8/22/08:  "We seem to be entering a very strange and exciting time in the career of Adam Sandler.  Already working hard to refine his Saturday Night Live-honed acting skills to the point where he can give a real performance, the reigning king of lowbrow comic blockbusters has now made back-to-back movies that are (gasp) “about” something.  Big things, too.  I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry attempted, with some success, to generate some empathy on the gay marriage issue among a constituency unlikely to have given it much thought.  And now he's stepped into even stickier territory, perhaps the world's single most divisive issue:  the eternal struggle between Israel and Palestine.  OK, You Don't Mess With the Zohan isn't exactly a thoughtful, dramatic examination of the issues, and this gonzo, anything-goes comedy can be hit and miss.  But it also has a way of sneaking up on you, scores more satirical points than you have any right to expect, and most shockingly of all, allows the former Opera Man to make me believe in the crazy dreams of a commando who only wants to be a hairdresser." MORE

1/12/10:  "Nick Twisp, the hero of a series of novels by C.D. Payne, is like a lot of teenage boys:  obsessed with losing his virginity, convinced he's smarter than every adult around him, and clueless as to why girls prefer “bad boys” to the refined, nerdy likes of himself.  What makes Nick different is that these obsessions lead him to a complete nervous breakdown and the creation of a dual identity who's free to be very, very bad on Nick's behalf. Youth in Revolt, the new film version of the first three novels in Payne's series, tells a story that could just as easily be the basis for a horror movie as a comedy, and never does quite come to terms with the contradiction between that and a desire to be fuzzy and uplifting.  But Michael Cera has found his Hamlet in the dual role of Twisp and his alter ego Francois Dillinger, and that demented pair is enough to make Miquel Arteta's film a consistently appealing tale of life's inequities and how, if you can't win a girl with brains and personality, sometimes you've just got to blow something up.

Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) lives with his mother Estelle (Jean Smart) and her loser boyfriend Jerry (Zack Galifianakis).  A nerdy would-be writer who listens to Frank Sinatra records all day, Nick is hopeless with women and grows more frustrated with this fact by the day." MORE