3/28/10:  "Some projects seem so obvious it's a wonder they took this long to happen:  Tim Burton directing a rogue's gallery of his regular players (led by Sweeney Todd stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter) in a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland.  Maybe they were just waiting for 3D, which further sweetens the commercial pot.  Given all this, it's no small matter that Burton's Alice, as written by Beauty & The Beast and The Lion King's Linda Woolverton, is very good.  Taking the characters and locations of Louis Carroll's titular novel and its sequel "Through the Looking Glass", it constructs a fan fictiony action adventure storyline set in a kind of post-apocalyptic Wonderland.  While the veteran stars playing all manner of CGI-enhanced creatures are great, Alice's success really rests on the shoulders of Mia Wasikowska, who is splendid in her first ever chance to front a blockbuster.  Carroll purists might blanch, but fans of fantasy action should have a ball.

6-year-old Alice Kingsleigh (Mairi Ella Challen) is troubled by recurring nightmares about a journey to a strange alternate world.  Her father (Marton Csokas) reassures her and encourages his daughter to embrace her individuality in a world that has little respect for women." MORE

12/29/07:  "So, it's come to this.  The Alien franchise has been one of the greatest in sci-fi history, starting with Ridley Scott's seminal horror classic, followed by James Cameron's immortally kick-ass Aliens and David Fincher's underrated Alien 3 (which, admittedly, managed to blow up the franchise with its' apocalyptically gloomy climax).  The bland “Poseidon Adventure with Monsters” Alien Resurrection seemed to be the final nail in the Alien coffin.  Meanwhile, John McTiernan's 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Predator introduced a memorably cool monster who returned in the exciting Stephen Hopkins sequel Predator 2, a box office flop.  While the rest of the world moved on, comic book and video game companies hit on the same idea Universal Studios did during their monster heyday:  if a couple of creatures can no longer sell tickets on their own, make 'em fight!  And soon enough, Hollywood got on the Alien vs. Predator bandwagon with the enjoyably junky 2004 movie of the same name.  While it lacked the starpower or ambition of its' predecessors, at least it had cool monsters, relatable human characters, and a show-stopping action climax full of sound and fury.  For their follow-up, 20th Century Fox has taken the next page from the Universal Monsters playbook;  cut the budget! " MORE

4/6/09:  "Most films are designed in the hope that either through action, comedy or emotional connection, they'll contain at least a little something for everybody.  On the other hand, once in a while you see a movie designed more or less exclusively for a tiny group of people who're likely to take it in as one of their own while the rest of society looks on in confusion as to why the film even exists.  Alien Trespass, the feature debut of veteran TV director R.W. Goodwin (best known for his work on The X-Files), is such a movie, a methodical, light-on-its'-feet attempt to create a new sci-fi movie in the style of 1950's classics like War of the Worlds and It Came From Outer Space.  Intentionally, relentlessly cheesy, it shares with its' inspiration a pace that would be charitably described as deliberate.  But it's also filled with conviction and high spirits, creating a retro thriller sci-fi buffs like me will find both sweet and adorable.

The year is 1957.  In the middle of a meteor shower being closely watched by astronomer Ted Lewis (Eric McCormack) over the objections of his wife Lana (Jody Thompson), another celestial body falls to Earth:  a spaceship piloted by silver-clad alien Urp (Roy Campsall)." MORE

9/13/09:  "I don't usually comment on other reviews on this site, both because I don't like to read other's full reviews before writing my own and also simply because you're here to read about movies, not critics.  But that said, I can't help but puzzle over the blurbs I've read about the new Sandra Bullock comedy All About Steve.  It's been almost universally reviled, registering a lusty 6% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com.  It's not that I'm unaccustomed to being in those sort of extreme minorities, and while I'm a bit surprised by how many people are calling this funny, occasionally poignant and, yes, kinda messy comedy the worst movie of the year/decade, I'm really amazed by how many have come out of the movie violently rejecting its' thesis and hating the living daylights out of Bullock's character.  Would I want to sit next to Mary Horowitz on a long bus ride?  Maybe not.  But that's All About Steve's point:  showing us the world from the point of view of someone we'd probably dislike on sight.  As such, it gets off to a queasy, uneven start, but I found it progressively more involving as it went.  But I'm just weird that way, I guess.

Mary (Sandra Bullock) writes crossword puzzles for a Sacramento newspaper.  Talky, desperately full of trivia, and lacking a social filter, she's an outsider at work, lives with her parents (Howard Hessman & Brea Grant), and has no apparent friends. " MORE

3/4/07:  "So, where does your historical knowledge come from?  Yeah, we all picked some up in high school and maybe college, and every once in a while there really is nothing better on TV than that Revolutionary War documentary on The History Channel.  But when it comes to fleshing out my understanding of what all has happened in the last 300 years or so, I'd be nowhere without the movies.  I like seeing the movie first, then heading off to the Internet to confirm how much of what I've just been “taught” is true (for instance, in the case of Jet Li's Fearless... none).  Having done all that, I am pleased to announce that Amazing Grace, the story of British Parliamentarian William Wilberforce's 20-year campaign to end the slave trade in England, is a quality, mostly accurate history lesson.  While a little long and respectful to a fault, it's also very well acted and its' heart is all kinds of in the right place.

The movie has an awkward structure that begins around the end of the second act.  Around the turn of the 19th Century, abolitionist William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) is at the end of his rope.  Branded a seditionist for his anti-slavery beliefs, beaten down by over a decade of failed attempts to pass a ban on the slave trade in Parliament, and in declining health, he visits with friends to recuperate and meets his future wife Barbara Spooner (Romola Garai)."  MORE

11/5/09:  "Biopics are inherently dicey.  Sure, your subject undoubtedly did a bunch of stuff that was interesting, otherwise you wouldn't be making the movie.  But whether there are second acts to American lives or not, they are extremely difficult to shove into any kind of satisfying structure.  And the temptation to make someone's life “say” something leads to the temptation to twist the facts we came to see into something that supports a thesis rather than a story.  Though buoyed by predictably strong performances from Hilary Swank and Richard Gere, Mira Nair's new biopic of Amelia Earhart manages to be both too taken with and not interested enough in its' subject. Amelia is a good jumping-off point for viewers to learn about the aviatrix's (far more interesting) true story, but its' a dog wagged by its' tail:  nobody would be making a movie about a life that was really as dull as the one depicted here.

The film covers the period of Earhart's national prominence, from 1928-37.  Amelia (Hilary Swank) interviews for a job posted by George Putnam (Richard Gere), who's looking for a woman to become the first to fly across the Atlantic, albeit as a glorified passenger."  MORE

9/4/10:  "All movies are Rorschach tests:  that's why there are about 10,000 websites devoted to analyzing them.  But there may be no aspect of film more in the eye of the beholder than pace.  Your breakneck action flick might be my snoozefest, and mine your incomprehensible blur.  My gripping drama might seem to you like pure entropy.  And it's in that area where the George Clooney vehicle The American falls.  I found it a gripping character study, highlighted by occasional bursts of violence and suspense.  But there is no question that not a lot happens during its 100-odd minute running time.  As its title suggests, (after all, if you can be considered “the” American, odds are there aren't a lot of us around) this is a very European movie, directed with a lot of flash (and a lot of skin) by music video veteran Anton Corbijn.  It will go down best with Clooney's fans, because he's tremendous in a role that has him on-screen in virtually every shot.  I'll understand those bored to tears by The American's deliberate march to the finish line, but if it grabs you, this is a focused, smart thriller with a lot to offer.

A man (George Clooney) who sometimes introduces himself as Jack, others as Edward, but is probably named neither, vacations in Sweden with girlfriend Ingrid (Irina Bjorklund)." MORE

11/3/07:  "Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe are two of our finest actors, but they come at it from entirely different angles.  Crowe is the leading man as character actor, trying out whatever accents, mannerisms, postures and look the role requires.  Washington is a Movie Star, a charismatic force of nature around whom movies shape themselves.  Sometimes he's good, sometimes he's evil, but he's always Denzel Washington, dominating the screen with his unparalleled confidence.  The two have met on-screen before, in the nifty 1995 curiosity Virtuosity, where Washington played a tormented cop up against a computerized composite serial killer named SID 6.7 (Crowe, having a psychotic ball in one of his first Hollywood roles).  Twelve years later, the roles are reversed, and American Gangster finds Crowe as the cop and Washington as real-life New York heroin king Frank Lucas.  Reuniting with his Gladiator (and, sadly A Good Year) director Ridley Scott, the former Maximus is completely convincing as a 70's New York Cop, while Denzel one-ups his Oscar-winning Training Day villainy by making Lucas one of the most terrifying movie characters in a long time."  MORE

5/21/09:  "I really, really wish I liked the cinematic adventures of Robert Langdon, the symbologist chronicled in a series of bestsellers by Dan Brown.  They've got a lot of things I like, from the starpower of Tom Hanks to mysteries that require the intricate deconstruction of puzzles and history.  But Angels & Demons is the second Langdon movie in a row (following the hype-a-thon The Da Vinci Code, which I remember mostly for having attracted the biggest crowd of picketers I've ever passed on the way into a theater) to leave me cold.  Langdon himself is much improved, written with more motivation and acted with more zip, and the story has all kinds of potential.  But that promise dissipates in a cloud of repetition and a climax that feels totally random.  Angels & Demons has a completely different set of problems than its' predecessor, but it ends up in roughly the same place:  as a glossy, well-acted near-miss.

In Vatican City, the Pope has died.  After nine days of mourning, it is time for a conclave of Cardinals to select his successor, presumably from among one of four popular Cardinals designated the Preferati.."  MORE

11/1/08:  "There are several genres that seem to lock a storyteller into a finite number of possible stories.  Right up there with police thrillers among the most limiting is the Western.  Cowboys, Indians, corrupt ranchers, faithful sheriffs, vengeful gunmen, damsels in distress... the key to a successful Western isn't re-inventing the wheel:  that's pretty much impossible.  It's arranging those pieces in just the right order to serve as a platform for memorable characters.  Appaloosa, the new Ed Harris labor of love based on a novel by Robert B. Parker, does something even more interesting.  While its' characters do indeed occupy a familiar Western setting and face the elements of a familiar Western plot, they crackle with life that they seem to be free of it, able to make decisions and dodge some (although not all) of the pitfalls cliché often turns into destiny.  So, while I've seen more than my share of lawman vs. Rancher Who Believes He's Above the Law stories, I'd never seen one quite like Appaloosa.

Virgil Cole (Ed Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) are traveling lawmen with a simple business plan.  If your town's in trouble, hire them to become The Law, sign over basically all legal authority to them, and once they've cleaned things up, it's on to the next job."  MORE

1/4/07:  "Unless you simply don't plan to, it's probably better that we don't have this conversation until you've seen the peculiar combo of Terrence Malick and Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Mel Gibson has made about the declining days of the Mayan Empire.  Consisting of four fairly distinct sections, each progressively more interesting than the one before it, Apocalypto is a difficult movie to discuss without SPOILERS.  So, consider yourself warned.

Still there?

Cool.

Since we're just getting to know each other here at The Palace, I'll let you know up front that I'm not the kind of moviegoer who's all that concerned with what kind of guy Mel Gibson is in real life or what strange ideas might be kicking around in his head.  I'll leave viewing Apocalypto through that kind of prism for others.  What's actually up on the screen is an ultra-violent historical action movie that is equal parts snoozy and electrifying, but by the end, I was glad I saw it."  MORE

4/7/07:  "Something very strange is happening in Are We Done Yet?, the sequel to the 2005 hit Are We There Yet?, and it's not the fact that Columbia Pictures decided to remake the Cary Grant classic Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House as a sequel to an unrelated movie.  Well, that is pretty strange, but even stranger is the fact that 95% of the inspiration both behind and in front of the camera is invested in a single supporting character who didn't appear in either There or Blandings.

Six months after the events of Are We There Yet?, Nick (Ice Cube) and Suzanne (Nia Long) are married and living in his small apartment with her kids Lindsey (Aleisha Allen) and Kevin (Philip Bolden).  Nick's sold his sporting goods store and is pursuing his dream of starting his own magazine, and thanks to a large advance he's received toward the first issue, he can afford to move his new family into their own house.  Out in the country, they're charmed by a house sold to them by Realtor Chuck (John C. McGinley).  Chuck tells them there's work to be done on the house and gives them the number of a good contractor, but Nick wants to do the work himself.  Once the entire electrical system blows out, he's got to call that contractor, who is... Chuck."  MORE

12/7/09:  "As this site attests, I go to the movies an awful lot.  Ideally, a couple times a month, I see something I really love (ten best list time is right around the corner, boys and girls!).  Unfortunately, once or twice a month, I'll also see something I really hate.  Most of the movies I see fall into the great expanse in between, getting the job done enough to make me glad I went, but making enough mistakes and falling short in enough areas to frustrate the unproduced screenwriter in me, forcing me to work out my “they should have tweaked this, done that differently” issues on these pages.  Then there's the rare movie like Nimrod Antal's heist thriller Armored, which does just about everything you could expect it to do, makes no wrong steps, is well-acted across the board, and is just generally solid without rising above the level of “that was pretty good”.  I was satisfied with Armored, and it does have a few memorable moments.  If more movies were like it, the weeks between those Ten Best movies would be a lot less frustrating, but I probably wouldn't have a website.

Ty Hackett (Columbus Short) works for Eagle Shield security, an armored truck service run by the intense Duncan Ashcroft (Fred Ward)."  MORE

12/16/08:  "We've got blockbusters to give us explosions, alien invasions and superstars, so we ask the independent film to give us the opposite end of the spectrum:  characters and situations we can really relate to, particularly marginalized characters Hollywood wouldn't see much financial upside in presenting.  I have to admit I don't connect with indie characters as often as I'd like.  These days, “independent film” is as likely to simply promise a different kind of commercially viable artifice instead.  But ...Around is the real deal, leaning on a phenomenal star turn by up-and-comer Rob Evans to spend four occasionally painful years in the company of a man on a moving journey of self-discovery.  Its' low budget financed on credit cards by debuting writer/director David Spaltro, there are some rough edges to this New York-shot indie, but it absolutely gripped me, and I really can't say enough about that lead performance."  MORE

10/30/09:  "t's the goal of any “family film” to appeal on at least some level to audiences of all ages.  After all, you don't see very many 5 year-olds at the movies by themselves and somebody's got to buy their ticket and sit next to them for 90 minutes.  What this usually means is that we get a story pitched at 5 year-olds and punchlines interspersed between bouts of flatulence that reference movies, TV shows and songs from before the movie's target audience was born.  This allows adults, sitting next to said fart-loving kiddies, to think “Ha!  Take that, kiddie!  That joke was for ME!”  Harder, of course, is to come up with storytelling that works equally well for all age groups, leaving adult and kid sitting next to each other in peace actually both following and enjoying the plot.  The best such movies tend to grow up along with us, revealing previously unseen levels and themes as we age into them, all the while still tickling our inner child with the stuff that drew us to them in the first place.  David Bowers' Astro Boy, an update of a trend-setting 1960's anime series I've never seen, should work just this way for kids with the good fortune to see it now.  And even for those of us who'd reached our mid-30's before it was  made, this tale of a scientist driven to madness by his grief, the lonely robot child he creates and an insidious monster made of pure political ambition packs a serious punch."  MORE

2/26/07:  "These are troubling times.  Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction.  Negativity seems to be everywhere around us.  It gets candidates elected, sells papers, gets people to watch the news and makes for the best office gossip.  If ever there was a time for a great movie about the triumph of a simple man's dreams over the vast political and corporate forces that oppose them, that time is now.  Alas, as desperately as The Astronaut Farmer wants to be that movie, it's not.  The pieces are there, but the characters just don't live in that same troubling world we do.

Charlie Farmer (Billy Bob Thorton) could have been an astronaut, but dropped out of the space program after his father's death and took over the family farm.  It's gnawed at him all these years, a dream to go into space that's led him to build a rocket in his barn.  Wife Audie (Virginia Madsen), son Shepard (Max Thieriot) and daughters Stanley (Jasper Polish) and Sunshine (Logan Polish) are 100% on board, but there's a certain vague sense that it'll never really happen.  That all changes one day at the bank, when Charlie learns that with all the money he's diverted into his own personal space program, the ax of foreclosure will fall on his farm within a month.  It's now or never."  MORE

6/19/10:  "Stephen J. Cannell was one of the greatest of a generation of TV writer/producers who created and then supervised seemingly dozens of shows at once.  His work, including The Rockford Files, Hardcastle & McCormick and The Greatest American Hero, stood for something seminally 80's:  that you could live large, fight crime and have loads of fun doing both.  The stories weren't complicated, and neither were the characters, but damn they were fun, and it's hard to find a guy who grew up during his heyday whose definition of cool wasn't at least somewhat influence by his work.  And in that sense, The A-Team (co-created by Frank Lupo) was his masterpiece.  The saga of four wrongfully accused Vietnam vets who traveled the country fleeing the military and helping ordinary folks along the way was built out of icons:  four pedal-down crazy-cool characters, an outrageous haircut, a super-cool custom van, awesome catchphrases and a hero who moonlit as the star of a series of horror movies where he played  a sea monster called the Aquamaniac.  Like many great TV shows, The A-Team burned hot for a short period and by the time its fifth season introduced several new characters and totally reinvented the concept, it looked like a series challenging the longevity records of Gunsmoke and Law & Order.  But at its peak, it was exactly what gives people the idea that beloved TV shows would make great movies, and Joe Carnahan has delivered on that promise."  MORE

1/24/08:  "There's a certain kind of movie that only, it seems, pops up at this time of year.  British people in period costumes inflict offenses upon each other that modern people (even English ones) likely wouldn't find that big of a deal, but honor is sullied, lives are ruined and Oscars are won.  I freely admit to prejudging Atonement as a costume drama snoozer and purchasing a ticket only because it won the Golden Globe for Best Picture-Drama.  About fifteen minutes in, as well-dressed, wealthy Brits sun themselves while exchanging banal conversation, I dearly regretted that purchase.  But Joe Wright's film version of Ian McEwan's revered novel has one trick after another up its' sleeves, and slowly pulled me into its' dense inner world.  One of the best jobs I've ever seen of putting a character's tortured mental process on screen, Atonement positively squirms with its' own unease... as would you, if you were inside the head of Briony Tallis, who at the age of 13 did a very bad thing.  One she can never take back.

It's 1935 and all is sunshine and wealth at the estate of the Tallis family.  Of particular concern to us are their two daughters, Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and little Briony (Saoirse Ronan), both of whom are in love, in their own way, with the housekeeper's son, Robbie Turner (James McAvoy)."  MORE

11/18/07:  "Generally speaking, I think there are two ways to watch a movie:  sentimentally or cynically.  The sentimental viewer sees fate where the cynic sees only contrivance.  The sentimentalist demands that the movie “feel” right while the cynic demands that it be logical.  And the sentimental viewer cries a lot.  Unsure which category you fall into?  Check out August Rush, as good a litmus test as has ever been committed to film.  A magical tale of how one separated family's love of music creates a harmonic convergence that pulls them all toward each other, its' plot engines are exclusively emotional and cannot be explained other than to say they made me cry so long and so loud that it's taken Pole Position in the race for the best movie of the year.

We first meet young Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) in a field listening to the wind and the wheat blowing around him and conducting it all like a symphony.  He's a musical prodigy of the highest order, but he's also an orphan, and obsessed with the notion that the music he “hears” in his head would allow his parents to find him if they could only hear him play it.  In flashbacks, we meet those parents, cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) and rock guitarist/singer Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).  Eleven years ago, they met at a party and spent a night of passion on a rooftop listing to the music of the city."  MORE

11/30/08:  "Confession:  trying to prepare for the 2002 Oscar ceremony, I rented Baz Luhrmann's widely praised box office hit Moulin Rouge!.  I shut off the tape after roughly 20 minutes, so tortured by the movie's utter self-amusement and seeming intent to trigger an epileptic seizure in all susceptible viewers that I could bear no more (it ranks alongside the 1994 bomb Radioland Murders as the only two films I've ever rented but been unable to bring myself to finish).  I had no interest in checking out Luhrmann's two earlier films (William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and Strictly Ballroom, also both well regarded) and on the basis of his long-gestating Moulin follow-up Australia, I feel safe in concluding the the Australian auteur is very, very far from my cup of tea.  A stylistically ambitious but seemingly pointless and definitely painful attempt to create a late-30's-style Hollywood epic about his home country's shameful racial past and entry into World War 2, Australia manages to capture all the weaknesses of Gone With the Wind-era Hollywood filmmaking and none of its' strengths.  The next time someone tells me they don't make 'em like they used to, I'll point to Australia and say there are some pretty good reasons for that."  MORE

12/20/09:  "James Cameron hasn't been gone, per se, he's just been, well, around.  Since his Titanic became The Biggest Movie Ever and won a bazillion Oscars back in 1997, he dabbled in TV with the series Dark Angel (writing the pilot and co-writing the series finale, which he also directed), and made documentaries like the snazzy Ghosts of the Abyss and the deadly dull Aliens of the Deep as an excuse to play at two of his favorite hobbies:  underwater exploration and the emerging technology of digital 3D.  The later has finally inspired his return to the venue in which he became the self-proclaimed King of the World, live-action blockbusters. Avatar has been in the works for years, and Cameron developed so much new technology to make it that the movie is sure to change the way future movies look just as his groundbreaking Terminator 2:  Judgment Day did almost 20 years ago.  As such, it arrives perhaps overhyped as a “game-changer” equivalent to the likes of Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz 70 years ago.  Try to put the hype out of your head: Avatar takes technologies like 3D and motion capture photography to places just a little bit ahead of where they've been before, but it's not like seeing the movies reinvented, particularly since the story is a slam-bang update of Dances with Wolves that bears more than a passing resemblance to May's little-seen 3D flick Battle for Terra."  MORE