Film
In the Valley of Elah: From Paul Haggis, Crash Goes to Iraq
Loosely drawn from Mark Boal’s 2004 Playboy investigative piece about the killing of a soldier who went AWOL…
Film
Molière: French Hunk Dons Fright Wig!
Like many geniuses of comedy, France’s pre-eminent 17th-century playwright always felt like a tragedian manqué, a vanity that,…
Film
Arctic Tale: Walruses Are the New Penguins
A smarmy score, some orgiastic farting from a herd of walruses, and a modicum of cutesy anthropomorphism from…
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Becoming Jane: Anne Hathaway as Harlequin Heroine
Off duty, according to this slickly pleasurable addition to the Jane Austen spin-off canon, our lady of graceful…
Film
My Best Friend: Daniel Auteuil Is the Loneliest Guy in Paris
Light, airy, and sweet, Patrice Leconte’s latest comedy swings his favorite premise—fruitful encounters between opposites—away from romance and…
Film
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry: Adam Sandler Mostly Avoids Easy Fag Jokes. Mostly
I wanted to hate this caper about two straight firefighters (Adam Sandler and Kevin James) pretending to be…
Film
Lady Chatterley: Three Hours of Crazy French Lovin
Pascale Ferran’s magnificently sensual adaptation of an earlier version of D.H. Lawrence’s novel isn’t remotely bawdy, but it…
Film
License to Wed: John Krasinski, Take Me Away! (From Robin Williams)
A blitzed-looking man stumbling out of a screening of this dreadful excuse for unromantic comedy volunteered that the…
Film
Snow Cake: Sigourney Weaver Stoops to Disease-of-Week Movie
In the kooky little Canadian town of Wawa, whose chief selling point is a 30-foot statue of a…
Film
Evening: Even Claire Danes Can’t Save Muddled Susan Minot Adaptation
Parked uneasily between sensitive indie and studio chick flick, Lajos Koltai’s Evening makes star-studded hash of Susan Minot’s…
Film
Red Road: Scottish Voyeur Indicts Herself, Compellingly
Like all voyeurs, Jackie (Kate Dickie) lacks a life to call her own outside of her job manning…
Film
La Vie en Rose: Havent Heard of Edith Piaf? Dont Start Here
Uplifted beyond its merits by a thrilling performance from Marion Cotillard, this humdrum biopic of France’s favorite songbird,…
Film
Take Two: There Is an Embedded Thriller in a Mighty Heart
Do we need another movie about the liberal West watching in horror as something that daily befalls helpless…
Film
Surfs Up: You Goddamn Penguins Get off My Lawn!
The cash-cow flippered ones rise again, this time as yellow-tufted surfer dudes riding the waves of life off…
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Shrek the Third: Three Helpings Is One Too Many
Coming out of Shrek the Third, I asked the two smart preteen girls I had in tow what…
Film
Jindabyne: A Better Raymond Carver Adaptation Than Short Cuts
My least favorite Robert Altman film, 1993’s Short Cuts, hijacked a bunch of Raymond Carver stories and turned…
Film
Julie Christie Loses Her Mind, But Beautifully, in Away From Her
In this superbly tacit chamber piece, intolerable pressure is brought to bear on the 44-year marriage between a…
Film
Lohan Shows Her Screen Talent in Georgia Rule
Three noisy women and a worn-out premise rattle around trying to make contact in Georgia Rule, an incoherent…
Film
Paul Rudd Helps Rescue the ’70s From Ford-era Kitsch in Diggers
A death in the family forces Hunt (Paul Rudd), a Long Island clam digger, to face up to…
