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Claire Denis concocts a warming sip of ‘Rum’
I don’t want to know how Claire Denis makes movies. Her magic is her business. But I imagine the process is like sculpture. A block of story is whittled and carved until only what’s essential remains. With her, the whittling is a seductive technique. Only in the final scenes of her latest bewitchment, “35 Shots of Rum,’’ do we know ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In ‘This Is It,’ the King of Pop lives on
The announcement earlier this year that Michael Jackson would be doing 50 concerts in London was greeted with equal parts euphoria and cynicism. Was he doing it for us? Was he doing it for money? Then in June, less than a month before the start of the sold-out run, Jackson died of cardiac arrest, and the news that a film ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
New ‘Saw’ sequel is a horror flick and a health-care initiative
Here we are a half-dozen movies in and finally some ideas - and what passes for a navigable screenplay - are on display in “Saw VI.’’ (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘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. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘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. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Chris Rock combs through history of black hair
In the new documentary “Good Hair,’’ Chris Rock finds great comedy in what still lingers as a tragedy. The black compulsion to straighten, lengthen, and lusterize hair comes from an institutional preoccupation with whiteness. And it doesn’t feel like a vestigial preoccupation, either. The black hip-hop music video star Melyssa Ford tells Rock she grew up bitter that she never ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Some cheap thrills in ‘Hagstone Demon’
Chances are the last time you caught Mark Borchardt onscreen, he was pounding beers and raging on about his ambition to direct a horror movie in the little-film-that-couldn’t documentary “American Movie.’’ All these years later, it looks like Borchardt has finally managed to make the sort of picture that was in his head, with the help of similarly DIY-minded writer-director ... (By Tom Russo, Globe Correspondent)
‘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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Motherhood’ has a bad day
Whenever a movie requires Uma Thurman to wear glasses, it’s reasonable to think she’ll turn into someone else. Once, in a “Batman’’ movie, she actually did. She’s bespectacled again for “Motherhood,’’ and it saddens me to report that neither she nor this comedy turns into more than an argument against procreation. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
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. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
LeBron, teammates got ‘Game’
Here’s how post-industrial economics works. Akron, Ohio, used to be famous as the home of the US rubber industry. Now it’s famous as the home of LeBron James, the NBA superstar. Akron is the setting for “More Than a Game,’’ an often slick and just as often emotionally involving documentary about James’s pre-NBA career. More than just a sports documentary, ... (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
In ‘Law Abiding Citizen,’ revenge never seemed so bland
You don’t want to snicker when two rows of parked cars suddenly blow up in “Law Abiding Citizen.’’ But that’s the only response to such desperate moviemaking. There’s no earthly reason for that explosion. Nor is there an explanation for lines like, “I do my job. I’m the best at it. It works.’’ That’s Jamie Foxx to Gerard Butler, but ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘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,’’ ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘New York, I Love You’ takes a uniform look at a diverse city
‘New York, I Love You’’ wants us to know that the city is a sexy, romantic, thrillingly random place where anything can go down. Sadly, two of those things are your eyelids. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In ‘The Damned United,’ Sheen can really shine
Poor Michael Sheen. For every excellent performance he’s given recently, there’s been someone doing a flashier job in the same movie. In “The Queen,’’ his Tony Blair was a vision of poise and a voice of reason, but Helen Mirren got the Oscar. He was even better in “Frost/Nixon,’’ doing the opposite of what he did with Blair. His David ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In ‘Paranormal Activity,’ they don’t get it, until they do
Victims in horror-movie hauntings suffer like homeowners who buy vermin-infested real estate. Despite obvious, terrifying physical evidence, they refuse to consult an expert - until it’s too late. (By Justine Elias, Globe Correspondent)
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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Girls of ‘St. Trinian’s’ just want to have fun
What happened to Rupert Everett? He should have been a major movie star. He was so handsome, so debonair, so sophisticatedly English he seemed to be in a tuxedo even when he wasn’t. He was the rare actor whom you could see bantering with just about any woman. Everett was rumored to be the next James Bond (although, who hasn’t ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In ‘Act of God,’ lightning strikes a chord
The chances of being hit by lightning are 1 in 700,000. Or so says one of the interview subjects in Jennifer Baichwal’s solid and offbeat documentary “Act of God.’’ He presumably knows, since he’s survived a lightning strike. Lightning, even more as metaphysical puzzle than meteorological spectacle, is the film’s subject. (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
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. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
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, ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In ‘Capitalism,’ Moore takes aim at economic oppressors
The scope of Michael Moore’s documentaries gets bigger with each movie. Twenty years ago he told the story of how General Motors undid his hometown, and went on to tackle gun control, the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war, and health care. Now Moore is going after the entire American economic system. But “Capitalism: A Love Story’’ is redundant ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Barrymore delivers fun on wheels
Once in a while, a moviemaker will find it in her heart to make my dreams come true. In Drew Barrymore’s “Whip It,’’ when Juliette Lewis starts a food fight with Ellen Page that turns into about a dozen giggling women rolling around on the floor of a diner covered in condiments, grease, and cream, the movie had won my ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
3-D adds more depth to ‘Toy’ stories
When George Lucas released his digitally tweaked versions of the original “Star Wars’’ trilogy in the mid-’90s, his rationale was that he wanted the experience of watching the films to be everything that we remembered. If we remembered the effects as being more advanced than they actually were, then that’s what he’d give us. (Oh, he also had a new ... (By Tom Russo, Globe Correspondent)
‘Coco’ has fashion, but lacks real passion
As advertised, “Coco Before Chanel’’ shows us the life of the legendary fashion designer when she was just a skinny, young milliner named Gabrielle. It’s unclear what we’re to learn about Chanel from this movie, aside from the news that she styled herself as a somewhat androgynous rag doll and could do just about anything with a needle and thread. ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Inside the life of French filmmaker
In “The Beaches of Agnès,’’ the effervescent 81-year-old French filmmaker Agnès Varda walks us through the story of her life. But rather than simply give us a guided tour, she explains that, “If you opened me up, you’d find beaches.’’ And so her film is set on her most formative shores, including the Belgian stretch of the North Sea where ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Not much to remember in ‘Fame’ remake
It’s not a good sign when the first few minutes of a movie about singing, dancing, rapping, video-camera-wielding teenagers reminds you of a certain grimy horror franchise. But from the minute the camera drifts toward a series of light bulbs arrayed around a single word -- “Fame,’’ done up in the iconic font of the 1980 film -- you could ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘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. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Pandorum’ chills to the core
Magnificent desolation - Buzz Aldrin’s lyrical description of the moonscape, as seen from its lonesome surface - has inspired poets and artists. But to science-fiction filmmakers and writers, the phrase usually inspires terror. Travel to Mars, the stars, and beyond often risks a killer case of space madness. So it goes, screamingly, in “Pandorum,’’ a highly effective sci-fi thriller set ... (By Justine Elias, Globe Correspondent)
‘Amreeka’ explores the recent Arab immigrant experience in the United States
In “Amreeka,’’ Muna, a Palestinian divorcee, and her bright teenage son, Fadi, move in with her sister’s upper-middle-class family in a small Illinois town. When Muna (Nisreen Faour) takes a job working at White Castle and Fadi (Melkar Muallem) enrolls in public school, the expected culture clashes ensue. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘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 ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘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. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘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. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Fox can’t heat up ‘Body’
The questions posed by the arch horror movie “Jennifer’s Body’’ include: Will there be a second chance for “Juno’’ screenwriter Diablo Cody? Does director Karyn Kusama deserve a third chance after the high of “Girlfight’’ in 2000 and the low of “Aeon Flux’’ in 2005? Can Megan Fox act? (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Meatballs’ is a bit bland, but still fun
Any movie based on a children’s picture-book is bound to be a feat of extrapolation, but taking on “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’’ poses a special challenge. The 1978 book has a funny concept - a town called Chewandswallow, where the food supply falls from the sky - but no characters and little plot to speak of. Food drops, ... (By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff)
Andrew Bujalski’s ‘Beeswax’
Andrew Bujalski is heading south. His first film, “Funny Ha Ha’’ (2002), was set in his hometown of Boston; 2005’s “Mutual Appreciation’’ started here but ended up down the highway in New York City. “Beeswax,’’ Bujalski’s latest slice of 20-something anomie, tumbles off the map into Austin, Texas. It’s his sharpest, most observant piece of work yet, though. Sometimes you ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Still Walking’ presents a day at an uneasy family reunion
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Still Walking’’ begins with the sound of vegetables being peeled and ends with a view of the ocean. The mundane (and necessary) juxtaposed with the eternal (and life-giving): What better way to frame a family drama? In between comes a work whose simplicity and restraint recall the films of Yasujiro Ozu - even as a concluding crane shot ... (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
‘Love Happens’ blends cute with the Big Cry
‘Love Happens’’ is being sold as a romantic comedy but it’s really a Big Cry movie. You know the genre: main characters who’ve suffered tragedy and lost touch with their emotions, who get redeemed by love and a few well-orchestrated crises, who lead the audience in a big, cathartic bawl at the end. It’s a tricky balancing act: Beg for ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘The Burning Plain’ has charged relationships at its heart
Early on in “The Burning Plain,’’ Charlize Theron tells a friend that she has a new beau. “Do I know him?’’ the friend asks - then quickly adds, “Do you ?’’ It’s a great line, indicating everything we need to know about how unmoored Theron’s character is. (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
Matt Damon plays ‘The Informant!’ for laughs
‘The Informant!’’ feels like Steven Soderbergh was still high on the fumes of the “Ocean’s Eleven’’ movies when he made it. It’s bright and perky, with a naggingly effervescent score by Marvin Hamlisch that channels late ’60s game shows and never shuts up, even when you want it to. Soderbergh’s pushing the limits of our indulgence here, spinning a story ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Big Fan’ shows the hang-ups of a sports radio caller
He provided the voice of Remy the rat in “Ratatouille,’’ but the actor/comedian Patton Oswalt has a face like a rubber bulldog, with jowls that crowd his features in toward the middle. The eyes are small, preoccupied, and at a certain point in “Big Fan,’’ they go completely dead. That’s when the movie steps off the ledge. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
A Wink and a Smile’ uncovers empowerment in a burlesque class
“A Wink and a Smile’’ is a documentary about burlesque. Not your grandfather’s burlesque, that smoky pre-strip club world of the 1940s and ’50s, where performers disrobed one white glove at a time. More like your older-sister’s-with-a-graduate-degree-in-gender-studies burlesque. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself' movie review -- 'Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself' showtimes
“Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself’’ didn’t screen for critics, but it’s the best Tyler Perry movie to date - the writer/director/actor/mogul’s most confident and competent mixture of uplifting black middle-class melodrama and low-down comedy. It’s easy to spot the reasons, too. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Blood and blackmail on ‘Sorority Row’
Nothing says sisterhood like slipping your college gal pal a date-rape drug to render her semi-conscious, and then throwing her body down a mine shaft after a prank goes awry. And nothing should bring a group of five graduating sorority sisters closer together than a conspiracy to cover up that friend’s accidental murder, even as the body count by a ... (By Jonathan Perry, Globe Correspondent)
Watching them rage against the machine
If only American guerrilla outfits got the intense treatment that “The Baader Meinhof Complex’’ applies to Germany’s Red Army Faction (RAF). The movie, directed by Uli Edel, is swift, brutal, lurid, often overheated, and occasionally comical, but it’s also a serious, well acted, and unromantic exploration of the rise and demise of a terrorist gang whose radicalism ultimately reached beyond ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘Betty Blue’ seems right for this time
Poor “Betty Blue.’’ When this very Gallic tale of l’amour fou was first released in 1986, moviegoers had just about given up on Jean-Jacques Beineix. The director’s 1981 debut, “Diva,’’ had announced the arrival of France’s latest cinematic whiz kid, but his follow-up was the turgid, self-important “The Moon in the Gutter’’ (1983). “Betty Blue’’ was supposed to restart Beineix’s ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Some frozen stiffs, but few chills in ‘Whiteout’
In its early scenes, “Whiteout’’ feels like it’s setting us up for an Antarctic “Alien.’’ There’s the scientific base far, far from civilization; there’s Kate Beckinsale nonsensically stripping down to her tighty-whities just like Ellen Ripley; there’s something spooky in a box; there’s even Tom Skerritt, the interstellar captain of “Alien,’’ as Doc, sawbones of Camp Amundsen-Scott at the South ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘The September Issue’ goes behind the scenes at Vogue magazine
‘The September Issue’’ is one of the most revealing movies you’ll see about work: the stress to meet deadlines, please a boss, articulate objections. It’s set at the Manhattan offices of Vogue, a magazine that often weighs more than the women who grace its cover. R.J. Cutler’s documentary treats it all seriously, but not so seriously that there’s no joy. ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
An insider looks at film criticism through the years
A documentary about the history and current state of film criticism may seem like awfully inside baseball, but someone had to make it, and who better than Gerald Peary, longstanding Boston Phoenix reviewer, scholar, professor, curator, and all-around gadfly? (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘9’ introduces a new dimension of dark animation
“9’’ is just about the only animated movie this year not to be released in 3-D. But it flaunts meticulous design and downbeat color scheme (browns, blacks, glowing toxic greens) that provoke a similar response. At least twice, my hand motioned toward the screen to touch what I saw. The wax in a stub of a candle, the grooved grains ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Gamer' movie review -- 'Gamer' showtimes
If you’ve caught either of the hyperactive “Crank’’ movies, the last thing you’d expect from the filmmaking team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (or “Neveldine/Taylor,’’ as they aggressively brand themselves) is a boring ride. Yet for long stretches of the PlayStation-minded “Gamer,’’ the action does drag. The duo goes lighter on the anything-goes screwiness that’s really their creative redemption, ... (By Tom Russo, Globe Correspondent)
A ‘Window’ into a life and death
Writer-director Carlos Sorin’s “The Window’’ begins with a dream and ends with a kind of sleep. In between, the events of a momentous day unfold with minimal melodrama and keen observation. (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
‘Extract’ a few flavors shy of screwball
Sometimes you’re willing to give a comedy the benefit of the doubt. If you laugh, that’s enough. But a good movie can connect that comedy to how we live in the world. Or it takes risks and demonstrates a real sensibility. Mike Judge usually gets most of the way there. His animated television shows - “Beavis and Butt-Head’’ and “King ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
The rise and fall of a dot-com darling
“We Live in Public’’ is a documentary about Josh Harris, who director Ondi Timoner (“Dig!’’) bills as the “greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of.’’ There’s a reason you’ve never heard of him - or, if you have heard of him, a reason you’re probably trying to forget him. All by himself, Harris embodied the dot-com bubble of the 1990s: ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Stay away from stalking ‘Steve’
Whatever popular good will and box office credibility Sandra Bullock reestablished with this summer’s “The Proposal’’ is hereby undone - no, obliterated - with “All About Steve,’’ easily the worst movie of the week, month, year, and Bullock’s entire career. It is to comedy what leprosy once was to the island of Molokai: a plague best contemplated from many miles ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In ‘Flame and Citron,’ Nazi killers in less-‘glorious’ detail
The World War II resistance drama “Flame and Citron’’ is reportedly the costliest Danish movie ever made. What’s most distinctive about the film, though, isn’t in the budget. Despite the blazing red hair of one of its title protagonists, this long, tense historical drama is obsessed with shades of gray. Through a fluke of release-schedule timing, it arrives as the ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
1950s housewife role is a good fit for Zellweger
A lot of Renée Zellweger movies - “Chicago,’’ “Cold Mountain,’’ “Down With Love,’’ “Cinderella Man,’’ “Leatherheads,’’ “Appaloosa,’’ and, opening today, “My One and Only’’ - are set in the past. She makes sense there, not so much for who she is but who she reminds us of. Her blondness, those muscular cheeks, that voice so full of twang and diction: ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In ‘Munyurangabo,’ finding optimism in war-torn Africa
‘Munyurangabo,’’ a contemplative film about the ongoing aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, tells the story of two young Rwandan men - one Hutu, the other Tutsi - on the road. Among the first images we see is that of a machete, and it stays with you because the person holding it, Ngabo, couldn’t be more than 15. And for a ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Popularity comes at a price for ‘World’s Greatest Dad’
In Bobcat Goldthwait’s black comedy “World’s Greatest Dad,’’ Robin Williams plays Lance Clayton, a failed writer and, consequently, a sad-sack high school poetry teacher. His humdrum life turns right-side-up after his son, Kyle (Daryl Sabara), dies during an autoerotic sex act. He makes the death look like a suicide, even concocting an online suicide note and journal entries that endear ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘Somers Town’ a slice of life in an unforgiving London
Shane Meadows specializes in small, piercing tales of working-class England, some of which are comedies (2002’s “Once Upon a Time in the Midlands’’) and some of which slip into colder waters, like 2006’s brilliant “This Is England.’’ Next to that film, Meadows’s latest, “Somers Town,’’ is a trifle: A short black-and-white lark with sharp edges and a soft center. It ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Halloween’ sequel has few treats
Is there a point to remaking “Halloween’’? For the first half of Rob Zombie’s 2007 redo, the answer seemed to be yes, within limits, as Zombie delved deep into bogeyman Michael Myers’s origins. The material wasn’t so much jolting as absorbingly weird, full of the low-res ’70s horror vibe on which the rocker-turned-filmmaker has built his screen (and music) career. ... (By Tom Russo, Globe Correspondent)
The final ‘Destination’? One can hope.
Ten years ago, the original “Final Destination’’ posed a legitimate metaphysical science-fiction headache: What if cheating death cursed you with premonitions of other people’s demises? The movie made paranoia just contagious enough for you to leave the theater nervous a bus would run you over. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘I Sell the Dead’ has fun with D-grade horror
‘I Sell the Dead’’ is a schlocky D-grade horror film made with deep love and fond reverence for the schlocky D-grade horror films that have come before it. The Hammer screamers of the ’60s, the Empire gore-fests of the ’80s - even a little of the EC horror comics of the ’50s finds its way into this project’s bloodstream. “Dead’’ ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Captain Abu Raed' flies over the top
Abu Raed (Nadim Sawalha) is a janitor at Amman’s airport. One day he wears home a discarded airline captain’s cap. Neighborhood children decide he must be a pilot and start following him around. He beguiles them with tales of flight. (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
Andy Griffith is too good to play in this ‘Game’
You hate to see it come to this. Surely Andy Griffith, once the country-classy sheriff of TV’s Mayberry and more recently the most memorable customer in Adrienne Shelly’s big-screen “Waitress,’’ can do better than “Play the Game,’’ a film in which comedic maturity is measured in jokes about hemorrhoids, constipation, and erectile dysfunction. (By Janice Page, Globe Correspondent)
Film takes a journey with three genuine guitar heroes
In “It Might Get Loud,’’ Jimmy Page, the Edge, and Jack White sit on a loosely decorated set and talk to each other about playing the guitar. As documentary, it’s low concept. But it’s never dull. They spin records they like for one another. They play each other’s music. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were footage somewhere of them ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Taking Woodstock' is a nice, safe trip
All summer, we’ve been subjected to big thinking about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock - personal essays, florid reminiscences, and roving explorations that ask, “What Did It All Mean?’’ Until we get the inevitable HBO miniseries (Laura Linney as Grace Slick?) we have Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock,’’ or what I’ve come to think of as “The Muppets Take Yasgur’s Farm.’’ (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘The Way We Get By’ follows military greeters worth meeting
Officially, the folks who see off and welcome home those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are not a veterans’ group. They’re part of the Maine Troop Greeters, and, yes, a few of them are either veterans or have relatives serving in the military. But what we discover about three senior-citizen greeters in Aron Gaudet’s touching documentary, “The Way We Get ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Animated ‘Party Mix’ looks like fun
Let’s start with a disclaimer. Unlike other movies reviewed in these pages, there wasn’t an advance screening or DVD available for the films that make up “Party Mix: 2009 Animated Shorts Program.’’ All but a few are available online, however, on YouTube or elsewhere, sometimes in low-resolution versions. Given the wildly diverse nature of the films, an Internet scavenger hunt ... (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
IRA informer brings life to ‘Fifty Dead Men Walking’
‘Fifty Dead Men Walking’’ provides another example of what happens when mediocre moviemaking meets an interesting life. In the late 1980s Martin McGartland was an Irish punk who ran with punks who had IRA connections. Rather than throw him in jail for any one of his petty crimes, British security forces roped him into informing on IRA activities. His participation ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Tarantino makes a maniacal mockery of the Holocaust
If the title weren’t already taken, it’d be tempting to think of Quentin Tarantino’s new movie - indeed, his entire career - as “Infinite Jest.’’ Inside the fevered junk-pop particle accelerator that is this director’s brain, moments of power and banality, meaning and absurdity, all collide into each other, creating movie mash-ups as brilliant as they are pointless. You take ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Shorts’ is long on hyperactive energy
You might want to avoid topping the kids off with high-fructose corn syrup before going to see “Shorts.’’ The new family feature from Robert Rodriguez, of “Spy Kids’’ fame and “Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl 3D’’ infamy, is, if anything, even more hopped up than those films. If you want to peel your children off the ceiling after the ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Not Quite Hollywood’ an over-the-top look at films from down under
Mark Hartley’s documentary “Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation’’ flings an abridged history of Australian exploitation movies at the screen. It’s as slickly enjoyable as anything you’d see on VH1. The movie’s been done in the giddy, tacky spirit of the cinematic sensationalism it seeks to explain - Ozploitation. Jiggling breasts, spilled blood, candy-colored inter-titles, John Holmes’s ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
For those with stomach for it, ‘Thirst’ delivers
After seeing “Thirst,’’ I can’t shake the image of Park Chan-wook, the ferociously talented director of Korean action-horror movies like “Oldboy,’’ cruising the aisles in the supermarket of movie genres. He’s piling his shopping cart with this and that: a vampire fantasy, a disease-epidemic drama, a “Postman Always Rings Twice’’ slice of murderous adultery. A little l’amour fou , some ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Post Grad’ looks at life after college
In “Post Grad,’’ Ryden Malby has a plan: Graduate from college armed with a gilded resume, cruise into a top publishing firm, and snag an airy apartment overlooking downtown LA. Naturally, the floundering job market intervenes to torpedo her dreams. “The world is a screwy place,’’ Ryden’s father says. “It doesn’t play by the rules.’’ In the end, neither does ... (By Laura Bennett, Globe Correspondent)
In 3-D, ‘X Games’ jump off the screen
Touted as the most elaborately filmed 3-D production ever, “X Games 3D: The Movie’’ uses 10 simultaneous digital camera rigs to cover snowboarding, rally car racing, motocross, and skateboarding. The action includes the Step Up, a gravity-defying high jump on a dirt bike. Skateboarders ride monster Mega Ramps, structures that can be 350 feet long and 200 feet high. (By Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Correspondent)
‘The Silence Before Bach’ finds the pureness in music and more
Pere Portabella is the ghost in the machine of international cinema. The 79-year-old Catalan has directed eight features and a number of shorts over the years, produced Luis Buñuel’s still-shocking “Viridiana’’ (1961) (and briefly became an enemy of the state in the process), has written screenplays, acted in films, and served as a senator and a member of the Catalonian ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘24 City’ delivers sweet and sentimental stories of displacement
Few directors have devoted their work to the human ravages of their country’s economic growth. Of course, few countries have grown as fast and furiously as China. In that respect, Jia Zhangke has been in the right place at the right time. But the films he’s made in this decade - among them, “Unknown Pleasures,’’ “Platform,’’ “The World,’’ “Still Life,’’ ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Spread' movie review -- 'Spread' showtimes
“Spread’’ is the salacious tale of philanderer and expert mooch Nikki (Ashton Kutcher), who sloughs off women like a second skin. “I don’t want to be arrogant,’’ Nikki declares in a stony voice-over, “but I’m an incredibly attractive man.’’ And thus begins the pageant of energetic nudity - mostly Kutcher’s - and elaborately choreographed sex scenes that form the spine ... (By Laura Bennett, Globe Correspondent)
‘The Goods’ is ultimately a clunker
The government recently decided to subsidize the purchase of new automobiles for Americans driving alleged junk. The program is called Cash for Clunkers. But anyone looking for a cheap, timely vicarious alternative might try “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard,’’ a comedy set on a used-car lot in Temecula, Calif. You put up the cash, the movie clunks. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
As teen musicals go, ‘Bandslam’ rocks
Imagine the shock of “High School Musical’’ fans, Disney Channel addicts, their parents, and their deeply unwilling older siblings who sit down for “Bandslam’’ and are confronted with . . . a good movie. Not an original movie, but a good one: pleasurable, smart, aware that pop music has a history that goes back further than Britney Spears’s first CD. ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Second Skin’ looks at how online gamers deal with reality
Don’t expect “Second Skin’’ to shatter stereotypes about computer gamers. The documentary spotlights devotees of epic online multiplayer games like World of Warcraft and Everquest. No surprise, they tend to be junk-food lovers considerably less swashbuckling than their online avatars. The players spend countless hours in the digital realm, literally turning their backs on the physical world. And their most ... (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
‘Lorna’s Silence’ says all that it needs to
The first image in “Lorna’s Silence’’ is a wad of bills being counted. We don’t see money all that often thereafter, but its presence at the beginning of this sad and solemn drama is striking. This, the movie makes clear, is what it’s all about: the petty greed that has loosened a moral universe from its moorings. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Ponyo’ integrates stuff of dreams with an ecological message
The gist of the new Hayao Miyazaki movie sure sounds familiar. A 5-year-old boy named Sosuke makes a pet of a fish-like creature (she looks like a nightgown wearing a tadpole) that washes up on a cove near his house in a small fishing village. The creature, who Sosuke names Ponyo, tastes ham and human blood and decides that she ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ is marriage of inconvenience
What is it with men in women’s romantic fantasy films? When they’re not aging backward like Benjamin Button, they’re falling in love from two years away (“The Lake House’’) or from the Great Beyond (“Ghost’’) or from another planet (“Starman’’). They’re perfect but just not for keeping. The good ones, these movies imply, always get away. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Giamatti sells spoof about a black market for souls
It’s awfully soon for Paul Giamatti to spoof himself. Should the guy who played John Adams for HBO and the merlot snob in “Sideways’’ be ready to bite his own hand? In “Cold Souls,’’ a dramatic comedy by Sophie Barthes, he doesn’t bite that hand so much as contemplate it. The movie turns what could have been a tedious meta-movie ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
District 9 movie review - District 9 showtimes
The last time I felt the sort of outrageously kinetic action-movie high "District 9" delivers, it was 1981 and George Miller, Mel Gibson, and "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" had just come roaring out of Australia. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' movie review -- 'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' showtimes
Paramount has gone to a lot of trouble to keep its $175 million action extravaganza “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra’’ from the prying eyes of critics and sneak-preview audiences. The studio says it hopes to avoid the sort of brutal catcalls that greeted “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,’’ a movie which, with almost $400 million in tickets sold, is ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Romantic drama ‘Adam’ fails to take a chance
What should we do with “Adam’’? We could start by wishing it a livelier title. The Adam to whom it refers is a lonely New York toymaker who has Asperger’s syndrome. People associated with “Adam’’ seem to be seeing it as a useful tool to raise awareness for the disorder, which, for those who live with it, makes social interactions ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg’ pays tribute to the first TV sitcom
‘The Goldbergs,’’ which ran on radio and television from 1929 to 1956, has three claims on posterity. The story of a middle-class Jewish family in the Bronx, the series is considered the first TV sitcom. It was also a landmark in Jewish assimilation - the original title, revealingly, was “The Rise of the Goldbergs.’’ And there’s the formidability of its ... (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
‘Julie & Julia’ is a chef’s delight
“Julie & Julia’’ is the easiest thing Nora Ephron has ever done with a movie. There’s not much to argue with. Half the film is spent with Meryl Streep as Julia Child in France in 1949. Half is spent 50 years later with Amy Adams as Julie Powell, a Texan living in Queens, who devotes a year (and a blog) ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Going deep to save dolphins
This has been the summer of the food docu-thriller. “The End of the Line’’ tried to scare us to do something about the world’s overfishing problem. “Food, Inc.’’ twisted our arms (far more successfully) to think, really think, about what we’re eating and where it comes from. They’re thrillers insofar as they aim to scare you straight with facts, statistics, ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Charming ‘Paper Heart’ looks for love with puppets and put-ons
In the arch make-believe documentary “Paper Heart,’’ actress-comedian Charlyne Yi crisscrosses the country interviewing average Americans about love. These sequences are ostensibly real, but Yi’s director, Nicholas Jasenovec, is played in front of the camera by actor Jake M. Johnson, and the scenes documenting Yi’s growing romance with actor Michael Cera, playing himself, are patently staged. The movie’s a platypus: ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Getaway’ offers summer escape
‘A Perfect Getaway’’ may be a lousy title for a suspense thriller, but once you see the film, it does make a certain multi-leveled sense. In the same way, the movie itself turns out to be a neatly crafted B-movie pleasure - nothing fancy, but the gasps, screams, and (mostly) intentional laughs are there. Anyway, “The Honeymoon Killers’’ was already ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Under Our Skin' movie review -- 'Under Our Skin' showtimes
Heartbreaking stories of patients suffering life-shattering illness make “Under Our Skin’’ compelling. It would have been an even better movie if the filmmakers had been more diligent in following the money. (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
'Aliens in the Attic' movie review - 'Aliens in the Attic' showtimes
How many alien-invasion movies do you see where you root for the aliens to win? Except for one splendidly bizarre scene, “Aliens in the Attic’’ is conveyor-belt family product, an action/adventure/sci-fi/comedy made from the bland corporate DNA of Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. It appears designed for families who never leave the mall. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'The Collector' movie review - 'The Collector' showtimes
“The Collector’’ is another helping of egregious slicing and slashing from Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who wrote the most recent, much lesser installments of the “Saw’’ movies. Having pushed that sadistic franchise into self-parody (all that’s missing now is the installment about the Hollywood movie being made about those movies), Dunstan and Melton aim to start their own horror ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘Eldorado’ exits on road to redemption
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby they’re not. But director-actor Bouli Lanners and costar Fabrice Adde are on a comedy road to “Eldorado,’’ even if it takes place in a flat patch of mostly deserted Belgian landscape rather than some Hollywood Shangri-La, and silence, not show tunes, dominates the soundtrack. (By Thomasine Berg, Globe Staff)
Funny People movie review - Funny People showtimes
It is, I guess, an unbreakable law of show business physics that if you keep telling someone he’s a comedy genius, he’ll disavow the comedy and obsess about the genius. He’ll get serious, as if the gift of transporting audiences with laughter weren’t profound enough on its own. Down this road have gone Charlie Chaplin, Jerry Lewis, Woody Allen, Robin ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
This ‘Shrink’ has serious issues
In “Shrink,’’ Kevin Spacey plays a Los Angeles psychiatrist, pothead, and best-selling author who’s been depressed since his wife killed herself. Folks like Robin Williams, Saffron Burrows, Dallas Roberts, and Keke Palmer play the patients. They’re all thumbnail sketches masquerading as characters. And for about 10 minutes, I played along. The movie introduces most of these people during the opening ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Afghan Star' shares a stark reality
“Afghan Star,’’ the TV show, is exactly what “American Idol’’ would look like if the contestants were playing for the biggest stakes imaginable: political and social freedom, gender equality, a chance to heal a country 30 years under the yokes of war and religious dictatorship. “Afghan Star,’’ the documentary about that TV show, is one of the most hopeful and ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Died Young, Stayed Pretty’ focuses on rock-concert poster artists
By the second tangent on Elvis Presley conspiracy theories, it’s apparent that Eileen Yaghoobian has almost no control over “Died Young, Stayed Pretty.’’ Ostensibly, her documentary is about the demise of rock-concert poster art. But few of the artists have anything enlightening to say about their craft, which reached its outlaw apex not long after the arrival of the cover ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘Séraphine’ offers a slowly drawn portrait of art and madness
‘Séraphine’’ may be one of the spookiest, most unsettling films ever made about the hazy line between art and madness. That’s a theme the movies have done to death, yet it finds new life in the title performance by Yolande Moreau, a shapeless middle-aged actress who embodies the creative urge with an intensity half animal and half divine. Earlier this ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘The Ugly Truth’ is a very light romantic comedy
Like most women in movies right now, Katherine Heigl was born in the wrong decade. She has the misfortune to work in a time when her business values women either as something else for the camera to do (apparently Megan Fox is all the transformer certain men need) or as a device to confuse gaydars. Sixty years ago, she might ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
As a satire of war and politics, ‘In the Loop’ is a bloody riot
Leave it to the British to raise invective to a high art. As a ranking cabinet minister in the brutally funny political satire “In the Loop,’’ actor Peter Capaldi unfurls dazzling verbal ribbons of the foulest language imaginable, thunderbolts of vulgarity that carry the force of precision carpet-bombing. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘The End of the Line’ gets tangled in overload of data
Dining conspicuously is easy. Dining conscientiously is not. If you’re going to eat, say, bluefin tuna at Nobu, you should know that bluefin tuna is endangered. And if you need a movie to club you upside the head with this news, hold steady for “The End of the Line,’’ a new documentary that traces overfishing in the world’s oceans. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘Humpday’ offers up laughs and limitations
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Two good friends dare each other to do each other in a homemade porn film, then try to back nervously away from the moment of truth without appearing to wimp out. “Zack and Miri Make a Porno’’ was last year’s entry, and it was reasonably mainstream: name stars, well-known director, professional camerawork, ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'One Day You'll Understand' slowly reveals a wartime mystery
Reticence is unusual for films about Vichy France, the Nazi occupation, and the Holocaust. Disclosure, denial, suppression, resistance, we’ve seen. But the discretion bound up in reticence is also a powerful thing, implying what a survivor of sorts can’t bring herself to articulate. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Orphan' is creepy, funny, and appalling
To the Hellspawn ranks of Damien, Rosemary’s baby, Rhoda “Bad Seed’’ Penmark, and the Olsen twins, let us now add the title character of “Orphan.’’ Her name is Esther, which sounds about as scary as your bubbe, but as played by the very serious young actress Isabelle Fuhrman she’s a prim little psycho with a taste for cutlery and an ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Guinea pig spies face tough mission in 'G-Force'
"G-Force’’ represents an inconceivably tragic waste of a brilliant idea. Frankly, if you can’t squeeze a decent movie out of talking 3-D superagent guinea pigs - complete with itty-bitty night-vision goggles and jet-propelled grappling hooks - you may as well throw in the towel and consider a career in insurance. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Windmill Movie' is the film its subject couldn't complete
Judging solely by his accomplishments, it would be hard to discern that Richard P. Rogers led a frustrating life. Before he died of cancer in 2001 at 57, he taught and ran the Film Studies Center at Harvard. He made several well-regarded documentaries, including 1991’s “Pictures From a Revolution,’’ an impressionistic work about Nicaragua and the Sandinistas. He helped found ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Soul Power' offers compelling glimpse of music greats
Everyone knows something about the Rumble in the Jungle. Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman in the country formerly known as Zaire in 1974. A documentary about the fight, “When We Were Kings,’’ won an Oscar. Less well known is that the Rumble had a soundtrack. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'(500) Days of Summer' is a charmer
“(500) Days of Summer’’ is a gimmick flick down to its title: Summer is a girl, not a season, and 500 days is the amount of time the hero spends falling in and out of love with her. Making his first feature after a successful run of pop videos (Regina Spektor, Daniel Powter, Fergie, etc.), Mark Webb dices the scenes ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'Unmistaken Child,' the making of a spiritual leader
To accept what happens in “Unmistaken Child,’’ you don’t have to believe in reincarnation. You do, however, have to believe that the people in this movie believe in it - that the idea of a soul transmigrating from a dying Buddhist lama to a newborn boy is part of the conceptual stew in which they and their society swim every ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Suspense in ‘Half-Blood Prince’ lays groundwork for big finale
Installment six of the “Harry Potter’’ series, “The Half-Blood Prince,’’ merely gets us one movie closer to the finale, which, apparently is so big (and by big, I mean “$$$$’’) that it’s being split into two parts. This is the latest dot in the blockbuster equivalent of points of ellipses. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Walls Have Ears movie review - Walls Have Ears showtimes
“Walls Have Ears’’ tells the story of a Boston-area family whose lottery windfall brings guns, drugs, and forbidden love into their suburban home. Maybe if that $2 million had been available for the movie’s budget, local filmmaker Patrick Jerome could have turned it into a modern-day African-American “Friends of Eddie Coyle,’’ another workaday Boston crime drama in which commuter rail ... (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
'Herb & Dorothy' looks at longtime art collectors
For a young artist in the middle of a project, having Herb and Dorothy Vogel drop by your studio must be like a set of grandparents stopping in. They want to see how things are going. He sits down at the table and starts making assessments. The artist mentions that he’s not quite done yet. Herb basically disagrees. Oh, I ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'I Love You, Beth Cooper' rehashes teen films
“I Love You, Beth Cooper’’ is unusual in that it’s the rare teen stu-com - shorthand for “stupid comedy,’’ a proud lineage that goes back to “Porky’s’’ and beyond - that’s based on a novel. On the other hand, maybe not so unusual, since author Larry Doyle has written for “The Simpsons’’ and “Beavis and Butt-Head’’ (and The New Yorker, ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'Dillinger is Dead,' alienation lives
Pity the unsuspecting moviegoer who wanders into the Brattle expecting to see the new Johnny Depp film. “Dillinger Is Dead’’ is, instead, an unearthed rarity: a dryly rapturous 1969 drama of modern alienation directed by the excellent, underrated Italian filmmaker Marco Ferreri (1928-97). With sizable debts owed to mid-’60s Jean-Luc Godard, “Dillinger’’ is one of those artful endurance tests that ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Blood: The Last Vampire' lacks bite
Anyone waiting for another installment of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight’’ or sitting on the edge of his sofa for a new episode of HBO’s “True Blood’’ might want to hold on. Don’t let the subtitle of “Blood: The Last Vampire’’ alarm you. The finale of this tedious piece of Asian-ish action-schlock based on a popular anime series implies an intention to ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Lost Son of Havana' tracks Luis Tiant's return
They called him LOO-IE!, and the roly-poly pitcher with the Fu Manchu knew how to respond. Luis Tiant tortured batters by twisting toward center field and jerking his head in the air before delivering the next pitch with his rubber right arm. (By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff)
Explosively high stakes in 'The Hurt Locker'
Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) dismantles roadside bombs as part of an Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad. In addition to being very good at it, he’s also very taken with the excitement of risk and the pleasure he receives from locating and detonating bombs. In “The Hurt Locker,’’ the thrill is unexpectedly contagious. You don’t realize how riveted ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Bruno' is no 'Borat'
After touring America as the nincompoop Kazakh journalist Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen tries again (strains, actually) as Brüno, the flamboyantly attired nincompoop Austrian journalist who comes to America seeking fame by every means necessary. That includes throwing his crotch at the camera and trying to shoot a sex video with an understandably terrified Ron Paul. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Music reigns in 'Throw Down Your Heart'
‘The banjo has been associated for so long with a white Southern stereotype,’’ says Béla Fleck, an American virtuoso of the instrument with 11 Grammys under his belt. And so, in the documentary “Throw Down Your Heart,’’ Fleck sets out to upend racial paradigms and unearth the African roots of his chosen instrument on a trek through Uganda, Tanzania, The ... (By Laura Bennett, Globe Correspondent)
‘A Man Among Giants’ examines an attention seeker’s last hurrah
You think South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is a politician with problems? Doug “Tiny the Terrible’’ Tunstall is 4 feet 7 inches tall and living on a fixed income that he estimates at $10,000 a year. He’s had run-ins with the law, and the highlights of his resume include pro wrestling, multiple appearances on “The Jerry Springer Show,’’ and a ... (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
'In a Dream' movie review - 'In a Dream' showtimes
The streets of Isaiah Zagar’s South Philadelphia neighborhood are flush with mosaic: giddy sweeps of tessellated color that swallow whole stretches of wall. For decades, Zagar has blanketed surfaces with tiles, mirror shards, glasswork, bicycle spokes - explosive constellations unfurled from a delirious brain. “In a Dream,’’ a documentary directed by his youngest son, Jeremiah, is a love story between ... (By Laura Bennett, Globe Staff)
'Jerichow' movie review - 'Jerichow' showtimes
As ridiculous German suspense dramas go, you could do worse than “Jerichow.’’ It’s the sort of movie in which you know what’s likely to happen because whoever made it - here that would be Christian Petzold - appears to have just discovered concepts like foreshadowing and irony. In “Jerichow,’’ when a toy cigarette lighter makes an appearance in one early ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'The Girl From Monaco' movie review - 'The Girl From Monaco' showtimes
‘The Girl From Monaco’’ doesn’t seem to know whether it wants to be a sprightly sex comedy or an enigmatic little thriller. Unfortunately, it’s neither very funny nor very thrilling. (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
Milton Glaser documentary is a drawn-out lovefest
‘What I like is working on all levels of the culture,’’ the graphic designer Milton Glaser says at one point in Wendy Keys’s documentary about him, “Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight.’’ (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
‘Women of Faith’ is guided by the voices of nuns
Rebecca M. Alvin’s documentary “Women of Faith’’ attempts to tell a history of New England nuns. It winds up listening to various nuns discuss their relationship to God, the Catholic Church, and their sexuality. The film is part of the Museum of Fine Arts’ local filmmaker series, and most of the 60-minute run time is spent with the women of ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
‘Ice Age’ has some cool dinos, but few roars of laughter
First, a clarification for annoyed paleontologists everywhere: The makers of “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs’’ are aware that woolly mammoths and Tyrannosaurus rexes never actually shared time and space on our planet. But there’s a reason they team up in this 3-D sequel anyway. Dinosaurs are cool. (By Janice Page, Globe Correspondent)
‘Public Enemies’ has powerful stars, problematic script
How could “Public Enemies’’ go wrong? The director is Michael Mann, one of the smartest mainstream mavericks working. Star Johnny Depp brings his sizable intelligence and charisma to bear on the role of John Dillinger, the legendary Depression-era bank robber. Christian Bale plays Dillinger’s implacable FBI hellhound, Melvin Purvis. The shoot-outs have been shot with a fastidiousness that extends to ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘Whatever Works’ gets caught up in caricature development
‘Whatever Works’’? That sounds like Woody Allen’s approach to his career these days. The 73-year-old director made his last film in Spain because that was where the money was; his new one is based on a script written three decades ago for Zero Mostel and pulled out of mothballs when a writers’ strike loomed last year. Allen’s habit of getting ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘My Sister’s Keeper’ alters the novel, but not the need for hankies
The domestic afflictions in “My Sister’s Keeper’’ pile onto the Fitzgerald family with biblical fury. Sixteen-year-old Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) has battled leukemia for most of her life. Eleven-year-old Anna (Abigail Breslin) has had it with being a “donor child,’’ born to provide marrow and tissue for her sister, and is suing for legal emancipation. Oldest son Jesse (Evan Ellingson) is ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’ doesn’t hold back anything
If nothing else, “The Stoning of Soraya M.’’ is truth in titling. Soraya M. gets stoned - and not in a Harold and Kumar way. The projectiles are rocks as opposed to hydroponic grass. And, appropriately enough, this is less a movie than a blunt instrument, a bit of political parable, a bit more outrage, and nary a scrap of ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
For ‘$9.99,’ animated characters and story lines
If the meaning of life could be had for less than $10, it makes perfect sense that it would be discovered first by clay figures in a stop-motion animated film. Many of us grew up on the lessons of “Davey and Goliath.’’ Plus, who’s closer to God than Mr. Bill? (By Janice Page, Globe Correspondent)
As the older woman, Pfeiffer shines in ‘Cheri’
It takes a while for “Cheri’’ to limber up and get to the heart of the matter. A Belle Époque romantic drama reuniting some of the talents from 1988’s “Dangerous Liaisons’’ - director Stephen Frears, star Michelle Pfeiffer, writer Christopher Hampton - the movie at first seems a waxwork parody of Merchant Ivory-style filmmaking. It’s all bustles and brocades and ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Movie Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’’ is - there’s no polite way to say this - 2 1/2 hours of tumescence disguised as a motion picture. Giant robots smash each other to rivets, Shanghai and the Egyptian pyramids are reduced to rubble, fighter jets scream across the sky, bombs burst in air, and Megan Fox’s measurements are deployed on the screen ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
"Treeless Mountain'' shares sad story of two Seoul sisters
It’s a tricky business when smart, articulate filmmakers examine inarticulate lives. How much do you show and how much do you tell? When do you push your characters to where you want them to go and when do you let them get there on their own? Directors in the school of what a recent New York Times article called “neo-neo ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
"Year One'' takes a charmless trip back in time
When the movie summer of 2009 is writ in the annals, Hank Azaria may turn out to have been its secret star. Certainly he deserves a plaque for most saves. He alone made “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian’’ bearable as the prissy evil pharaoh, and his handful of scenes as the biblical patriarch Abraham - promising mass ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Bullock and Ryan are an unhappy couple in "The Proposal''
Casting a romantic comedy is like eating. Just because you like sardines and cheese doesn’t mean you like them together. Sardines and cheese together is gross. As it turns out, so is the pairing of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Individually, his sarcasm can be amusing, and her straining for comedy is occasionally funny. In “The Proposal,’’ neither brings out ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
"Food, Inc.'' serves up righteous indignation
As you might gather from the title, Rob Kenner’s documentary “Food, Inc.’’ is, in part, concerned with the extent to which industrial food production has replaced farming in America. It’s part activism, part school-assembly lecture. If you’re told where most fast-food chains’ ground beef comes from, how much E. coli is in it, how much ammonia has been added to ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Voices are heard loudly in "Burma''
To watch the riveting documentary “Burma VJ’’ at the precise moment when the upheaval over Iran’s election is playing out in the news is a giddy, distressing deja vu experience. Here’s a film about the late-summer 2007 uprisings in Myanmar, one of the most brutally controlled countries on the planet, cobbled together from video and cellphone camera footage, tape recordings, ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In "Tetro,'' Coppola rediscovers himself
Were it some unknown director’s first movie or some great director’s last, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Tetro’’ would be either auspicious or loosely august. But alas, Coppola, who at 70 seems far from his beginnings and not terribly close to the end, brings with each new film the baggage of having once been himself. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'International Playboy' is full of attractive images, but little else
Bright lights, self pity. In “The Last International Playboy,’’ Jason Behr plays handsome, stubbled New York writer Jack Frost - yup, Jack Frost. He’s spent the last seven years partying with supermodels instead of writing a second novel. That’s because he’s trying to drown the torch that he’s carrying for his childhood sweetheart, the subject of his first book, who’s ... (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
"Moon'' stars Sam Rockwell as an astronaut sadly finishing three years in space
‘Moon’’ might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for fans of Sam Rockwell. Will there ever be more of him in one movie than there is here? This is partly a matter of time (he’s in the whole movie). But it’s also a matter of volume: There’s more than one of him. Rockwell in duplicate is the most interesting thing about “Moon,’’ ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
"Departures'' confronts death -- gently
‘Departures’’ is an art-house crowd pleaser about death, a film that touches on profound matters even as it sentimentalizes them into emotional compost. It’s easy to see why the film won the foreign-language Oscar in February over better, tougher works like “Waltz With Bashir,’’ “The Class,’’ and “Revanche.’’ This is the kind of tastefully poignant drama that asks its audience ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Blessed is the Match movie review - Blessed is the Match showtimes
In 1944, a young Hungarian named Hannah Senesh parachuted into Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. A few years earlier, she had discovered Zionism, left Europe before the Germans descended, and arrived in Palestine before it became Israel. The occasion for her homecoming was a clandestine British military mission to locate downed fliers and rescue endangered Jews, one of whom was Senesh's mother. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Pelham' stays on track for almost the entire ride
Once upon a time, in a land called the early 1970s, New York City was a hole. A bankrupt, dirty, cynical, exhausted sewer of urban blight, light years away from the city's current status as shiny tourist destination. There were movies made about this New York - "Dog Day Afternoon," "The French Connection," "The Out of Towners" - and one ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Away We Go' journeys from serious to smug
"Away We Go" is a road movie for idealists. Verona and Burt (Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski) cross the continent in pursuit of the perfect place to raise their unborn baby. Among other cities, they try Tucson, Phoenix, and Montreal, hoping one of them feels right enough to stay. Each location introduces a friend or relative of varying emotional stability ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Imagine That' stretches a cute concept
'Imagine That" is family-movie mediocrity (lately, it seems that unless we're talking about Pixar there's no other kind). A workaholic dad bonds with his creative 6-year-old daughter, who brings him to her imaginary world, which due either to lack of money or, well, imagination, the audience doesn't get to see. You can take the title any number of ways: as ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'O'Horten' reveals the mysterious universe to a retired train engineer
'O'Horten" is a precise, deadpan drama of slapstick existentialism - a Bent Hamer movie, in other words. The hero is a 67-year-old Oslo train engineer named Odd Horten (Bård Owe), but, really, there's nothing very odd about him. He's neatly pressed, polite, reserved. The only time he seems to unbend is in the cab of his train as it cuts ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Lake Tahoe movie review - Lake Tahoe showtimes
"Lake Tahoe" opens with the throaty revving of a car engine. Lanky teen Juan (Diego Cataño) has crashed the family Nissan into a pole, just the first in a series of woeful inconveniences that plague him as he wrestles with far weightier troubles at home. This low-budget Mexican film from director Fernando Eimbcke, whose debut was the well-received "Duck Season," ... (By Laura Bennett, Globe Correspondent)
'What Goes Up' movie review - 'What Goes Up' showtimes
Campbell Babbitt (Steve Coogan) is an emotionally boyish British newspaper reporter sent, as his New York editor puts it, "to Siberia," a.k.a. New Hampshire in January. His assignment is to cover the local hoopla surrounding the Challenger space shuttle liftoff. It's a few days before January 28, 1986. No one yet knows Christa McAuliffe's ship will be destroyed in an ... (By Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Correspondent)
Nia Vardalos finds love, and some laughs, among the ruins
The folks responsible for "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" - the "ethnic" romantic comedy that ate the 2002 box office - have made "My Life in Ruins," a second cute, shoddy-looking movie. The Ruins are Greek. The life, once again, is Nia Vardalos's. The problem with the new movie is the same as with the previous one. Vardalos has this ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Il Divo' a dazzlingly grim look at corruption, greed
'Il Divo" is showboat moviemaking, but the opulence is of a piece with the film's damning assessment of the durable Italian elder statesman Giulio Andreotti. It begins as a collection of arresting images and concludes two hours later in the same fashion. The opening minutes parade images of murdered bankers and politicians, all of whom are identified by blood-red title ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Ferrell, chased by dinosaurs, aliens, and '70s schlock in 'Land of the Lost'
About halfway into "Land of the Lost," our intrepid time-space travelers stumble into a desert wasteland filled with the half-buried bric-a-brac of human civilization: Ferris wheels and catapults, convertibles and fast food signs, swimming pools and phone booths and ice cream trucks. It's a cultural boneyard. Not at all coincidentally, so's the movie. Genially terrible, "Lost" is lazy, sloppy multiplex ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Closeted politicians stir filmmaker's 'Outrage'
Of the many insinuations in "Outrage," Kirby Dick's sad, devastating new documentary about closeted gay politicians - OK, alleged closeted gay politicians - the one that's most disturbing is the case made against a former Southern congressman. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Hangover' hurts so good
About 15 minutes into "The Hangover," the movie arrives at the scene that unquestionably served as the screenwriters' initial inspiration. It's a worst-case-scenario of bachelor party morning-after, and it is howlingly funny. A blow-up doll floats in the Jacuzzi, and a chicken struts through the living room. One of the chairs is on fire. There's a tiger in the bathroom. ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Pixar's 'Up' is a fantastical voyage
I think we can safely say at this point that Pixar has entered its Baroque period. When "Toy Story" came out in 1995, who would have guessed that within 15 years the company would be creating the richest, most resonant entertainments in Hollywood - on such subjects as culinary rats and a robot sentinel left in charge of a junkyard ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'The Song of Sparrows' sings with poetic grace
The Muslim phrase Inch'Allah, or "God willing," is used often in "The Song of Sparrows," a new film from the Iranian director Majid Majidi. But God's will shouldn't be confused with a filmmaker's. This is a movie of small details, where Majidi is angling for little tragedies that are orchestrated by screenwriting more than they seem cosmically preordained. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Katyn' brings a WWII massacre to light
'Katyn" is a history lesson for a country and a people forced to forget at gunpoint. A quietly epic, very precise re-creation of events leading up to and following the 1940 massacre of 22,000 Polish Army officers and POWs by Soviet troops in the Katyn forest and elsewhere, the film is a national reckoning brought to the screen by possibly ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Easy Virtue' provides a risky trip to the Roaring Twenties
'Easy Virtue" is based on a 1925 Noel Coward play, and it strains like mad to hoist his weightless, witty Jazz Age banter into the 21st century. The strain shows, but not so badly as you might think; if you can ignore a ridiculously overbearing soundtrack - a big if - the film's a pleasant bauble. Still, those coming in ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Sam Raimi's vision of 'Hell' is a real scream
In 1981, Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead" made a breakthrough for cheap-looking schlock. He found the comedy in dismemberment. The horror had a kind of slapstick kick, simultaneously funny and frightening. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'The Garden' grows with emotion
Seeking to build a municipal incinerator, the city of Los Angeles took by eminent domain a 14-acre site occupied by warehouses in South Central LA in 1986. The purchase price was $5 million. Seventeen years later, the incinerator never built, the city sold the land back to the original owner. The price was only slightly more than in 1986. That ... (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
Not much new or funny in second visit to 'Museum'
'People, Mr. Daly, want the next thing," says a character to ex-museum guard Larry Daly (Ben Stiller) in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," and there's Hollywood's rationale for sequelitis in an over-budgeted, computer-generated nutshell. The follow-up to the surprise 2006 hit movie reeks of No. 2: It's bigger, noisier, shinier, and dumber, and it has no earthly ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Little Ashes' provides more schlock than shock
'Little Ashes" is without question the only movie in the entire history of the medium whose potential audience includes both teenage mall-chicks and devotees of 1920s Spanish surrealism. Since that's an awfully small piece of the Venn diagram, we may as well throw in lovers of bad cinema. At least they'll go home happy. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Summer Hours' explores a catalog memories in a family home for sale
Olivier Assayas's "Summer Hours" features three adult siblings, several long conversations about whether to sell their family's sprawling country house, and one plastic grocery bag containing the plaster pieces of an Edgar Degas sculpture. The movie is full of quiet and sadness. And I'll confess that I miss the irreverence, absurdity, and manic ambition of Assayas's recent work - 2002's ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Movie Review: Tripping along in 'Dance Flick'
If you thought the world couldn't get enough of bad spoof movies, you thought wrong. (By Danny Deza, Globe Correspondent)
In 'The Girlfriend Experience,' everyone is selling something
Fair warning: I had to see "The Girlfriend Experience" twice before its pieces settled into coherent shape. At first the movie seems as wayward and affectless as its main character, a high-priced Manhattan escort played by porn star Sasha Grey. From what we see here, the jury's still out on whether Grey can act in the traditionally accepted mainstream-movie manner, ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'The Country Teacher' proves instructive about the rhythms of rural life
Peter (Pavel Liska) used to teach in Prague. Intelligent and dedicated, he arrives in a small Czech farm town to become the science teacher in the local school. His desire to be at his new school baffles its beefy principal (Cyril Drozda). "Remember, he has taught truly intelligent children," the principal warns Peter's pupils. "Six months," he announces to Peter, ... (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
In 'The Brothers Bloom,' a cascade of cute cons doesn't know when to quit
There's clever and there's clever, and "The Brothers Bloom" is so self-consciously, adorably, aggressively clever that it ties itself in knots even before the title credits come on. A con game about con games, the second film from writer-director Rian Johnson is breezily enjoyable for about 10 minutes, until you realize the entire movie is going to be pitched at ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Rudo y Cursi' examines the goals of two men and an entire society
'Rudo y Cursi" is a grave and calculated affront to the men of Mexico, and that's the source of its roistering charm. A soccer story in which, perversely, the game itself is rarely shown, the movie's democratic in spirit - everyone goes home a loser. But what can you expect, asks writer-director Carlos Cuaron, of a country where all the ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Sleep Dealer' is a clever sci-fi film that drones on in a good way
In "Sleep Dealer," people can upload their memories and sell them on a website. Mexican day laborers work in California at night - from Tijuana. And a popular TV show called "Drones!" features military aircraft annihilating any perceived threat to US national security. The movie's sense of science fiction dovetails with its sense of satire and paranoia. Directed, edited, and ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Tulpan' explores tension between old ways and modern times
In the tradition of ethnographic dramas from "Nanook of the North" to "The Fast Runner," "Tulpan" drops us in the middle of a godforsaken nowhere and marvels at the people who live there. This particular nowhere is the Hunger Steppe in southern Kazakhstan, a terrain awe-inspiring in its vastness and lack of defining features. The place feels like Earth 1.0, ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'Angels & Demons,' Ron Howard exorcises what's best about the book
Not all trash is art, but there's an art to making trash. So, father, forgive the makers of "Angels & Demons," for they know not what they do. Dan Brown's mystery novel, full of flamboyantly murdered cardinals, facts of every gratuitous stripe, and information kiosks masquerading as characters, has been given the serious treatment. OK, no movie whose climax includes ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Swirl of themes, story lines weave through 'Adoration'
'Adoration," the latest cool blue puzzle-box from Canadian writer-director Atom Egoyan, has a lot on its plate. Terrorism, adolescence, anti-Arab racism, mixed marriages, online communities, teacher-student relations, the sins of fathers, the anger of children, the Nativity, and tow-truck ethics are some of the many issues the filmmaker chews over here. That the movie doesn't quite topple over like a ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Management' whimsically traces a creepy kind of love
Don't be fooled by the star wattage: "Management" is a small, underwhelming indie comedy about the cuteness of the long-distance stalker. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Star Trek' prequel is a fresh frontier
This is an edited version of a review that appeared in Tuesday's editions. About two-thirds of the way into the ridiculously satisfying new "Star Trek" movie, there comes a brief shot of the crew on the bridge of the Federation Starship Enterprise. The film has been picking up familiar names as it goes, but you suddenly realize with a jolt ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Merry Gentleman' never really goes out on limb
'Careful" is not a word you'd associate with Michael Keaton - not based on the antic energy that made him a star in the 1980s (and which was on display as recently as 2005's "Game Six"). Keaton's directorial debut, "The Merry Gentleman," though, is an overly muted and cautious piece of work. Watching it is like seeing a man ease ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'Tokyo Sonata,' the everyday is strange
'Tokyo Sonata" begins and ends in calm. But the generic domestic serenity of the opening minutes mutates into an almost otherworldly placidness by the final shot. Sure, the stress of being alive has body-snatched the Sasakis, the typical middle-class Japanese family at the film's center. But so has a catastrophe that neither we nor they can readily identify or explain. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Comedy or drug drama, 'Air' fails to fly either way
'Next Day Air" comes across in trailers as a lightweight screwball enterprise. Its stars include Donald Faison ("Scrubs"), Mike Epps ("All About the Benjamins"), and Mos Def ("Be Kind Rewind"). It's directed by a guy named Benny Boom. (By Janice Page, Globe Correspondent)
'The Limits of Control' is an artful dud
Jim Jarmusch is one of the jewels of independent American filmmaking, a writer-director who has stubbornly and fruitfully pursued his own path for 25 years now. From "Stranger Than Paradise" to "Broken Flowers," he has imagined a fiercely personal world of missed connections and cosmic jokes, of Zen grace and rock 'n' roll cool. He is irreplaceable. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Star Trek movie review - Star Trek showtimes - The Boston Globe
About two-thirds of the way into the ridiculously satisfying new "Star Trek" movie, opening Thursday, there comes a brief shot of the crew on the bridge of the Federation Starship Enterprise. The film has been picking up familiar names as it goes, but you suddenly realize with a jolt that everyone, at last, is here: young, hopeful versions of Captain ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Politics, ethnicity anchor 'Lemon Tree'
In the last few years the Israeli Arab actress Hiam Abbass has become a cinematic force of nature - an Anna Magnani of the Middle East. US moviegoers know her as the mother in "The Visitor," but her best recent role was probably the bride's older sister in 2004's "The Syrian Bride," wearily coping with the ruinous surrealism of borders ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Every Little Step' shares reality and intensity of musical theater
Professional stage actors are a far more compelling subject of study than typical movie actors. Everything about them is turned up a level - their hunger for a part, their self-confidence, self-doubt, their lust for approval. In despair, they bleed charisma. Even in repose, they're projecting to the back of the house. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Wolverine' tells back story of metal-infused mutant
Hello, police? Come quick! A naked man just leapt over a fake-looking waterfall. Describe him? I don't know. Bee Gees hair. Clint Eastwood scowl. Zero-percent body fat. And a metal endoskeleton that would make him hell to stand behind at airport security. I think he just hosted the Oscars. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Ballerina' seeks the soul of a dancer
As every dancer knows, ballet is a grand contradiction. To master its soft, seemingly effortless, and ethereal moves, one must train impossibly hard, embrace rigid discipline, and perfect contortions that are as inwardly punishing as they are outwardly beautiful. (By Janice Page, Globe Correspondent)
In 'Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,' womanizing is spirited, but empty
With "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," Matthew McConaughey completes his transformation into the George Hamilton of his generation. Fit, profoundly tan, rested from sybaritic pleasures we can only guess at (I do hope they still involve bongos), the star now exudes a lazy self-mockery that extends to whatever boondoggle of a movie he finds himself in. Each hoist of his eyebrows ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Terra' treads familiar ground
From: Commander-director Aristomenis Tsirbas To: Aliens and moviegoers (By Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Correspondent)
'American Violet' looks at the wronged and the righteous
It's always something in "American Violet," a pat social drama about the scourges of racism and classism in the Texas legal system. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Tyson' captures ugly paradoxes of fighter's life
One approaches "Tyson" in a protective crouch. How can a documentary about former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson hope to square the ugly paradoxes of the man - the achievements in sports and the conviction for rape, the fame embraced and the ear bitten off? Bad karma is written on his face like those Maori warrior tattoos that turned out ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Michael Caine brings a little magic to 'Is Anybody There?'
To answer the question put forth by the title of "Is Anybody There?": Michael Caine is there, single-handedly lifting a soggy bit of coming-of-age whimsy into the category of the watchable. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Revanche' revels in quiet moments between robbery and revenge
Amid the stillness in Götz Spielman's "Revanche," there is surprise. Not so much the narrative kind - although this intimately drawn crime-melodrama has that - but physical. The camera moves in on a face at some point, and it's breathtaking, since, until that point, it hadn't moved much at all. Spielman builds his film from a flow of steady, deliberate ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Cliched 'Obsessed' isn't much of a thrill
Ladies, I think we've all been here. Some woman at your man's work thinks he belongs to her. She hatches a deranged plot to break you up so she can (legally) have him. He tells you nothing happened. You throw him out. "And where should I go?," he asks. "To hell," you say. He woos you back, but she's still ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
A romance filled with ambivalence in 'Moscow, Belgium'
In "Moscow, Belgium," a minor car accident in a supermarket parking lot leads to love - or, barring that, a tryst or two in the sleeper of a semi. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In 'Fighting,' the gloves really are off
'Fighting" has a dumb title and a story as old as dirt (he fights, he loves, he wins!). But "Fighting" also has real grit and excellent acting. In other words, there is gold in that dirt. The movie courses with the crazy energy and urban life that usually get sapped out of these tales of men beating the life out ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'The Soloist' stars deliver a helpful message
In "The Soloist," Jamie Foxx lets his hair go nappy and swaddles himself in layers of filthy cast-off clothing as Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless and mentally ill Los Angeles street musician. Avoiding eye contact, Nathaniel chatters on in paranoid schizophrenic arias of dysfunctional connection, and you can practically smell the self-righteous Hollywood funk rising off the character. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Informers' drifts along in '80s LA
'The Informers" takes place in Los Angeles in 1983, and the first question that may come to mind is: Why bother? What new lesson or anti-lesson can be gleaned from the soulless hedonism of the synth-drum decade, especially as it concerns the rich, the beautiful, and those who pretend to love them? (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Lymelife' ticks off one cliche after another
Derick and Steven Martini once had a childhood, and now, courtesy of their first movie, we are prisoners of its excruciating ordinariness. For no apparent reason, the brothers have called the film "Lymelife" - one character may have Lyme disease, but that's hardly an excuse - and set the story in 1979. Derick directed "Lymelife"; Steven composed the music (a ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In 'Crips,' A gang mentality for no good reason
Stacy Peralta's documentary "Crips and Bloods: Made in America" means well, I suppose. It sits one or two academics down in front of a vibrantly graffitied wall and lets them explain the provenance of Los Angeles's gang wars. It permits community activists and "gang interventionists" to say a word or two. And the montage of people who've lost someone to ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Costa-Gavras' 'Z' celebrates 40th anniversary
If Costa-Gavras' "Z" wasn't the first political docudrama, it definitely felt like it in 1969. A thriller based on tumultuous, barely-disguised events in early 1960s Greece, the film galvanized audiences worldwide when it was released, amassing an unprecedented five Oscar nominations (including best picture; it won the foreign language and editing awards), and reframing the ways international events and populist ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Gigantic' melds quirky characters and cryptic plotlines
'Gigantic" is a small independent movie in which a young man tries to figure out life while falling in and out of love with a free-spirited woman-child. Again. It even casts Zooey Deschanel as the woman-child; is she contractually obligated to appear in every one of these or what? (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Earth' delivers eco-friendly message from Disney
It feels like a long time ago that the BBC first unveiled its "Planet Earth" documentary series - a stunning achievement five years in the making, with then-groundbreaking nature footage captured by more than 70 photographers fanned out across 62 countries. Since that 2006 debut in the UK, the series has been made available for frequent viewing on American cable ... (By Janice Page, Globe Correspondent)
Crude 'Crank' sequel in need of a heart
Wait, didn't we see nail-spitting hero Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) die at the end of "Crank"? Falls from helicopters onto pavement tend to be conclusive in movies, but the film's unasked-for sequel is actually more of a video game, and a clever, proudly anti-social video game at that. Imagine some very smart people setting out to make a very naughty ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Valentino' is a reverent portrayal of a lover of beauty
The Italian fashion designer Valentino has an aristocratic soul. He's the sort of man whose entourage includes a troupe of pugs that occupies an entire sofa on his private jet. But the Valentino Garavani to whom we receive prolonged exposure in Matt Tyrnauer's fascinating documentary "Valentino: The Last Emperor" is also a man of immense good taste. (It's here that ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In 'Goodbye Solo,' two lives meet at intersection of life, death
Has anyone in the movies ever been as happy to get a phone call as the man known, in "Goodbye Solo," as Solo? Whenever his cell goes off, not only does Solo (Souléymane Sy Savané) answer right away, he does so as if the caller, occasionally a codger named William (Red West), were the most important man on earth - ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Efron - surprise! - plays nice in '17 Again'
I worry about Zac Efron. Really, I do. I can tell that deep in his heart the teen superstar wants to be a bad boy - to litter, maybe, or park in a handicapped spot and to hell with the consequences. Even if he did, though, no one would believe him. He's just too nice. This isn't a movie star, ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Shall We Kiss?' examines desire amid decorum
'Shall We Kiss?" is a curiosity, and a very watchable one. It seems like a chatty, elegant French romantic comedy - Eric Rohmer Lite, perhaps, or sexier Woody Allen - until it takes an apparent turn for the melodramatic. Behind the melodrama, though, is a further layer of subversive parody, and behind that is a real knowledge of the power ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'State of Play' chases juicy story and lionizes print reporters
Poor Stephen Collins. Not the veteran "Seventh Heaven" actor, but the United States congressman from Pennsylvania, whose woes are at the center of "State of Play," an enjoyably trashy thriller that opens today. Representative Collins (Ben Affleck) has been having an affair with a pretty young staffer who turns up dead, minutes before he's scheduled to lead hearings probing possible ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Sweetness, humor lighten 'Anvil!'
Humiliation is a daily fact of life if you're a 50-year-old headbanger whose band never made it big. You attract 174 fans to an arena that holds 10,000. Your day job is delivering hot food to public schools in the greater Toronto area. You get a part-time gig working as a telemarketer for one of your longtime fans - and ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Dragonball Evolution' presents a quest with kicks and smirks
The giddy, anything-goes spirit of Japanese manga comics and Hong Kong martial arts flicks animates "Dragonball Evolution." Not enough to make it a good movie, mind you, but enough so you won't hate yourself if you sit through it with the kids. (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
Film captures essense of Japanese society
It sounds like the setup for a joke - two Frenchmen and a Korean walk into a foreign capital - but the idea behind the trilogy film "Tokyo!" is to allow three art-house darlings to each set a tale of pungent dislocation in the sprawling Japanese metropolis. If you've seen "Paris, je t'aime" or "New York Stories," you know the ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Rogen more Dirty Harry than teddy bear in 'Observe and Report'
I know, I know. Another month, another doofus-mall-cop movie. How do these things happen? "Observe and Report," which opens today and stars Seth Rogen, has been pre-mocked as "Paul Blart 2." But this new movie is crazier, scarier, funnier, and more bewildering. It's the strangest movie I expect to see from a Hollywood studio for the rest of the year. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In 'Mysteries of Pittsburgh,' an attempt at adaptation unravels
'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," sure. But also the mysteries of literary adaptation. Michael Chabon's earnest first novel from 1988 about a young man's bisexual coming of age is now what could pass for a flavorless pilot for the CW. Almost nothing works in this movie, which was written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, whose previous film, the antic "Dodgeball," ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Sugar' delivers a major-league journey through the minors
"Sugar" asks us a favor, and it's this: The next time you cheer when Big Papi comes to bat, think about the hundreds of Dominican baseball players you'll never, ever hear about. Kids on whose sinewy shoulders the hopes of their families are piled. Young men who look across the ocean and see unimaginable fame hanging there like a slow, ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
The screen is bigger, but 'Hannah Montana' is still keeping a secret
It's an unenviable position. Hannah Montana is the most famous underage pop star in America. But the girl pretending to be her - Miley Cyrus as Miley Stewart - is living a lie. The lie has made Miley, the actor and the character, rich and popular. It has made her washed-up country-singer dad look shrewd. It's also made her exhausted. ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Virtual JFK' ponders a provocative 'What If?'
The premise of "Virtual JFK," a documentary opening at the Coolidge today, is both profound and deeply inconsequential. What would American foreign policy have looked like if John F. Kennedy hadn't been assassinated? Specifically, would the Vietnam War have happened? (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'The Betrayal,' a remarkable Laotian family adjusts to life in America
Ellen Kuras is one of the more creative cinematographers out there - not to mention one of the very few women in a notoriously male clubhouse - and if you've seen movies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Blow," or Spike Lee's latter-day work, you know the visions of which she's capable. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Paris 36' is an awkward exercise in nostalgia, French style
In the faux world of "Paris 36," the blue-collar residents of a Paris suburb may be out of work. They may be caught in a power play amid communists, socialists, and fascists. But our plucky common men and women sing, they dance. They love their neighborhood music hall, the Chansonia, and will do anything to ensure its vaudeville tradition won't ... (By Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Correspondent)
'Zidane' provides close-up view of soccer star
Note: This is an abbreviated version of a review that ran in the Globe on May 6, 2007, for an earlier run of the film. (By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff)
In one parish, the state of the church
The Vatican is trying to rouse Catholics' ire toward Ron Howard's upcoming "Angels & Demons" without giving the blockbuster drama exactly the publicity it craves. Here's an idea then: Steer the faithful, and everyone else, to "Scenes From a Parish," a surpassingly lucid little documentary playing at the Museum of Fine Arts over the next few weeks. It raises more ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Tracking a treacherous journey north in 'Sin Nombre'
'Sin Nombre" is based on real facts of life for certain Central Americans. Some try to make it to the United States, in part, by riding freight trains that mosey north. Gangs set out to rob them, despite their relative poverty. Written and directed by Cary Fukunaga, making his first feature, "Sin Nombre" treats these developments with an unworkable mix ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
More quirks than risks in 'Adventureland'
The 2007 film "Superbad" is remembered as many things - funny, sweet, obnoxious, lucrative. One thing it isn't remembered for, despite what the credits say, is being a Greg Mottola movie. Seth Rogen co-wrote it, and Judd Apatow produced it. As such, the film tends to get lumped in with all things Apatow. Like every director in the Apatow fraternity, ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Fast & Furious' is amped up but goes nowhere
By the fourth installment of the franchise, "Fast & Furious" has shed two articles from its title, regained the four original lead actors (the previous film, "Tokyo Drift," had none), and turned shamelessly into a monotonous unofficial edition of the Grand Theft Auto gaming series. It is not wisdom we seek here: We want dust in our faces, vroom in ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Poet's story is pretty, but shallow as work of art
'The Edge of Love" is a "great poet" movie, the poet in this case being Dylan Thomas, and it's utter bollocks. How can you tell? The raffish, hard-drinkin' Thomas (Matthew Rhys) finally sits down to compose some verse (it's 1941's "Love in the Asylum") and the words stream out of his inner consciousness directly onto the soundtrack, the musical score ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
B-movie tribute 'Alien Trespass' deserves a B-plus
Does the world really need a fond, precise parody of 1950s alien-invasion movies right now? No, but we've got one with "Alien Trespass," and it's pretty endearing - a low-budget labor of schlock. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Examined Life' goes from lost in thought to true dialogue
There is a wonderful premise guiding "Examined Life," a new documentary by Astra Taylor, and it's a straightforward one: Let a handful of modern philosophers separately philosophize about the state of the world while traveling through it. So rock-star thinkers - including Cornel West, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, and Peter Singer - expound as they make their away around, say, ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In 'Black Balloon,' Growing up protective of an autistic brother
It's a blazing hot day in 1990 Australia, and the Mollisons are moving into a new house again. They're an army family: dad Simon (Erik Thomson), pregnant mum Maggie (Toni Collette), gangly 15-year-old son Tom (Rhys Wakefield) all carrying cartons into the house. On the front lawn sits older brother Charlie (Luke Ford), banging a wooden spoon and laughing hysterically. ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'Everlasting Moments,' a photographer finds her voice
'Everlasting Moments" presents a paradox: It's a small, graceful epic. Set in southern Sweden during the first decades of the 20th century, the movie picks one face out of the tenement crowd: Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen), impoverished, overworked, saddled with a brutish husband named Sigge (Mikael Persbrandt) and a growing gaggle of children. Then it hands her a still camera ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Art and life of van Gogh on big screen
Halfway through the film, a viewer finally figures out what "Van Gogh: Brush With Genius" is up to. The camera moves so close to the canvas that the smears of paint almost turn tactile, and the narrator points out that the artist's wide-angle way of framing his landscapes has the effect of pulling viewers in, surrounding them with vibrating colors. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
John Cena fights himself '12 Rounds'
As one of the WWE's marquee pro wrestlers, John Cena is some actor. As a straight actor . . . he's a great wrestler. (By Tom Russo, Globe Correspondent)
John Cena fights himself '12 Rounds'
As one of the WWE's marquee pro wrestlers, John Cena is some actor. As a straight actor . . . he's a great wrestler. (By Tom Russo, Globe Correspondent)
'Hunger' looks at hell and the drive for freedom
'Hunger" brings us into its central narrative slowly, circling it like a bird afraid to land. This is the Bobby Sands story, true, but we don't even see Sands until well into the movie. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Monsters vs. Aliens' blasts off with stunning 3-D visuals
If you have to see "Monsters vs. Aliens" - and if you're a parent, you will have to - make sure it's the 3-D version. The film's opening scenes deposit the audience somewhere in the middle of the rings of Saturn with a parsecs-wide vastness that is out of this world. Every kid in the screening I attended blurted out ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Theater of War' provides backstage insights into art and ideology
In the summer of 2006, thousands of theatergoers, stargazers, and people who enjoy Marxist German classics braved impossible heat to attend a production of Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children" in Central Park. It was more hoopla than Brecht ordinarily receives, even by the standards of the New York stage. But this Public Theatre production was somewhat out of ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Just Another Love Story' twists and turns into dark places
'Beautiful women and a mystery - isn't that how a film noir starts?" Generally so, and "Just Another Love Story," which includes that self-referential bit of wisdom, is no exception. Barreling toward us with high style from Denmark, the film opens with its hero dead on the sidewalk in the rain, narrating the tale of how he came to be ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Spinning Into Butter,' a cliched take on campus racism, doesn't make the grade
Any movie that opens with a quotation from Maya Angelou, follows that with a clip from an old racist cartoon, cuts to someone posting a racial slur on a dorm room door, then immediately serves up Sarah Jessica Parker as dean of students wants to get on your nerves. By that measure, "Spinning Into Butter" counts as some kind of ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'The Haunting in Connecticut' is up to the same old scary tricks
It's every parent's worst nightmare - a child with cancer - a story that's grist for lousy horror moviemaking. "The Haunting in Connecticut" is another movie based on a supposedly true paranormal occurrence - perhaps you haven't entirely forgotten 2005's "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" or "An American Haunting" from 2006. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'The Cake Eaters' is heavy with family issues and affairs
The local butcher, Easy (Bruce Dern), and his docile-faced son Beagle (Aaron Stanford), seem to be getting on just fine in "The Cake Eaters," a slow-paced drama set in a time-warped village in upstate New York. All's well, that is, until the older son, Guy (Jayce Bartok, who also wrote the screenplay), comes home for the first time in three ... (By Erin Trahan, Globe Correspondent)
'I Love You, Man' is a crass course in male bonding
With "I Love You, Man," Hollywood at long last brings itself to confront the love that dare not speak its name: that of one straight guy for another. Your average modern man-com dances so nervously around this issue that it ends up looking like sublimated gay porn, but "I Love You" puts everything right on the table - it's a ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Sex, lies, and spies: Julia Roberts and Clive Owen in 'Duplicity'
In "Duplicity," Clive Owen looks like he just wandered in from the other thriller that has him trotting the globe in expensive-looking suits. "The International" is a business-like conspiracy thriller that opened last month and deserves a better audience than it's getting. "Duplicity" stands to get a fairer hearing, since, for one thing, it's more conventionally enjoyable and, for another, ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'The Great Buck Howard' fails to conjure much imagination
Sean McGinly's "The Great Buck Howard" isn't actually about the magician of the title - who prefers the term mentalist, by the way. It's about Troy Gable (Colin Hanks), the ex-law student who takes a job as the personal assistant to Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a kind of prissy, verbally abusive, tantrum-prone Amazing Kreskin whose best days appear to be ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Sunshine Cleaning' keys on crime scenes and struggles
Can you blame the marketing department for trying to sell "Sunshine Cleaning" as the next "Little Miss Sunshine"? Not only are the titles similar, but so's the American Southwestern setting, and for added insurance here's Alan Arkin playing yet another foxy grandpa. We could use a plucky indie comedy at the moment, but that doesn't excuse an ad campaign that ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Knowing' viewers are clued in on impending disaster
It's a Nicolas Cage movie, so, admit it, you're expecting crazy. You have no idea. The star's latest, "Knowing," starts off mildly ridiculous, ascends to the full-blown ludicrous, and finally sails boldly off the edge of the absolutely preposterous. Throughout it all, Cage's grim sense of purpose stays in place, as does his hairpiece. You have to admire such dedication ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Nothing exciting about 'Miss March'
'Miss March" is a sex comedy that appears to have been made by people who've never actually had sex. How else to explain a script that talks in raunchy circles around Topic A but takes a left turn into exploding-poo jokes whenever the characters threaten to get down to business? The movie's aiming for the drunken college crowd but most ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Another visit to 'The Last House on the Left'
In 1972, a 32-year-old sound editor and college professor named Wes Craven released "The Last House on the Left" about two teenage girls who go looking for pre-concert pot and wind up tortured by a couple of escaped convicts. The cons take refuge at a Connecticut home that happens to be owned by the parents of one of the girls. ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'12' puts Russian democracy on trial
In "12," director Nikita Mikhalkov takes the old Hollywood classic "12 Angry Men" - a tense, minimalist warhorse about jury members hashing out a verdict - and repurposes it into a Slavic psychological epic. The new film's not only almost double the length of the original, it's four times as ambitious - a sprawling, surrealist, ultimately disturbing portrait of a ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Race to Witch Mountain' is armed and tedious
What once was a strange, flavorless children's movie (1975's "Escape to Witch Mountain") is now the most heavily armed Disney family film ever made. And this is before Dwayne Johnson's biceps get in on the action. Yes, Johnson, the nimble comedian and promising actor, is back to arching his eyebrows and muscling extras through plate glass as though he'd just ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Wild action, a wilder tale sweeten 'Chocolate'
It's called "Chocolate," but "Cheese" would have been just as good. Soaked with tears, full of schmaltz, and yet strewn with bodies, Prachya Pinkaew's new kick-'em-up is extreme action, extreme melodrama, and extremely hard to resist. Were I to make a movie about a young autistic Thai woman who goes on a martial arts rampage to collect outstanding debts owed ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Shuttle' delivers suspense
You're allowed to be cynical about "Shuttle." A girls-in-peril suspense thriller that takes place mostly on an airport shuttle van? Didn't anybody learn from 2007's dreadful parking-garage chiller "P2"? What's next, a horror film about a demonically possessed baggage carousel? (If anyone actually makes such a movie, I hereby claim copyright. We can call it "Rosemary's Baby-Seat.") (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Dublin' is a period piece that is completely lost
Movie critics are generally sympathetic to small independent films that struggle to get made and seen. I say "generally" because every now and then a "Waiting for Dublin" comes along - a movie so unendurably bad it deserves to be put down like a sick dog. A World War II-era period film with no sense of period, a romance wholly ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'Crossing Over,' the dream of immigration becomes a nightmare
Holy multicultural day, Batman! Immigration attorney Ashley Judd wears a necklace with a gold pendant of Africa. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Harrison Ford juggles the drama of his Iranian work partner (Cliff Curtis) with his penchant for helping the Mexicans he should just bust in undocumented-worker raids. And at a Jewish day school, earnest Jim Sturgess strums his guitar ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Sita' forges bond of sisterhood
I'm not sure what's gotten into the water at the Museum of Fine Arts, but the film programmers have been screening some delightful alt-animation lately. Last month was France's "Azur and Asmar," and now comes "Sita Sings the Blues," an almost indescribable pleasure from Brooklyn-based cartoonist and animator Nina Paley. The film, dazzling and poignant and five years in the ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
The superpowers of the novel are weakened, but 'Watchmen' still packs a wallop
"Watchmen" is finally upon us, and that will mean everything to you or nothing. The new superhero movie - an anti-superhero movie in many ways - is based on a fearsomely smart DC comic series that ran for 12 issues in 1986 and '87, was quickly republished in book format, and has nourished a large and fanatic cult ever since. ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Absurdistan': Hormones gone wild in Russia
'Absurdistan" finally gives Eastern Bloc oligarchy the teen-hormone farce we've been waiting for. Set in the sort of backward post-Soviet village that produced Borat and the comedy of Yakov Smirnoff, Veit Helmer's half-amusing, half-tedious allegory presents the story of Aya (Kristyna Malérová) and Temelko (Maximilian Mauff), two Russian teens in love. All boy wants is to make love to girl. ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Family drama drives 'Phoebe in Wonderland'
Elle Fanning gives a luminous, almost transparent performance as a troubled 9-year-old girl in "Phoebe in Wonderland." As an actress, she's dreamier and less forceful than her older sister Dakota - more like an actual kid - and the movie's halfway over before you realize how many contradictory emotions she's summoning up. God knows what they feed these girls for ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'Street Fighter,' everyone's game for violence
The most remarkable thing about "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" is that it probably won't be a candidate for the worst movie of the year. That by itself defies expectations for the second live-action movie based on Capcom's popular arcade game franchise. (The first was 1994's "Street Fighter," starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.) The game, first released in 1987, was ... (By Michael Hardy, Globe Correspondent)
'Echelon Conspiracy' wends from 'Bourne' to boring
" Echelon Conspiracy" combines a righteous message about out-of-control government surveillance with the old computer-gone-haywire plot to make - well, not very much, actually. (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
In 'Street Fighter,' everyone's game for violence
The most remarkable thing about "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" is that it probably won't be a candidate for the worst movie of the year. That by itself defies expectations for the second live-action movie based on Capcom's popular arcade game franchise. (The first was 1994's "Street Fighter," starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.) The game, first released in 1987, was ... (By Michael Hardy, Globe Correspondent)
'Echelon Conspiracy' wends from 'Bourne' to boring
" Echelon Conspiracy" combines a righteous message about out-of-control government surveillance with the old computer-gone-haywire plot to make - well, not very much, actually. (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
'Jonas Brothers' movie offers 3-D glimpses of teen idols
Applying criticism to "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience" is like trying to lasso a bull with dental floss. It's not going to stop the bull and no one's really going to notice. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Jonas Brothers' movie offers 3-D glimpses of teen idols
Applying criticism to "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience" is like trying to lasso a bull with dental floss. It's not going to stop the bull and no one's really going to notice. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
If 'Two Lovers' is Phoenix's last film, it's a fitting finale
Even before his latest shtick - the professed retirement, the rap career, the Ted Kaczynski beard - Joaquin Phoenix had established himself as one of our most contrary movie stars. He's big and interestingly unhandsome, with none of the agile fire of his late brother, River. This Phoenix moves slowly, as though his muscles were a half step behind his ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Serbis' presents wild antics in a theater of ill repute
Merry, filthy, unstoppably hormonal, "Serbis" feels very much like the sort of movie that happens when no one is minding the store. An oversight committee might have tried to stop the writer Amando Lao and the director Brillante Mendoza from turning a rotting Manila movie palace into a house of comic-melodramatic realism for our bleak economic times. But here we ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In 'Gomorrah,' the mob has a region in Italy in its grip
The movies can always find hell on earth. But it takes a certain uncompromising vision to hole up there for well more than two hours and leave you in fear for your life. "Gomorrah" begins with murders at a tanning parlor and ends with murders on a beach. Hell wants to take over as much of the movie's poor Naples ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Tyler Perry has his moments in 'Madea Goes to Jail'
Another week, another Tyler Perry movie. This time, Madea goes to jail. It takes almost an hour and a half to get her there (Perry's movies have daytime-television pacing), and, predictably enough, she does not go quietly. The women's prison dramedy I wanted never really happens. But in between court dates, Perry - who wrote, produced, and directed the movie, ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'A fine Godard film sees the light
Calling all Godardaholics: "Made in U.S.A." is playing at the MFA over the next week as part of the museum's essential "Godard in the 1960s" retrospective. Despite the title, the 1966 movie has been unavailable in the USA for four decades; after it debuted at the 1967 New York Film Festival, rights issues kept the film off limits. It remains ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Fanboys' is a road movie in hyperspace
The fanboys have been waiting a long time for "Fanboys." A comedy about a quartet of "Star Wars" geeks hellbent on breaking into George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in 1998 to get a sneak peek at "Episode I," Kyle Newman's film was finished in early 2007 but then was spirited away by producer Harvey Weinstein to a cutting room somewhere on ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Fired Up!' falls flat as cheerleading farce
It's worth noting that the movie about two dudes who ditch football camp to crash an Illinois camp for competitive cheerleading knows it's dumb. It just doesn't know how dumb it wants to be. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Secret of the Grain' is a feast of a family epic
You don't know you want to be at a movie where a dozen French Arabs sit around and have an early Sunday dinner until you're seated at the table with them, listening to their stories, seeing them argue, watching them eat couscous and fish. But in "The Secret of the Grain," three minutes after that meal is underway I wanted ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Azur and Asmar' presents a wide-eyed journey of wonder
Kids of all ages and fans of alt-animation stand to be enraptured by "Azur and Asmar," the English-dubbed French film starting tomorrow at the Museum of Fine Arts. The brainchild of Michel Ocelot (whose "Kirikou" series has been a hard-to-find treat in this country), the movie plays like an illuminated picture-book version of a tale from "The Arabian Nights," with ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Under the Sea 3D' is full of wonder
Everyone has a reason for taking one of those aquatic IMAX tours of the bottom of the ocean. You like marine biology. You enjoy the illusion of being within touching distance of so many deceptively complex creatures. You covet the plastic glasses. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
In 'The International,' a corrupt bank, killer fees, and plenty of stimulus
Two-thirds of the way into "The International" comes an action sequence so audacious, so supremely well crafted that I don't want to tell you anything more about it. I'll have to, in a bit, but if you want to retain a moviegoer's constitutional right to be surprised, just stop reading and go. I can promise you a fairly good thriller ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
This 'Friday the 13th' redux is just a hack
'Friday the 13th" as restaged for 2009 connects to this time and place only tangentially. The kids play beer pong. They go speed-boating. They wear "Star Wars" T-shirts, giant cargo shorts, and flip-flops, and go foraging for weed. They still urinate alone in the forest and have loud sex in a tent. If they know they're a cliche, they're helpless ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Isla Fisher shines in dressed-up screwball comedy ''Confessions of a Shopaholic'
There's something vaguely tragic about a movie whose women (and a few men) are, by and large, strung out on buying designer stuff they can't afford. Maybe in a different economy that movie would seem less sobering. In this one, watching people shop madly seems a little sinister. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Cherry Blossoms' comes to grips with the end of life
The German director Doris Dorrie has had a wayward and cheerfully bizarre career. After her dry feminist farce "Men" hit big in US arthouses in 1985, she came to Hollywood to make "Me and Him" (1988), a comedy about a talking penis, then returned to Germany for a string of movies in which her love of Japanese film and culture ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Martin, in Clouseau redux, falls flat in 'Pink Panther 2'
In "The Pink Panther 2," Steve Martin garbles his way through another turn as the moronic Inspector Jacques Clouseau. I would say the reprise is ill-advised, but the first outing made a lot of people a lot of money. And idiot peacekeepers are hot again. Before Paul Blart, there was Clouseau. So rather than making too much out of how ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Love and star power mingle in 'He's Just Not That Into You'
Beware the chick flick that pretends to tell it like it is; because it wants to send you home happy, it will eventually have to lie. "He's Just Not That Into You" is a fictional romantic comedy based on a nonfictional advice bestseller subtitled "The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys," and, like the book, it's aimed at the kind of ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'The Wild Child' carries lessons that resonate today
God, I miss Francois Truffaut. The French New Wave director, who died far too young in 1984 at 52, touched on many genres, emotions, and themes in his 21 features, but he was rarely as plainspokenly empathetic as in "The Wild Child," the 1970 drama getting a rerelease today in a new 35mm print at the Kendall Square Cinema. The ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'The Class' provides a lesson in turmoil in a Paris school
The center doesn't hold at Francoise Dolto Junior High. It can't. Not anymore. Trouble roils this Paris public school. Not in the way Hollywood has conditioned us to recognize chaos: gangbangers ruling the hallways, dance-offs that erupt in the cafeteria, proms that become blood-drenched nightmares. Laurent Cantet's drama "The Class" brings us back to earth, unalloyed. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Coraline' travels a wondrous, dark journey that's definitely not for little ones
Good news for family psychiatrists across the land: "Coraline" is opening today, which means on Monday they'll have a whole new clientele of traumatized young children whose parents saw the PG rating and thought this was the latest "Kung Fu Panda." (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Humans with superpowers propel 'Push'
"Push" is that rare humans-with-superpowers movie where the powers are contagious. It made me feel psychic. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Love and star power mingle in 'He's Just Not That Into You'
Beware the chick flick that pretends to tell it like it is; because it wants to send you home happy, it will eventually have to lie. "He's Just Not That Into You" is a fictional romantic comedy based on a nonfictional advice bestseller subtitled "The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys," and, like the book, it's aimed at the kind of ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
These shorts wear their Oscar nominations well
There's a lot of preciousness in this year's Oscar nominees for best live-action and animated short. The five films in both categories use blips of style to yank at the heart - if the ubiquity of sad piano doesn't get you, the parade of long faces will. It's entirely possible to leave the theater convinced that the live-action format is ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Fun in the sun turns to terror afloat in 'Donkey Punch'
What if "Gossip Girl" suddenly turned into one of those last-hottie-standing slasher films? It might go something like "Donkey Punch," a thriller whose title remains printable only because the right people probably don't know that it refers to a violent sex act. The opening scenes amount to a magazine shoot. The soundtrack throbs with hooky electronica, while Oliver Blackburn, who ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Renee Zellweger brings a smile to a familiar story in 'New in Town'
You've seen "New in Town" before, and you've seen it done better. Still, it's a sweet-hearted bit of anemia, pleasant and obvious, and there are a few honest laughs to it - you could also do worse, especially at this time of the year. There: Have I lowered your expectations enough? (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Taken' turns Liam Neeson into an action hero superdad
'Taken"? You bet. Eurobaddies abduct Liam Neeson's teen daughter, and Neeson, playing a one-man gang called Bryan Mills, moves heaven and earth - OK, he just destroys a lot of property - to get her back. But that title is more about abducted movie plots. The prurient underworld shock of "Hardcore"? Taken. The Parisian pot-boiling of "Frantic"? Taken. The comical ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'The Uninvited' produces more scoffs than scares
Why is it in horror movies that bad things always happen to the same girl? That girl, who's somewhere between "Juno" and "One Tree Hill," has two emotional gears (scared, not scared) but looks pretty good in layered camisoles and often sees the dead. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Some stolen moments in 'Pleasure of Being Robbed'
There are several ways to approach "The Pleasure of Being Robbed," the low-budget, even lower-fi film opening at the MFA today. One way is to consider Josh Safdie's film the work of a movie-besotted college graduate who has the films of Bresson and early Godard flowing through his veins and who thinks he can make "Pickpocket" or "Breathless" merely by ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
In 'Underworld' roots tale, history's a dull subject
"Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" is a dark and stormy prequel, reaching back to the Middle Ages to explain the roots of the centuries-long war between werewolves and vampires seen in 2003's "Underworld" and 2006's "Underworld: Evolution." The great mystery here, though, is Rhona Mitra's upper lip, which appears merely plump in some shots and grossly overinflated in others. (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
Time is of the essence in metaphysical thriller "Timecrimes"
It could happen to anyone. One minute you're in your backyard minding your business, the next you're running from a homicidal maniac who happens to be you. Welcome to "Timecrimes," Nacho Vigalondo's inverted horror-thriller joke, where you're never entirely sure whether what's happening to poor, snoopy Hector makes an ounce of even pseudo-scientific sense. But the director operates his metaphysical ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Inkheart' adventure doesn't jump off the page
As the hero of "Inkheart," Brendan Fraser possesses what, in the movies lately, passes for a superpower: He can read. And when he does so aloud, the details and characters of any story can come to life. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Spaceman, Norsemen meet in sci-fi romp "Outlander"
Handsome James Caviezel crash-lands from space to Vikings-era Norway in "Outlander" and proceeds to help a tribe of heavily bearded crypto-medievals rid their community of the "Aliens"-caliber creature the spaceman brought with him. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'We Are Wizards' takes a magical look at Harry Potter fan subculture
When "We Are Wizards" hit the festival circuit last year, it was well-liked but sometimes criticized for offering too rambling a tour of the Harry Potter fan subculture. Maybe so. But the documentary sweetly focuses our attention on the way human creativity transforms everything around it. Often in the nuttiest of ways, true. But still, it's a good thing. (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
In 'Wendy and Lucy,' a woman and her dog take to the road
While Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are fighting each other for the perfect wedding in "Bride Wars," and several anonymous horror-movie starlets are running from evil wearing only their undies, Michelle Williams shows us crisis by crouching in a ball and merely pressing her palms into her forehead. This doesn't sound like much, but given the woeful lack of inner ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Movie shines a spotlight on fado singing
Having made gorgeous, erotic, bluntly titled performance films about flamenco (1995's "Flamenco") and tango (1998's "Tango"), Spain's Carlos Saura aims his gaze at Portuguese fado singing. Like those other two films, "Fados" epitomizes the style of the titular art. "Flamenco" was hot. "Tango" was hotter. "Fados," however, is less inflamed. But that's only because fado emanates from a region well ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
3-D 'Bloody Valentine' is an eye-popping affair
Filmed in "REAL D," the new-ish spin on three-dimensional movie technology last seen in "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D," "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" delivers an impressive illusion of depth and eye-popping realism. (By Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Correspondent)
'Defiance' shares story of unlikely leaders in WWII drama
The refugees stagger through the woods, the Nazis a fresh memory at their heels. They come to a clearing where a secret village has sprouted, full of the sounds of hammers and industry. The newcomers are addressed by a strapping, brooding blue-eyed man on a white horse. He lays down the rules: Everyone works, the women had better not get ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Hotel for Dogs' is a welcome romp
If you or your kids have a soft spot for any kind of dog, "Hotel for Dogs" wants to jump in your lap and slobber up your face. Mastiffs, poodles, bearded collies, Boston terriers (go team), and Dobermans are all present and accounted for; there's even a shaggy Italian spinone running through a few scenes. No pit bulls, though - ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Che' offers a portrait of the revolutionary as a man
In "Che," Steven Soderbergh recalibrates the way he does everything - how a story gets told, how actors are managed, and how an audience is entertained. One of the movie's smartest commercial directors has turned the volume way down on the vibrancy that made the "Ocean's" movies such extravagant toys and pushes a few heady ideas to the foreground. The ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Last Chance Harvey' stars turn a little film into something bigger
In "Last Chance Harvey," Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson - two of our most well-loved stars - play two shy people falling in love. There's hardly anything else to the film, which is almost perversely underwritten; still, it's easy to be thankful for small things in a season of lumbering dramas. "Harvey" is so thin it barely registers as a ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Bollywood kicks up its heels
'Chandni Chowk to China" is Bollywood's all-singing, all-dancing, all-Hindi bid to conquer America. Backed by Warner Brothers, which is giving it the largest North American release of any Indian film to date, "Chandni Chowk" could, if successful, forecast a veritable monsoon of Bollywood imports. But only if American audiences can accept an action hero who talks to potatoes. (By Michael Hardy, Globe Correspondent)
'Notorious' recalls a rap heavyweight
'Notorious" gives the Hollywood superhero treatment to the rapper Notorious B.I.G. For hip-hop partisans, watching Christopher Wallace become Biggie Smalls, then the Notorious B.I.G., must be what it's like for comic-book fans to see Tony Stark become Iron Man. Biggie's hard-knock life and premature death (he was shot in 1997 at age 24) have been repackaged into an enjoyably ridiculous ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Roving Mars' is a trip to the Red Planet
Mars is a spacecraft graveyard. Two out of three missions to the Red Planet fail. As one scientist in the short IMAX documentary "Roving Mars" explains, a craft landing safely is akin to tossing a basketball from Los Angeles to New York and hitting nothing but net. (By Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Correspondent)
'Mall Cop' Segways into silliness
The prediction in "WALL-E" of a human race turned to spineless dumplings comes depressingly true in "Paul Blart: Mall Cop." As played by Kevin James, Paul doesn't appear to have any idea what his body can do or can't. He seems much more competent at work riding a Segway personal transport thingamajig than he does walking on his own two ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Wartime memories animate 'Bashir'
Every war generation processes horror and guilt in its own fashion, but Ari Folman has come up with a truly unprecedented genre: the animated repressed-memory atrocity-mystery documentary. Watching "Waltz With Bashir," Israel's entry for the 2008 foreign language Oscar, you feel like a 19th-century naturalist presented with a platypus. How can something made from so many different pieces draw breath? (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Traces of the Trade' faces up to legacy of slave traders
Maybe white liberal guilt is inherently risible. That's a problem for filmmaker Katrina Browne and her documentary feature, "Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North," which opens at the Museum of Fine Arts today. (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
'Empty Nest' is full of fantasies and frustrations
In "Empty Nest," Leonardo (Oscar Martínez) is a middle-aged Buenos Aires writer between works. He's not stuck per se, but he's not inspired, either. You might say the same about Daniel Burman's latest film, which follows Leonardo as he suffers a muted midlife crisis while doing nothing especially important. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Nazi demons haunt 'The Unborn'
A scary movie in every way except the ones that matter, "The Unborn" draws a dismaying line from the ghettos of the Holocaust to the Hollywood horror ghetto. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
You may diss the bridge: Friends become enemies in "Bride Wars''
Ah, January - that chilly, unforgiving season when the major studios flush their pipes and unleash their failed projects - the lame, halt, and blind of movies - upon an enervated public. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Not Easily Broken' serves up life lessons with a dose of soap
'Not Easily Broken" is a tub of soapy clichés. But it does grant Morris Chestnut a kind of "Eureka!" moment. After years spent strolling his way through battle-of-the-sexes comedies (perhaps you caught him and Vivica A. Fox wipe the floor with each other in "Two Can Play That Game") and horror-thriller atrocities (he was "and Morris Chestnut" in the credits ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
The magic of the mundane
The black-and-white photography in Santiago Otheguy's "La León" has a beautiful charcoal smokiness. The early shots of water rippling on an Argentine jungle river have a living Ansel Adams serenity. But the atmosphere surrounding the images and their subsequent arrangement is sorrowful to the point of feeling woebegone. As it happens, in the opening minutes there's a funeral underway - ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'It Always Rains on Sunday' is a feast of British film noir
In American film noir, the characters' lives usually seem a little glamorous, no matter how desperate. You can't say that for the working class Brits in Robert Hamer's 1947 film "It Always Rains on Sunday." (By Joel Brown, Globe Correspondent)
Celebrating mothers of invention in "Who Does She Think She Is?"
In 2009, one might assume there's no urgent need for a documentary that ponders the modern tribulations of women artists. The numbers put forth in Pamela Tanner Boll's "Who Does She Think She Is?" tell a different story. At the most preeminent museums, in the United States and England, the amount of shows devoted to women is a fraction of ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Ordinary people
Maybe it's a cheap shot to call "Revolutionary Road" "American Beauty" without the laughs, but it gets to the heart of the problem. The British director of "Beauty," Sam Mendes, has returned to probe the existential angst of American suburbia, but this time he has a great novel at his back, and he's weighed down with his responsibility to literature. ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Short and sweet - at least, some of them
Every year at the Sundance Film Festival, the short-filmmaking programs fall through the cracks of a lot of people's schedules. Many shorts are tacked on to features as a sort of trailer - a coming attraction, perhaps, of future talent. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Grappling with reality
At first "The Wrestler" keeps Mickey Rourke's face hidden from us, as if to spare us the awful details. The opening credits have blasted us with a collage of 1980s wrestle-mania playbills and newspaper articles, scored to a screeching assault of hair-metal, and then we cut to a huddled, silent figure in a post-match changing room. The title says it ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
A love story for his ages
In "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Brad Pitt ages in reverse, from Methuselah to Robert Redford to infancy in about 2 1/2 hours. When Benjamin is 60 he looks 20, and we have on our hands the perfect movie for a time of enhanced age-defiance. And David Fincher, the movie's director, is a cosmetic surgeon of sorts, exacting a ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Reader' stumbles on a secret past
Late into "The Reader," the movie's young German protagonist, Michael Berg (David Kross), visits Auschwitz concentration camp well after the end of WWII. The camera surveys the dreary landscape and finds several giant cages of shoes. It's a scene as superfluous as the movie itself is irksome. What does Michael hope to discover on this trip? What do the filmmakers? ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Sandler serves up some fluff
'Bedtime Stories" is baloney on Wonder Bread with a Kraft Single and some Miracle Whip - barely lunchable. But many hungry kids (and a few adults) will bite. At some point, with the music swelling or about to swell, a school principal, played by Courteney Cox, complains to her brother, "I'm mad that you told my kids there are no ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Mission: truly impossible
It is my duty to report - to the possible chagrin of more than a few readers - that "Valkyrie" is not a disaster. On the contrary: It's a smooth, compelling, almost suspenseful (more on that in a bit), and slightly hollow Hollywood period piece - a World War II action-drama in which an intriguing (but not electrifying) star performance ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Married to the dog
The Marley in "Marley & Me" is some kind of Labrador retriever. But don't make the mistake the marketing folks at Twentieth Century Fox are making. Marley is no dog. If you threw a lion's mane on him, he'd be Aslan in one of those Narnia movies. He looks like he could eat one Jennifer Aniston a day. Luckily for ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Dirty Harry's neighborhood
In the context of Clint Eastwood's career as a star, an actor, and a filmmaker, "Gran Torino" is an endlessly fascinating movie. If only it were a good one. (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'The Spirit' moves from comics to farce
It must really hurt to kill the thing you love. "The Spirit" was always for connoisseurs and cultists. Created by the late, great Will Eisner in 1940, it may have been the first auteur comic book, unbeholden to DC or Marvel and written with a literate wit that owed equal amounts to film noir and Eisner's Jewish New York roots. ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
A tale of two critters
It's understandable that the movie with a talking rat running around a Frenchman's kitchen might produce a "Ratatouille" hot flash. And certain close-ups of some of the more stoutly drawn humans might make you wonder when "Shrek" became the going model for out-of-shape cartoon characters. But "The Tale of Despereaux" overcomes enough of what it seems like to be completely ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Will Smith is a troubled IRS agent in 'Seven Pounds'
"Seven Pounds" opens with Ben Thomas (Will Smith) making a 911 call regarding his upcoming suicide. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
He won't give no for an answer
In "Yes Man," Jim Carrey plays Carl, an antisocial Los Angeles bank-loan officer who agrees to stop saying "no" - to friends, strangers, co-workers, the homeless; to fun, life, Mormons, even the horny old lady (Fionnula Flanagan) in his apartment complex. He twists, shouts, does a round of Dance Dance Revolution, plans a bridal shower, attends what must be the ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Survivors with 'A Secret'
A pained, painful story of physical desire and survivors' guilt in WWII-era France is over-directed into melodramatic hash in "A Secret." Based on Philippe Grimbert's "Memory," a prize-winning 2004 novel that fictionalizes his own family history, Claude Miller's film (a co-presentation of the MFA and the Boston Jewish Film Festival) is handsome and troubled and provocatively obsessed with the past's ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Little new animates 'Delgo'
"Delgo" demonstrates how hard it is to create a memorable, credible-looking piece of animated entertainment. The film looks a little like a screen saver (those landscapes!) and a little like a video game (the characters' movements are only vaguely lifelike and would be more fun if you could control them yourself), and not much at all like the smooth, richly ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
Latino holiday tale nicely regifts familiar themes
"Nothing Like the Holidays" offers proof that canned ham can still taste pretty good. A Latino entry in the weathered home-for-the-holidays genre, the movie leaves no cliché unturned, but the enthusiasm of the players and the genuine fellow feeling that courses through the story fan a few new flames from the smoldering Yule log. Next to a garish plastic Santa ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
At home for the holidays
"How About You" is based on a Maeve Binchy story about the residents of an Irish retirement home. But you'll have to forgive the rambunctious antics that, on occasion, make it seem like extra-strength "Grumpy Old Men." The thrown food accessorizes with the thrown tantrums, and they're as aggravating to us as they are to the staff. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Earth' remake takes on environmental issues
"Gort, Klaatu barada nikto." That dialogue, from 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still," has served generations of movie fans as a secret handshake, an in-joke nod to one of the greatest of '50s alien-invasion movies. In the new remake of the same title, Keanu Reeves delivers the line - I think - buried under pounds of goopy exo-skeleton and ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
'Doubt' presents Meryl Streep as a monster of moral certainty
"Doubt," John Patrick Shanley's award-winning play about a nun, a priest, and the unseemly accusation that puts them at each other's throats, has been reimagined for the movies. Now it's full of thunderclaps, autumnal blasts of wind, and the terrifying facial expressions of Meryl Streep, who is otherwise cloaked to her chin in black vestments. (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
'Frost/Nixon' is a battle of wills
In 1962, bruised and shaken by his loss in California's gubernatorial election, Richard Nixon infamously told the press, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." How wrong can one man have been? Forty-six years later and 14 after his death, we're still kicking Tricky Dick around. He's a generational shibboleth - the dark, graceless hole at the center of ... (By Ty Burr, Globe Staff)
Putting on the dog in 'Bolt'
Movies in 3D are usually best at goosing you into spilling your soft drink. But "Bolt," a new animated adventure from Disney presented at some locations in 3D, does more than put fireballs and runaway props right on the bridge of your nose. The format brilliantly brings an audience that much closer to a handful of increasingly lonely, yet contagiously ... (By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff)
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