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Ty Burr
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‘Planet 51’ is hardly worth the visit
As a wise frog once remarked, it’s not easy being green. Not only are the emerald-colored extraterrestrials in “Planet 51’’ terrified by the appearance of a human astronaut on their home turf, they’re imprisoned in a cruddy, reductive version of “Happy Days’’ and forced to spout inane dialogue. Young children and adults with high pain thresholds will enjoy the movie ...‘Bronson’ is rage personified
‘Bronson’’ bills itself as the story of Britain’s most notorious living prisoner, Michael Peterson, who early on in his 35 years in jail - 30 of them in solitary confinement - gave himself the “fighting name’’ of Charles Bronson, after the Hollywood star of “Death Wish.’’ Really, though, “Bronson’’ isn’t a story in the traditional sense at all. It’s a ...‘New Moon’ pales in comparison to ‘Twilight’
Sorry, girls: The thrill is gone. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,’’ the second installment in Hollywood’s adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s mega-selling vampire romance series, is an anemic comedown after the full-blooded swoon of last year’s “Twilight.’’ Where the first film’s director, Catherine Hardwicke, plugged into Meyer’s vision of supernatural teenage lust with abandon, Chris Weitz is stuck with a sequel ...‘Pirate Radio’ dials up the rock, ribaldry, and rowdiness
Sometimes history just isn’t as much fun as it should be. “Pirate Radio,’’ a rowdy, mostly hilarious British comedy-drama about the offshore radio stations that blared rock ’n’ roll to a desperate young UK audience in the 1960s, would much rather show us a good time than stick to the facts. Writer-director Richard Curtis (“Love Actually’’) has made a party, ...Director Emmerich destroys the earth - again - in ‘2012’
I like to imagine that the director Roland Emmerich had a key transformative experience at the age of 7, when a relative visiting from Bavaria accidentally trampled his scale model of the Reichstag. Suddenly a light bulb went on over our young Teuton’s head as he realized: People will pay for this .‘Ten9Eight’ is a lesson in entrepreneurship
The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship was founded 22 years ago by Bronx high-school teacher Steve Mariotti upon a few basic notions. Why do so many kids drop out of high school? Because they’re not learning what they need to know. What do they need to know? Business skills. NFTE thus teaches the fundamentals of entrepreneurship through a variety of programs ...‘The Maid’ is untidy, in a good way
The unsettling Chilean drama “The Maid’’ opens with deceptive simplicity. In an upper-class kitchen in the suburbs of Santiago, a blank-faced, middle-aged maid (Catalina Saavedra) sits down to dinner. On the soundtrack we hear the family for whom she works bicker and snipe at each other in the adjoining dining room. The maid looks up, meets the camera’s gaze for ...Technology helps director Zemeckis deliver a spirited ‘Christmas Carol’
Every generation may get the “Christmas Carol’’ it deserves, from the all-dancing, all-singing horrors of “Scrooge’’ (1970) to the brash comic mugging of “Scrooged’’ (1988) to the sleaze of the recent “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.’’ (The best? All votes for George C. Scott and Mr. Magoo will be counted, but anyone who puts in the research knows the 1951 British ...Dynamite formula fizzles in ‘Gentlemen Broncos’
Jared Hess may be the first filmmaker to be bored by his own freaks. “Napoleon Dynamite’’ barely got by on the novelty of its ticked-off nerd hero and flattened sense of Middle American gothic, and it was genial enough to pick up a cult of school kids and adolescents who are always on the lookout for weird stuff, the better ...‘Goats’ suffers from a lack of concentration
‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’’ prompts an obvious question: Will there in fact be any goats stared at in this movie? And, if so, by whom and to what end? The answers - yes; George Clooney; to kill them by remote heart attack as part of a top-secret military initiative - are deliciously absurd even if you don’t know ...‘Crude’ chronicles what happens when an ecological disaster meets a media circus
In “Crude,’’ the anger onscreen spreads as slowly and inexorably as toxic sludge. The documentary follows a pending class-action lawsuit filed by 30,000 Amazon tribespeople against the US petro-giant Chevron for contaminating an area of land the size of Rhode Island. It’s a classic David vs. Goliath face-off and at first “Crude’’ looks like one more environmental agit-doc intended to ...All is lost in ‘The Canyon’
“The Canyon’’ is so singularly inept it gives you a whole new appreciation for the ept. A gracelessly written and filmed survival drama about bonehead yuppie newlyweds getting lost in the Grand Canyon, it’s aggravating enough to have you actively rooting for the couple’s demise, and the sooner the better. This isn’t a film, it’s a candidate for a Darwin ...In ‘Paranormal Activity,’ what you don’t see will scare you
To this critic, the most entertaining aspect to “Paranormal Activity’’ are the screams of rage coming from horror-movie aficionados at websites like the Internet Movie Database. They thunder: Why is this movie a hit? and Nothing happens! and (most damning of all) There’s no gore! One incensed commenter compares the movie to last year’s “Mirrors,’’ a film in which a ...
The gang shoots straighter in ‘The Boondock Saints II’
It was 10 years ago that Troy Duffy, a nobody from nowheresville (all right, a Los Angeles bartender originally from New England), got his break when Miramax bankrolled his little Boston-set gangster movie. Then a documentary called “Overnight’’ revealed Duffy to be an abusive on-set monster. Then Miramax dumped him. Then he regrouped and made the movie on half the ...Stuart Playhouse goes art house cinema
Blue custom-sewn drapes have been installed alongside the new Super Glo white screen. Twelve Dolby Digital speakers ring the walls and, upstairs, a repurposed 35mm projector peers out the booth window. In the lobby, a recently constructed concession stand lies dormant, popcorn as yet unpopped.
‘Astro Boy’ a rocket-powered twist on Pinocchio tale
A new “Astro Boy’’? Why not? If the movies can bring Alvin and the Chipmunks back from the pop-culture dead, what’s wrong with digitally reviving a character who deserves a second career? Especially when the results are as promising, if as bizarrely conflicted, as this.‘Antichrist’: A primal scream from deep in the woods
By any and all measures you care to come up with, “Antichrist’’ is the Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier’s most extreme work yet. Reasonable and literate moviegoers - those who’ve been moved by and/or suffered through “Breaking the Waves,’’ “Dancer in the Dark,’’ and “Dogville,’’ among other assaults to the sensibilities - may take this as a cue to head ...‘Amelia’ explores how a pilot became a celebrity
It’s Oscar season and you know what that means: Time to wheel Hilary Swank out for her annual viewing. In “Amelia,’’ she plays the legendary aviator Amelia Earhart, and those big, horsey incisors of hers may at last have met their match.‘Cirque du Freak’ a pale version of vampire tale
So many vampires are crawling around movies and TV at the moment that any new kid on the block is forced to segment by age, gender, genre, and possibly political affiliation. If the “Twilight’’ series is aimed at adolescent girls whose hearts go arrhythmic at the thought of being ravaged by Edward Cullen, “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant’’ is ...In ‘Heart of Stone’ we see the good one person can do
‘Heart of Stone’’ is a heartbreaker: a documentary about an inner-city high school that shows how hard, how necessary, and how infinitely rewarding it can be to open doors for kids who didn’t know they were there. Technically the movie’s nothing much, but it makes Hollywood dramas like “Stand By Me’’ look tame and insipid.‘Stepfather’ remake out to scare teen girls
Once upon a time, in a far-off land called 1987, there was a B-movie thriller called “The Stepfather,’’ and it was very good: smart and witty and scary as hell. That was 22 years ago, though, and in 2009 there are millions of teenage girls willing to spend their parents’ money to be scared silly - and not by a ...‘Chelsea on the Rocks’ recalls woozy nights at a memorable hotel
Watching “Chelsea on the Rocks’’ is like being buttonholed at a New York bar on a rainy afternoon by an ex-junkie three stools down who proceeds to lay on you an endless series of tall tales concerning people whose identity is never quite clear and who may no longer be alive. The longer the guy talks (which is as long ...‘Where the Wild Things Are’ takes Sendak’s story on a voyage to the end of childhood
Let’s dispense with the preliminaries: What do the experts think of “Where the Wild Things Are’’? As the end credits rolled, my 12-year-old daughter and her bestest friend turned to me with faces like the twin masks of comedy and tragedy on a Broadway playbill. One girl’s eyes were wet with tears of sadness and profound joy; “I loved it,’’ ...Life lessons come with a price in ‘An Education’
The animated opening credits of “An Education’’ promise untold delights, to us and to the movie’s heroine. Martinis and phonographs, jazz, and Paris - these are the tokens of adult bliss if you’re a smart, bored 16-year-old girl in 1961 London. They come with a price, of course, since what coming-of-age movie lets its main character off scot-free? That Lone ...Joel and Ethan Coen’s complex, mysterious, darkly comic ‘A Serious Man’
The other day, a colleague of mine called the Coen brothers “Stanley Kubrick’s grandchildren,’’ and he didn’t mean it as a compliment. He was referencing the cold, almost inhuman brilliance the filmmakers share; the cynicism that allows no emotion beyond the unforgiving laugh. (The songs of Steely Dan also came up, and that makes sense, too: Any major dude will ...‘Couples Retreat’ is no day at the beach
Husbands and wives of America: It’s Friday night and you’ve hired a baby sitter. The early-bird restaurant meal has been consumed; the multiplex beckons. Surely you want to see a frisky, fun-filled comedy about married couples arguing bitterly over the attention they’re not giving each other, the resentments they’re storing up, the sex they’re not having. No? Better beat a ...Where the wonder goes
Max has a single mom now, and the single mom has a boyfriend. One of the Wild Things sounds like Tony Soprano. The musical score is by the lead singer of the rock group The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
A manly tearjerker
Clive Owen weeps! It may not be up there with “Garbo laughs,’’ but the star’s turn as a grieving single dad in the earnest and rather too painless drama “The Boys Are Back’’ is a game-changer. In the decade since “Croupier’’ popped him loose, Owen has fashioned a brooding, intelligent action-hero persona in upscale thrillers like “Children of Men’’ and ...Killer laughs bring ‘Zombieland’ alive
Sometime in the last 20 years zombie slapstick became a primary genre of the movies, right up there with action, teen musicals, and bad Jennifer Aniston romances. It carries expectations, it observes rules, and, as with Oscar-bait period dramas, the Brits have a tendency to do it better. At least they did with “Shaun of the Dead’’ in 2004.Off the grid with ‘No Impact Man’
‘No Impact Man’’ is a very confused documentary that somehow puts its confusion to good use. On the surface it’s a portrait of a wannabe eco-hero: Colin Beavan, a Manhattan husband and father who recently vowed to lead his family in a yearlong experiment to live with as little environmental impact as possible. That means no motorized travel, no electricity, ...‘Invention of Lying’ hits a nerve, then loses it
With “The Invention of Lying,’’ the British comic actor Ricky Gervais has come up with a wickedly funny idea for a movie - and then purged the wickedness right out of it. A sharp-edged, cameo-studded fantasy set in an alternate Earth where everyone tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the film explores the power of ...‘Disgrace’ is a harsh tale of post-apartheid South Africa
‘Disgrace’’ is an ugly movie, at times torturous to watch. It probably needs to be. Any movie set in South Africa is, by default, about South Africa, and this one, based on a prize-winning novel by J.M. Coetzee, barely bothers to disguise its symbolism. It’s a harsh experience, at times engrossing, at other times stiff and unconvincing, but it asks ...‘Paris’ takes a loving look at the city through the eyes of some lovely characters
After sojourns in Barcelona (2002’s art-house hit “L’Auberge Espagnole’’), St. Petersburg and London (2005’s “Russian Dolls’’), the French writer-director Cédric Klapisch has come home to Paris and to “Paris.’’ The new film is the best armchair holiday going - the cast is lovely to behold and the plot dips in and out of the arrondissements with panache. You almost don’t ...‘Five Minutes of Heaven’ starts strong but fizzles out
‘Five Minutes of Heaven’’ reduces Northern Ireland’s troubles to a gimmick, but it’s an interesting gimmick, and the two men hoisted on its petard work at vivid cross-purposes. If nothing else, the film’s worth seeing as a demonstration of opposing acting techniques.‘Beer in Hell’ is crude and rude
For what appears to be a remake of “The Hangover’’ made by drunk, entitled frat boys using their parents’ credit cards, “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell’’ is slightly better than it should be. For Tucker Max, this possibly represents a triumph.‘Bright Star’ shines with romance, eroticism
‘Bright Star’’ is ripe with the eroticism of a proud woman being seduced by words and undone by emotions. If that’s not worth more than a year of Megan Fox movies, I can’t help you.In ‘Surrogates,’ living the simulated life
With breathless lines of dialogue like “Their brains were liquefied in their skulls!’’ - referring to onscreen characters, not the audience - it’s awfully tempting to let “Surrogates’’ review itself. In fact, the latest Bruce Willis futuristic action rama-lama is a reasonably watchable sci-fi B movie, a case of a good director and some intriguing ideas struggling to overcome formula ...Video: Movie reviews
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Take 2 reviews and podcast
Look for new reviews by Ty Burr and Wesley Morris at the end of each week in multiple formats.
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