirtless scene — which is to say, his third scene — and Kate Hudson’s first, “Fool’s Gold” picks up an unsightly case of the dulls. Read more... |
| Rank: 'Blood' still bloody great, 'Fool's Gold' indeed | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: Post-Skeletor Frank Langella (indie "Starting Out in the Evening") gets a warm hug; beachy "Fool's Gold" makes a chilly splash worth avoiding. Read more... |
| Local indie flick 'Melvyn's Clock' gets Tempe premiere |
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Shot entirely in Arizona over three weeks last month, the bantam-budget independent film "Melvyn's Clock" will premiere at Tempe Cinema on Thursday, February 28. Read more... |
| AMC screens Best Picture noms marathon | |
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As part of the theater chain’s nationwide Best Picture Showcase, audiences can see “Michael Clayton,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Atonement,” “Juno” and “No Country for Old Men” for $30 (over a $50 value, according to AMC, clocking in at over 12 hours) on Feb. 23 at the AMC Mesa Grande 24. Read more... |
| Rank: 'U2 3D' 4 me; poke 'The Eye' | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: "U2 3D" stays in the hot seat; Outhier pokes "The Eye" with an icepick. Read more... |
| 'Body’ dead as a doornail (D) | |
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Jeff Lowell’s “Over Her Dead Body” is the kind of thudding screwball comedy in which people are routinely lit on fire and doused with hotdog condiments — you know, to break up the tedium. Read more... |
| 'How She Move' traces the same old steps (C-) | |
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"How She Move" is "Stomp the Yard" without the yard, "You Got Served" with a Jamaican accent. Read more... |
| 'Untraceable' a real torture to watch (D+) | |
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"Untraceable," starring Diane Lane as an FBI cyber crimes expert on the trail of a web-casting serial killer, is damn near unwatchable. Like "15 Minutes" reconceived in the torture-porn style of "Hostel" and "Saw," it's a tut-tut piece of media criticism that wags a big, moralizing finger in our faces while delivering the basest sort of B-movie thrills. Read more... |
| 'Rambo' keeps the well-paced fountain of blood flowing (B) | |
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C'mon, admit it - after all these years, isn't it sort of refreshing to know that Rambo still cultivates that Vietnam-sized chip on his shoulder? Read more... |
| Rank: 'U2?' Me too! But 'Untraceable' unbearable | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: "U2 3D" gets a nod; Spoofy "Meet the Spartans" gets an icy kick to the groin. Read more... |
| 'U2 3D' an innovative hit (A) | |
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Culled from the band’s “Vertigo” tour and seamlessly edited into one pulsating, joyously immersive performance, “U2 3D” could be the most revolutionary rock-consumer innovation since the music video. Read more... |
| 'Mad Money’ director still into female bonding | |
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Callie Khouri is no stranger to the “scofflaw”/female bonding fantasy: In 1992, the Texas native won an Oscar for her debut screenplay, “Thelma and Louise.” Now, as a director, she takes a more comical approach to all-girl larceny with “Mad Money,” starring Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton and Katie Holmes as lowly Federal Reserve co-workers who secretly skim thousands of dollars from soon-to-be-destroyed piles of cash. Read more... |
| 'Dungeon’ story drags on (C-) | |
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Director Uwe Boll (“BloodRayne”) has made a small career out of adapting video games to the big screen. While the commercial logic behind this is obvious — name recognition, existing audience — the films are made, especially Boll’s latest, only for the people who know the story line and care. Read more... |
| 'Persepolis' a smart, moving cartoon about life in Iran (A) | |
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“Persepolis,” the best animated film of 2007, expands the possibilities of animated storytelling. Animated by hand, often in glorious black and white, this French classic comic book has the pathos, wit and intellectual sting of great political filmmaking. Read more... |
| If only 'Mad Money’ were even slightly crazy funny (C-) | |
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Starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes as an all-girl larceny ring that conspires to steal cash from the Federal Reserve, “Mad Money” hits a boringly cynical snag for director Callie Khouri (“Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”). Read more... |
| 'Cloverfield': Monster meets Manhattan on hand-held video (B+) | |
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The formula for the J.J. Abrams-produced “Cloverfield” is so fiendishly sound, I’m frankly stunned that some other writer-director hyphenate didn’t think of it sooner. Read more... |
| 'Cassandra’s Dream' tosses and turns two brothers (B) | |
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Woody Allen's “Cassandra’s Dream,” like his recent “Match Point,” is a piercing morality play in which social ambition and murder lock fingers and perform a tensely thrilling pas de deux. Read more... |
| '27 Dresses’ should have been seriously altered (D+) | |
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Starring Heigl as a perennial bridesmaid who fumes while her va-va-voom sister swoops in and steals the man of her dreams, this Anne Fletcher-directed wedding fantasy marches out every simpering genre cliche imaginable. Read more... |
| Rank: Don't return 'One Missed Call,' visit 'The Orphanage' | |
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Movie critic Craig Outhier's irreverent guide to the best and worst of what's now playing in theaters. This week: "Cloverfield" makes the cut; "27 Dresses" gets kicked to the freezer. Read more... |
| ‘First Sunday’ passes the plate, comes up empty (C) | |
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After his dubious flirtation with sippy cups and neutered family humor in the “Are We There Yet?” series, Ice Cube is back on the gat, and that’s a good thing, right? The rapper-turned-actor’s latest comedy, “First Sunday,” is hardly divine — it is, in fact, fantastically banal — but at least it affords Cube the opportunity to resurrect the edgy-urban-antihero persona that he does best. Face it, the guy’s a better actor with a gun in his hand. Read more... |
| Reiner, Nicholson scrape bottom of 'The Bucket List’ (C) | |
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Rob Reiner’s “The Bucket List” shows us Jack Nicholson as we’ve never seen him before — specifically, hunched over a toilet, puking his guts out as chemo-ravaged cancer patient Edward Cole. Read more... |
| Stylish 'Orphanage’ leaves no spectral child behind (B+) | |
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Love, death and fate commingle gorgeously in “The Orphanage,” an emotionally charged haunted house saga that beckons the viewer inside with an ominous, artful finger. Read more... |
| Coppola’s 'Youth Without Youth’ so self-important it’s laughable (C) | |
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Francis Ford Coppola has said that he related deeply to “Youth Without Youth,” Romanian writer Mircea Eliade’s novella about a man incapable of finishing his magnum opus: a book about time, consciousness and the origin of language. Read more... |
| Rank: Adopt 'Orphanage,' cross off 'Bucket List' |
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1. There Will Be Blood: Paul Thomas Anderson’s explosive oil epic has critics gushing. Including this one. Read more... |
| Lights, camera, Arizona: State’s history offers plenty of screenplay pitches |
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Los Angeles has “Chinatown.” New York has “The Godfather.” Philadelphia has “Rocky.” Heck, even San Diego has “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.” The question is, does the greater Phoenix area have a quintessential greater-Phoenix-type movie? Read more... |
| There will be Oscars for 'There Will Be Blood' (A) | |
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“Boogie Nights” director Paul Thomas Anderson strikes it rich in “There Will Be Blood,” a savagely engrossing tale of greed and human ruin, set against the backdrop of the early-century California oil rush. If Anderson’s previous efforts — including the brilliant but convoluted “Magnolia” and affectionately misjudged “Punch Drunk Love” — suggested a raw talent not yet in command of his considerable gifts, this one heralds the arrival of a full-fledged cinematic master. Read more... |
| Rank: Go for 'Blood', miss 'Call' |
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1. "There Will Be Blood": There will be Oscars, more like. Daniel Day-Lewis goes off like a stick of dynamite. Read more... |
| Craig Outhier's top movies of 2007 |
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1. “There Will Be Blood” - Paul Thomas Anderson’s oil-boom epic helped me resolve a couple of nagging issues. It completely obliterated my suspicions, albeit faint, that Daniel Day-Lewis is overrated, or at least inflated by his manipulation of the movie star labor market. Read more... |
| 'Water Horse’ rides familiar story (B-) | |
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“The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep” is one of the family-friendliest films of the year. That’s a good thing. The problem is that even the youngest person in the family may find the story familiar. That’s not so good. Read more... |
| 'Great Debaters’ argues few gripping points (C) | |
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There’s really no debating director Denzel Washington’s “The Great Debaters,” a rigidly agreeable race saga “inspired” — in the purest, quotation mark-warranting sense of the word — by the true story of an all-black college debate team in the 1930s South. Read more... |
| 'Diving Bell’ examines spirit of paralyzed artist (B) | |
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Artistic genius alone doesn’t cut it for director Julian Schnabel (“Before Night Falls,” “Basquiat”). The creative heroes of Schnabel’s films must also be imprisoned, besieged or otherwise confined — only then does their art-making achieve glorious, camera-worthy resonance. Read more... |
| Holiday weekend movie round-up |
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It's another big weekend for movies. Here's your guide to what's opening Dec. 21 along with links to our full reviews. Read more... |
| 'P.S. I Love You’ should be sent to dead-letter office (C+) | |
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Oscar winner Hilary Swank re-teams with her “Freedom Writers” writer-director, Richard LaGravenese, for a wistful romance that they both should have had the sense to avoid, “P.S. I Love You.” Read more... |
| 'Sweeney Todd’ sings with delicious violence (A) | |
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Oh, those crafty studio marketers. Look how they advertise Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” — as a stylish, macabre thriller about a mythical hair-and-beard man (Johnny Depp) who wages a bloody campaign of murder and vengeance behind the quaint facade of his London barbershop. Read more... |
| 'National Treasure’ is no gem (C+) | |
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Never mess with a good thing — or, in the case of Jerry Bruckheimer’s “National Treasure” franchise, a mediocre yet extremely profitable thing. Read more... |
| 'Kite Runner’ fails to lift its story (C+) | |
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It can’t be an easy feat for a movie director — five feature films that, on the surface anyway, have little or nothing in common. Five offspring, as motley and dissimilar as the scene around Angelina Jolie’s dinner table. Read more... |
| 'Charlie Wilson’ spotlights Afghan war (B+) | |
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The behind-the-scenes Cold War heroics in “Charlie Wilson’s War” bring to mind Shakespeare’s famous admonishment in “Henry VIII”: “Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot … that it do singe yourself.” Read more... |
| 'Walk Hard' carries its satirical tune well (B+) | |
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So you wanna be a Top 40 music legend? It might help if your beloved older brother dies horribly in a childhood accident. It will haunt you. It will scar you. But, in the cruel calculus of celebrity, it will also fuel your drive to greatness. Read more... |
| 'Savages’ spotlights a refined acting pas de deux (B+) | |
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Watching Laura Linney crank out the sisterly angst in “The Savages,” one is obliged to recall her work in “You Can Count On Me” (2000) — like her current movie, a funny-sad drama in which two adult siblings sweep up the pieces of a scattered, shortchanged childhood. Read more... |
| Rank: 'Sweeney Todd' makes the cut, truncate 'P.S.' |
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Sweeney Todd: The renaissance of the big-screen musical may have officially reached its zenith. Great, gory fun. Read more... |
| Valley fits 'Savage’ in filmmaker | |
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Nothing — at least, nothing in Scottsdale — says “swanky throwback vibe” like the Hotel Valley Ho, and don’t think filmmaker Tamara Jenkins isn’t appreciative. Read more... |
| 'Alvin and the Chipmunks’ gets nutty for Christmas (B-) | |
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The late Looney Tunes maestro Chuck Jones had an existential rule about cartoon animals. They could walk upright, talk a blue streak and even have a Flatbush accent, so long as they were fundamentally most concerned with the things a duck, a caged tweety bird or a wascally wabbit would fret over — not being somebody else’s dinner. Read more... |
| 'Atonement' leads with 7 Globe nods |
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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- The British historical romance "Atonement" led the competition for the Golden Globes with seven nominations Thursday, including best drama and acting honors for Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. Read more... |
| Humans be damned, 'Legend' needs more bloodsucker (B-) | |
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Have you heard? Mutants are people, too — or at least they’ve been trending that way in the movies, where even the brain-eating zombies of George A. Romero’s “Land of the Dead” (2005) are made to exhibit Teamster-like tendencies. Resisting. Unionizing. Raising themselves into a single, clenched fist of brain-eating solidarity. Read more... |
| 'Juno’ deals with teen pregnancy by creating a real teen character (A-) | |
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As Juno McGuff, the pregnant teenager who exercises her right to choose in “Juno,” Ellen Page plays the most remarkable young movie heroine in years — maybe since Patty Duke’s Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker.” Fashioning a slice-of-life comedy hilarious and meaningful, director Jason Reitman (“Thank You for Smoking”) manages to anoint an iconic teen character without resorting to “Napoleon Dynamite”-style stupid-human tricks. Indeed, nothing is fantastical about Juno except her wit, dignity and courage. Read more... |
| Rank: Get to know 'Juno,' 'Alvin' juvenile |
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1. Juno: Heroine junkies, take note: Ellen Page lights up the screen with her grace and smarts. A star-making turn. Read more... |
| 'Golden Compass’ drifts a bit off course (B-) | |
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“The Golden Compass” is a reliably diverting if hardly revolutionary piece of “Star Wars”-tinted fantasy escapism, but that’s sadly beside the point, isn’t it? So much verbal flatulence has been expelled over the film’s purported anti-religious subtext in recent weeks, the real question is whether the early-teen target audience will emerge from the thing quoting Madalyn Murray O’Hair and sandbagging the “under God” passage in the Pledge of Allegiance. Read more... |
| 'Control’ puts Joy Division singer in a self-made noose (B+) | |
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Forensically, there was nothing extraordinary about the demise of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis — just another tortured 20-something rock star lost to a stormy void of depression and suicide. Read more... |
| 'Atonement’ makes up for youthful indiscretion (B+) | |
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Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned — particularly if she’s imaginative, entitled and not yet out of middle school. It goes something like that in “Atonement,” a gorgeous puzzle of motivations in which ripening young love is swallowed whole by even younger infatuation. Read more... |
| Alternative Christmas classics: Not all holiday flicks are jolly | |
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Any halfway competent video clerk can direct you to the tried-and-true holiday classics. We’re talking “Miracle on 34th Street,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “A Christmas Story” and other toasty warm chestnuts of yuletide tradition. Read more... |
| Rank: Direct yourself towards 'Compass,' 'August' out of season |
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1. The Golden Compass: Yes, we should all be vigilant about atheism, but nobody complained about the Calvinist agenda in "Ernest Goes to Jail." I'm just saying. Read more... |
| 'Holly’ tells story of child trafficking in Cambodia (C) |
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Set in the underage sex bazaars of Cambodia, “Holly” moodily charts a journey through an institution so depraved, the film itself can’t escape a little exploitative backwash. It’s also tedious, which — in the jurisdiction of popular cinema, anyway – might be the more serious affront. Read more... |
| Rank: Reasons to see 'Mist' clear, 'Holly' is a crime |
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I’m Not There: An excitingly different breed of rock biography. Think “Ray” on peyote. Read more... |
| Rank: Be here for 'Not There,' no rush on 'August' |
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1. I’m Not There: Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale and others pay tribute to Bob Dylan, rock’s most legendary changeling. I am SO there. Read more... |
| Thanksgiving weekend movie review round-up |
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A lot of movies are out for the Thanksgiving weekend. Here's a handy field guide. Also, check out Craig Outhier's video reviews of "The Mist" and "Enchanted" here. Read more... |
| Fine 'Mist’ envelops town, audiences (A-) | |
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If the cat-sized flying scorpions in Frank Darabont’s “The Mist” don’t scare you silly, then the Old Testament-quoting crone with the Hitler complex will almost certainly do the trick. Read more... |
| 'I’m Not There’ is all Dylan (A-) | |
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One needn’t worship Bob Dylan to get a big kick out of Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There.” I know this with utmost certainty, as I find it impossible to listen to the singer’s “The Times They Are-a-Changin' ” album from start to finish without itching for something harder. Like Christopher Cross. Read more... |
| 'Margot’ lays a serious beating on motherhood (B-) | |
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If you love Nicole Kidman, and want to continue loving Nicole Kidman, take a flier on “Margot at the Wedding,” an acidly comic tale of family troubles from writer-director Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”) and perhaps the bleakest portrait of motherhood since Angela Lansbury jerked Laurence Harvey’s chain in “The Manchurian Candidate.” Read more... |
| Game’s better than 'Hitman’ flick (C) | |
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An elite international assassin (Timothy Olyphant) lets his gun — and sword, sometimes — do the talking in “Hitman,” and that’s good, because this is the kind of style-forward action orgy that only gets super-duper tiresome when the characters open their silly yaps. Read more... |
| 'Enchanted’ is just that, with all its Disney fairy-tale lore (B) | |
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In “Enchanted,” Amy Adams (“Junebug”) plays Giselle, a pen-and-ink fairy-tale princess banished to live-action New York City, where she stumbles into the protective arms of a hunky single dad (Patrick Dempsey) in the city’s seedy Bowery district. Read more... |
| Musical 'August Rush’ gets scrambled by sour notes (C-) | |
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Shhh. Listen. Can you hear it? That, my friend, is the siren-song of bad melodrama, and it beckons you to the wholesomely jagged shoals of “August Rush,” a well-meaning yarn about a special little music prodigy and his poorly scored journey of self-discovery. Read more... |
| Zen and baked bread meet in 'How to Cook Your Life’ (A-) | |
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A Zen priest and chef, Edward Espe Brown is best known as the author of 1970’s landmark “The Tassajara Bread Book,” a volume that introduced an entire generation to the joys of baking. German director Doris Dorrie took a cooking class from Brown and was captivated enough to want to film his thoughts on connecting the way you cook food with the way you live your life. It was an inspired idea. For besides being an artist with bread, Brown turns out to be a great raconteur with a puckish sense of humor and a sly look in his eye who couldn’t be more of a treat to hang out with. Read more... |
| 'This Christmas’ brings family gathering to the forefront (A) | |
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Finally! A Christmas movie that is neither cynical nor saccharine in its handling of the holiday. Read more... |
| Rank: 'Old Men' good 'Country,' 'Tales' goes south |
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No Country for Old Men: Can't say which is scarier: Javier Bardem's cattle stunner or his haircut. My Halloween outfit for 2008. Read more... |
| 'Beowulf' brings 6th-century fantasy to life (A-) | |
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Leave it to Robert Zemeckis — relentless innovator and elite box-office showman — to turn a centuries-old Anglo-Saxon poem into the year’s most gloriously entertaining action movie. Like the dragon felled by our computer-generated hero, “Beowulf” sweeps you up in its talons and gives you a hell of a harrowing ride. Read more... |
| 'Mr. Magorium' offers a big, magical dose of adult responsibility (C-) | |
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These are dark times indeed for toy lovers. Elmo and his lead paint. Barbie and her trachea-clogging magnets. Date-rape chemicals in Aqua Dots. And, now: “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium,” a derivative, self-consciously fantastical contraption that distinguishes itself as a prime candidate for recall. Read more... |
| 'Southland’ pulls apocalypse tales from far and wide (D) | |
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In the cockeyed American apocalypse proposed by writer-director Richard Kelly in “Southland Tales,” soldiers with machine guns patrol California’s Venice Beach, porn stars and presidential candidates wrangle for power, and even “dissenting liberal extremist cells” harbor showbiz aspirations. And that’s just the mundane stuff. Read more... |
| As a book, 'Cholera’ wears shoes too big for a film to fill (B-) | |
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They’ve gotten an entertaining movie out of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera.” But it’s also one of those epic miscalculations that Hollywood makes, every so often, to let us know that, no, they haven’t necessarily read the book. Read more... |
| Ho ho-hum: 'Fred Claus’ isn’t much of a Christmas package (D+) | |
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In the most surreal and, Santa help us, only truly interesting moment in “Fred Claus,” none other than former presidential sibling Roger Clinton stands up and delivers a heartfelt confession about the pain of living in a more accomplished brother’s shadow. Read more... |
| Well-done 'No Country for Old Men’ is no land of comfort (B+) | |
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The Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men” is up to its cowboy hat in perverse inspiration, and I’m not just talking about the villain who kills his victims with a pneumatic cattle stunner. Read more... |
| 'Lions for Lambs’ goes to war with apathy (B) | |
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The subject line alone for “Lions for Lambs” — “Robert Redford-directed pro-activist war drama” — is enough to make any self-respecting conservative reach for a bottle of Rolaids. Read more... |
| Rank: Visit 'No Country'; escape 'Claus' |
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No Country for Old Men: Outstanding, except for the climax. What can I say? I’m climax-oriented. Read more... |
| 'P2’ is PU (D+) |
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There is a moment in “P2” that is one of the most horrifying sequences to flash across the silver screen since Norman Bates in “Psycho” told Marion Crane that there was a vacancy at the Bates Motel. Read more... |
| 'Man From Plains’ an intimate look at former president (B) | |
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Sure, the exceedingly respectful “Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains” does play like an infomercial, with director Jonathan Demme following the former president around as he promotes his latest book. Read more... |
| Family goes south in 'Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’ (C+) | |
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As the director of “12 Angry Men,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “The Verdict,” Sidney Lumet isn’t one for judicial leniency. Bad deeds rarely go unpunished, and neither do good ones, generally. In the world of Lumet, we’re all accomplices. Read more... |
| Documentary tries to tell story of genocide in Darfur (B-) | |
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Can art move us to take action? And if its specific goal is to stir us to action, can it be art? Those two questions linger over Theodore Braun’s “Darfur Now,” a new documentary that attempts to bring an intractable, epic-sized tragedy down to workable size. Read more... |
| Steve Carell: Just another spectacular day at the office |
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Life couldn’t get much better for Steve Carell. Just a few years ago, he was a struggling fake-news correspondent on the fake-news cable show “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” Now, he can buy and sell Jon Stewart. Read more... |
| 'Bee’ buzzes a little, but never takes flight | |
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Remember how they used to describe “Seinfeld,” the long-running NBC sitcom that matched stand-up comic Jerry Seinfeld with a neurotic gaggle of New Yorkers? It was “a show about nothing” — a doggedly trivial riff on the modern, urban condition. Read more... |
| Tale of drug kingpin plays like 'Gangster’ lite (B-) | |
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If gangster movies have taught us anything, it’s the idea that American class mobility is a wide open, ecumenical affair. After all, what was Al Pacino’s ruthless coke kingpin in “Scarface” but Horatio Alger with a machine gun and a funny accent? Read more... |
| Cusack not Daddy material in 'Martian Child' (C) | |
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There’s something alien to the proceedings of “Martian Child,” and it’s not the funny-looking orphan who has decided the reason he doesn’t fit in is because he’s from another planet. Read more... |
| 'Kid’ doesn’t paint decisive picture (A) | |
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Amir Bar-Lev’s marvelous new documentary, “My Kid Could Paint That,” focuses on the curious case of Marla Olmstead, a Binghamton, N.Y., girl who, at the ripe old age of 4, began creating abstract paintings that many art critics and dealers regarded as the works of a prodigy. Read more... |
| Rank: Take 'Road,' stifle 'Comebacks' |
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1. Reservation Road: Joaquin Phoenix takes another dark dramatic plunge. The year’s best performance. Read more... |
| Valley animators land honey of a gig in 'Bee Movie’ | |
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The modest flow of feature-film animators from the Valley of the Sun to Hollywood can’t accurately be called a “pipeline” — not yet — but a handful of homegrown artists are thriving at the very top of the CGI food chain. Read more... |
| 'Saw IV’ is more of the bloody same (D) | |
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He has but one facial expression — iguana. And there is just one note in his voice — obscene phone caller before the age of caller-ID. But they’ve served Tobin Bell well through the lucrative clockwork-killing machine known as the “Saw” franchise. Read more... |
| 'Reservation Road’ takes some unexpected, well-acted turns (B+) | |
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Grief assumes dire, darkly suspenseful form in Terry George’s “Reservation Road,” a thrillingly intimate drama that escapes the bleak confines of its subject matter behind a battering-ram of top-notch performances. Read more... |
| 'Dan in Real Life’ rubs audience the wrong way (C+) | |
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How to describe “Dan in Real Life,” starring Steve Carell in a groping hybrid of domestic comedy and romance? Well, it’s like getting a back rub you don’t really want from a well-meaning but obnoxious co-worker. Not unpleasant, exactly — just unctuous and a little creepy. Read more... |
| Caine returns in pared-down, next-generation 'Sleuth’ (B) | |
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One would imagine it is something of a bittersweet triumph for an actor to endure long enough to revisit a glory moment from his youth, albeit from the vantage point of an older character. Read more... |
| Rank: Make a 'Reservation,' 'Saw IV' is brutal |
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1. Reservation Road: Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo have a good, ol’ fashioned emote-off. Bare-knuckle drama from “Hotel Rwanda” director Terry George. Read more... |
| 'Lars and the Real Girl’ gets as gooey as a melted plastic doll (C+) | |
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She’s a different kind of mail-order bride, this girl in “Lars and the Real Girl.” Read more... |
