2/11/07:  "I've seen movies juxtapose the events of World War II with sci-fi, fantasy or horror in the past, usually because of our endless desire to see Nazis get theirs, and if they do it at the hands of fantastic creatures, all the better.  But I've never seen it done so skillfully as in Guillermo del Torro's Pan's Labyrinth, which merges a story of the last days of the Spanish Civil War with a fairy tale story about a little girl trying to escape to her fated place in a magical kingdom.  Both stories are really about the same, old-fashioned lesson:  the importance of doing the right thing, no matter how hard it is.

Young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) seeks solace in books filled with fairy tales.  Spain is in turmoil, and her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) has married the cruel Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez).  Carmen is pregnant with the Captain's child, and he has the women brought on a perilous trip to his headquarters so his son can be born in his presence, indifferent to the damage the journey has done to the mother.  One night, Ofelia is lead by an insect that becomes a fairy into an ancient labyrinth.  There she meets Pan (Doug Jones), a faun who tells her that she is the reincarnation of a fairy-tale princess who can reclaim her place at her father's side in a land far, far away.  All she needs to do is complete three increasingly arduous tasks."  MORE

4/16/07:  "Is it just me, or have posters, banners and stand-ups for this movie been in theaters since the Reagan administration?  Pathfinder (as it's called on-screen; Fox's subtitle-happy marketing department has dubbed it Pathfinder:  Legend of the Ghost Warrior in ads) has been appearing and disappearing from the release schedule for at least a couple years now, but the runaway success of 300 has apparently persuaded the studio to finally let it out of its' cage.  But it's not the Spartan blockbuster that springs to mind now that I've seen it:  substitute Vikings for Mayans and Pathfinder is like a short, artless Sci-Fi Channel remake of Apocalypto.

About a thousand years ago, Native Americans discover a crashed Viking ship with a single survivor:  a sword-wielding child (Burkely Duffield).  The tribe adopts him and he grows up to be sword-wielding adult Ghost (Karl Urban).  One day, a new ship full of sadistic Norse Warriors arrives and slaughters the village.  Ghost is injured in the attack and taken in by yet another tribe, led by the Pathfinder (Russell Means).  He recovers and warns them to run for it while he stays and makes a stand.  And that he does, with the help of the peculiar Blackwing (Jay Tavare) and Pathfinder's daughter Starfire (Moon Bloodgold)."  MORE

2/21/09:  "The movies, music, etc. of our childhoods “teach” us how those things are supposed to be.  Those templates can be unlearned:  certainly I prefer the contemporary television model with its' serialized stories and complex characters to the quirky crimefighters and self-contained adventures I watched as a kid.  But when it comes to movie genre fare, I do tend to respond emotionally to the beats and cliches established in that time period moreso than any before or since.  I mention this as a “your results may vary” disclaimer before plunging into Paul Blart:  Mall Cop, an unabashedly 80's “Die Hard in a Mall” comedy that just delighted the hell out of me.

Life has given Paul Blart (Kevin James) a whole lotta lemons, but he's tried to make lemonade.  His hypoglycemia has encouraged weight problems and made it impossible for him to live his dream of joining the Police Force, so he's embraced his job as a Mall Security Guard.  The only love of his life was just using him to get a green card, but she left him with a beloved daughter, Maya (Raini Rodriguez).  But Paul's happy face hides a desperate loneliness and self-esteem issues he fights down to talk to Amy (Jayma Mays), the new girl at the hair extension stand."  MORE

3/5/08:  "It takes many elements to make a great movie, but just about all of them can be classified under one of three headings:  pure cinema (everything from the director's shot choices and the special effects to the work of the makeup artists and the foley editors), acting and plot.  How you'd rank them in order of importance says a lot about the kind of moviegoer you are.  I can really enjoy the crafts of actors and filmmakers of all kinds, but at the end of the day, it's difficult to be anything but unhappy with a movie with a BAD story.  Mediocre stories can be overcome, but if I'm sitting in my carefully selected seat in the middle of the back row of the front section of the theater asking myself who came up with this nonsense, no amount of effort from the rest of the cast and crew can make up for it.  Case in point:  you'd be hard-pressed to find a better acted comic fantasy than the new (relatively speaking:  it played at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival) Resse Witherspoon-produced fable Penelope, and the handsomely mounted production is certainly up to code.  But all that could only keep me occupied for so long while Leslie Caveny's screenplay chugs along on fumes for an hour or so and then goes into a suicidal nosedive no amount of post-production tinkering can salvage. Penelope is a hopeless mess, but given how hard a really good cast tries to make it work, I felt at least as sorry for them as I did myself for having watched it."  MORE

2/15/10:  "You've got to give it to the Greeks:  they sure knew how to come up with a cinematic religion.  The Greek Gods and Goddesses, Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Aphrodite, et all, remain iconic fantasy characters millennia after anyone last believed they actually existed.  And why not?  They've got it all:  monsters, heroes, sex, war, and more familial squabbling than a dozen soap operas.  And so, every few years, they enjoy a rebirth in the movies and TV.  2010 will be an especially good year on Mt. Olympus with a remake of Clash of the Titans in the pipeline along with a new film version of the first book in Rick Riordan's popular Percy Jackson & the Olympians series.  The Lightning Thief couldn't ask for a better Percy than rising star Logan Lerman (at least if you're willing to concede his being somewhat older than the 12-year-old literary version) or a more apt choice of director than Chris Columbus, who shepherded the first cinematic adventures of Percy's forbearer Harry Potter.  The resulting movie, bulkily titled Percy Jackson & The Olympians:  The Lightning Thief, is fun and imaginative, even if it never builds up much of a head of steam.  The better you know your Greek mythology, the better time you'll have with this charming diversion."  MORE

8/11/09:  "Ten years ago this week, M. Night Shayamalan ushered in The Twist Era with The Sixth Sense.  Yes, Twilight Zone fans who paid close attention to exactly who spoke to Bruce Willis, when and how could see the tag coming from almost the first scene, but the lucky ones were those who didn't.  Because it's a fine movie either way, but the IMPACT of a Twist Movie is reliant upon it sneaking up behind you and getting you to jump when it yells “Boo!”.  A decade later, that gets harder and harder.  Twist-hardened moviegoers such as myself have just been twisted upon too many times to be snookered by all but the most clever surprises simply because we now have a certain understanding of the slight-of-hand that hides a twist, and when we see that misdirection in action, it's our cue to start guessing.  And if all you've got is that twist, you're screwed.  In that spirit, David Twohy celebrates this auspicious anniversary by offering us the first post-twist movie.  Oh, sure, his Vacation From Hell thriller A Perfect Getaway includes a hum-dinger of a reversal if you don't see it coming.  But unlike the oodles of failed Twist Movies we've rolled our eyes at these last few years, Getaway doesn't really mind if you guess.  It's built to be enjoyed either way, and you'll rack your brain to recall the last jauntier, more delightfully self-assured thriller."  MORE

3/2/09:  "Some sequels match the original.  Some see the mistakes made before and improve on it.  Some lose their way and can't approach their predecessor.  And some sequels simply exist, lying there like halfhearted dinner theater remakes.  I was among the minority who enjoyed the 2006 remake of The Pink Panther, but the heart and good cheer that made it work are mostly absent from The Pink Panther 2, replaced by an omnipresent indifference.  An excellent cast keeps the plates spinning, and there are a few funny bits, but in the end it's hard to muster more than a shrug about the result.

An infamous thief calling himself The Tornado dropped off the radar almost ten years ago.  But now, he's back, stealing a host of International treasures.  To combat the menace, an International 'Dream Team” (I'd suggest a drinking game taking a shot each time this phrase is used, but I wouldn't want your death from alcohol poisoning on my conscience) is assembled.  As much as inspector Dreyfus(John Cleese, taking over for Kevin Kline) wishes to head it himself, he's instead instructed to make Jacques Clouseau (Steve Martin) the French representative.  Still basking in the glow of his heroism in the original movie, Clouseau is still stuck in neutral when it comes to his relationship with his assistant Nicole (Emily Mortimer)." MORE

5/27/07:  "It's a fact of modern box office life:  some sequels are so highly anticipated that there is no possibility that they will fail financially.  And thus, there is no possibility that the studio will not put a third movie into production.  Back in the late 80's, the always inventive (though not always in a good way) Robert Zemeckis recognized these facts and asked “why not just make the second and third movies at the same time?”  The resulting Back to the Future Parts 2 & 3 were at times brilliant (mostly in Part 2) and at times just vamping to fill out the running time (that would be Part 3) but either way, they set a precedent that haunts blockbuster fans to this day.  After the joyous explosion of swashbuckling quirkiness that was Pirates of the Caribbean:  The Curse of the Black Pearl, back-to-back sequels were commissioned, telling a sprawling two-part story of curses and betrayals that could easily have been fit into a single lean film.  Last summer, we watched the murky, downbeat Dead Man's Chest vamp to kill its' two and a half hour running time.  Now, at last, we get the goods.  Pirates of the Caribbean:  At World's End is also too long for its' own good, but the fat is pretty much exclusively in the first hour, and once it kicks into gear... WOW!

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is dead, killed by the Kraken at the end of the previous film."  MORE

10/5/07:  "Produced and co-written by the young Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin Entertainment sensibilities were seminal to my childhood movie experience, Poltergeist was marketed under the tagline “It Knows What Scares You”.  It certainly knew what scared me when I first saw it on HBO at the age of 10.  Closets, your toys sitting there staring at you in the dark, thunderstorms, and worst of all, old dead trees.  Oh, and it's got some ghosts too.  I hadn't seen the film from beginning to end in years, and it's interesting to watch it with parents Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams as my points of identification rather than their poor, put-upon kids.  But it holds up surprisingly well, with a loose, frisky spirit and patient faith in its' subject matter that you wouldn't see in a similar movie today.

Life is good for the Freeling family, Mom Diane (JoBeth Williams) dotes over 16-year old daughter Dana (Dominique Dunne), 8-year old son Robbie (Oliver Robins) and 5-year-old daughter Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) while Dad Steve (Craig T. Nelson) is the top home salesman for the ever-expanding planned community in which they live."  MORE

3/17/07:  "*** SPOILER WARNING:  PREMONITION IS A MOVIE THAT'S PRETTY MUCH IMPOSSIBLE TO DISCUSS IN ANY MEANINGFUL WAY WITHOUT GETTING INTO HOW IT ENDS.  IF (AND IT WOULD BE A MISTAKE) YOU WISH TO SEE IT UNSPOILED, PROCEED NO FURTHER ***

There's a whole modern genre of thrillers that are the bastard children of Pulp Fiction and The Sixth Sense:  mix up the timeline, leave the audience guessing what the Hell's going on, and keep things moving at the slowest possible pace to maximize suspense.  The problem with most people who try to knock off the works of Tarantino and Shyamalan is that they get the style, but not the substance.  Perhaps the ultimate example of this is the awful new Sandra Bullock thriller Premonition, whose events can only be explained as the story of a woman trapped in God's really bad spec script.

Linda Hanson (Bullock) lives a vaguely sad, unfulfilling life with her husband Jim (Julian McMahon) and daughters Megan (Shyann McClure) and Bridgette (Courtney Taylor Burness)." MORE

10/26/08:  "Of all the little nooks and crannies of film criticism, the hardest thing to quantify is the simple fact that some things do and some things don't grab our interest.  I can point to a lot of things that go right with Pride & Glory, the new film from the director of my favorite movie of 2004, Miracle.  It's got excellent performances that do a really tremendous job summoning the realistic dynamic of a quietly dysfunctional family.  A a police thriller, it includes moments of effectively shocking violence.  But the one thing it couldn't do was engage my attention.  As its' mystery plot sprawled on and supporting characters filibustered through scenes that worked in and of themselves but did nothing to advance the plot, my mind wandered.  And I can't really recommend a movie I struggled to focus on, can I?

A spirited NYPD football game is broken up by shocking news:  a bust gone awry has led to the shooting deaths of 4 officers under the command of Francis Tierney Jr. (Noah Emmerich).  A task force is quickly assembled, and Francis Tierney Sr. (Jon Voigt) moves quickly to assure that his other son Ray (Edward Norton) is on it.  Ray's been hiding out in a desk job since an incident two years back that's clearly shattered his confidence and thrown his personal life into disarray."  MORE

1/16/07:  "I'm a sucker for creature features:  all the way back to the days when I used to plop my pre-teen butt down on the couch to watch Creature Double Feature on a now-defunct UHF station, I've always loved to watch giant creatures make life miserable for the poor humans who dared to get in their path.  Because this opinion seems to be in a distinct minority, my options to see this sort of thing in the theater aren't what they used to be.  But don't let Hollywood Pictures' deceptive ad campaign (serial killer, my ass!) fool you:  Primeval is a genuine, honest-to-God giant crocodile movie.  Saints be praised!

After making his cable news network bosses look bad by getting a big story wrong, news producer Tim Manfrey (Prison Break's Dominic Purcell) and his trusty camerman Steve (Orlando Jones) are sent to a civil war-ravaged African nation in search of the giant crocodile Gustav, who has just made news by killing a UN Anthropologist.  They're paired with an eclectic (albeit familiar) team:  Aviva Masters (Brooke Langton), a reporter who specializes in human interest animal stories, Great White Hunter Jacog Kreig (Jurgen Prochnow), Steve Irwin knock-off Matthew Collins (Gideon Emery), local kid JoJo (Gabriel Malema) and a couple of scary soldiers."  MORE

8/22/09:  "I've read that there are people afflicted with a mental illness that has them going to the movies pretty much 24/7, taking in dozens a week, thousands a year.  They've got time to see everything.  The rest of us, even ones like me who've been known to go 3-4 times a week when promising titles are in play, have to pick and choose.  And all we have to base our decisions on are genres, stars, trailers, and the all-important question “What's this movie about?”  And what an unpromising setup The Proposal, Anne Fletcher's follow-up to her truly splendid romcom 27 Dresses, has:  nasty boss blackmails her subordinate into marrying her to save his career and her green card.  But I did happen to see it anyway, and as a great man once said (Siskel or Ebert?  My memory fails me...), it's not what a movie is about, but how it is about it, and The Proposal has a surprisingly good handle on its' deceptively sentimental concept.  Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds play their roles like people rather than punching bags, and Pete Chiarelli's screenplay actually seems to know at least as much about human beings as romcom cliches.

Personal Assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) hates, hates, hates his boss Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock), but he finds himself firmly under her thumb as he tries to get ahead in the cutthroat world of Manhattan book publishing." MORE

12/25/07:  "I am a firm believer that if it's well done, anyone can enjoy any kind of movie.  So, I've never been one to run from titles (OK, I ran from Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, but what man didn't???) just because they come bearing the mark of Chick Flick.  After all, Pretty Woman is one of my all-time favorite movies (did I just play the “Some of my favorite movies are Chick Flicks” card?).  But I think that where genre (and gender) tastes come into play is when the movie isn't well done.  Fans of this site know very well I can be a sucker for certain kinds of sci-fi and action junk even when it's not exactly up to code, but if women's shoes are going to play a major role in your plot, you'd better have the goods.  P.S. I Love You, Richard LaGravenese's second Hilary Swank vehicle this year (after the far superior Freedom Writers), both leans heavily on the shoes and is an utter mess.  As such, it was at times quite painful to watch.

Holly (Hilary Swank) and Gerry Kennedy (Gerard Butler) were very much in love and married for a decade before he died from a brain tumor, sending her into a downward spiral of shut-in despair and watching depressing movies from the 40's." MORE

7/8/09:  "When reviewing movies, we are required to assign credit or blame to aspects of a film based on our own incomplete understanding of just whose responsibility those attributes are.  Within those confines, allow me to choose to make a wild, sweeping statement:  the summer movies of 2009 have been brutalized by the 2007-08 writers' strike.  Sure, screenwriting has never been a strong suit of summer blockbusters, but this year's crop is filled with movies that scream “We haven't really thought this out!”.  After the undercooked likes of Night at the Museum:  Battle of the Smithsonian and Transformers:  Revenge of the Fallen predictably struggled with the whole story thing, now we have a surprise:  Public Enemies, Michael Mann's film about the final days of John Dillinger, goes adequately through the paces of the historical record and sports strong lead performances by Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.  But the script credited to Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman fails to even attempt the most important challenge writers face when telling historical tales:  it doesn't seem to have the slightest idea of what this story means.

1933:  at the Indiana State Prison, bank robber John Dillinger leads a daring breakout, then resumes his crime spree with the help of a network of safe houses and mob lawyers." MORE

1/4/07:  "Sure, he's handsome, funny and a fine actor, but I suspect the real reason Will Smith has quietly become Hollywood's biggest star is that he seems like a really nice guy. Exhibit A:  The Pursuit of Happyness, an already amazing real-life rags-to-riches story that draws almost unbearable suspense from the horror of reducing our pal the Fresh Prince to sleeping at homeless shelters while he doggedly pursues the American Dream.

It's 1981.  Chris Gardner (Smith) has poured all his savings into an advanced but expensive line of bone density scanners he tries (and mostly fails) to sell to hospitals.  His wife Linda (Thandie Newton) pulls two shifts at a lousy job trying to keep them and their young son Christopher (Will's real-life son Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) afloat.  Looking for a way out of economic quicksand, Chris has a chance meeting with a stock broker and his expensive car outside the offices of Dean Witter.  Despite an education that ends with high school and an unimpressive resume, he becomes determined to get his foot in the door of the better life a job there represents." MORE

2/12/09:  "They always say, if you don't know what you're doing, fake it, and the cast and crew of Push can be applauded for putting that advice to excellent use.  Their movie is alternately under- and over-developed, lethally talky and unengaging, and doesn't even come to a satisfactory ending.  But it's got charm and spunk, and an excellent cast brings a level of quirky credibility to the goings-on.  Push isn't a good movie, but it is an enjoyable one in large part because it's got that little quirky something that makes a good movie great.  In this case, that's enough to make a bad movie perfectly OK.

Narration over the opening credits explains a whole lotta stuff to us.  Experiments begun by the Nazis and continued by the US in later years created various groups of superhuman people. “Watchers” can see the future, “Movers” can move objects with their minds, “Pushers” can put thoughts in other people's heads, stuff like that.  “Division” is the government agency that hunts the descendants of the original generations down, all in the name of further experiments that seek to use dangerous chemicals to supercharge those powers.  Got that? " MORE