Past Reviews

Spread

Published on: 8th November, 2009

Director David Mackenzie trades the Scottish Highlands for the Hollywood Hills in this darkly comic fable about a male hustler. While Julia Roberts famously portrayed a hooker with a heart of gold, Nikki (producer Ashton Kutcher) suffers from Tin Man Syndrome: he doesn’t seem to have a heart at all. As he boasts in his [...]

The Ugly Truth

Published on: 8th November, 2009

Katherine Heigl stars as a lovelorn television producer who’s made to run a gauntlet of romantic exploits by a pig-headed morning-show host (played by Gerard Butler) as a way to prove whose romantic methods are more accurate. Legally Blonde’s Robert Luketic directs from a script by Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith, and Nicole Eastman. – [...]

Drag Me to Hell

Published on: 31st October, 2009

Evil Dead director Sam Raimi takes the helm for this “spook-a-blast” shocker about an ambitious L.A. loan officer who incurs the wrath of a malevolent gypsy by refusing to grant her an extension on her home loan. Determined to impress her boss and get a much-needed promotion at work, Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) lays down [...]

Watchmen

Published on: 31st October, 2009

Everybody’s favorite graphic novel comes to the screen (after years of rumors and false starts), less a roaring work of adaptation than a respectful and faithful take on a radical original. Watchmen is set in the mid-1980s, a time of increased nuclear tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, as Richard Nixon is [...]

The Proposal

Published on: 31st October, 2009

Rom-com favorite Sandra Bullock and the affably charming Ryan Reynolds’s superb chemistry turn The Proposal from otherwise standard romantic-comedy fare to one that is entertaining and sure to garner laughs. Margaret (Sandra Bullock) is a workaholic, tyrannical book editor (reminiscent of The Devil Wears Prada) who suddenly finds her career in jeopardy as she faces [...]

Aliens in the Attic

Published on: 31st October, 2009

A group of kids defend their Maine vacation home from knee-high alien invaders in this adventure comedy for the entire family. When Michigan native Bethany Pearson (Ashley Tisdale) arrives home after a secret outing with her boyfriend (Robert Hoffman), her father, Stuart (Kevin Nealon), decides that it’s high time for a family vacation. Packing up [...]

Up

Published on: 31st October, 2009

At a time when too many animated films consist of anthropomorphized animals cracking sitcom one-liners and flatulence jokes, the warmth, originality, humor, and unflagging imagination of Up feel as welcome as rain in a desert. Carl Fredericksen (voice by Ed Asner) ranks among the most unlikely heroes in recent animation history. A 78- year-old curmudgeon, [...]

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Published on: 31st October, 2009

John Godey’s 1973 novel The Taking of Pelham One Two Three boasts a suspense situation so surefire that even the directorial bad habits of Tony Scott can’t ruin this latest movie version. Four armed men seize a New York City subway train, isolate one car, and threaten to start killing passengers if a ransom isn’t [...]

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Published on: 31st October, 2009

The Rise of Cobra is not your grandfather’s G.I. Joe. It’s more like C.G.I. Joe with explosive special-effects action sequences that provide the film with a surplus of “Boom Boom Pow” (to quote the Black Eyed Peas song that drives the end credits). This blast from the summer past is very much like the metal-munching [...]

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Published on: 19th October, 2009

Wolverine, fan favorite of the X-Men universe in both comic books and film, gets his own movie vehicle with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a tale that reaches way, way back into the hairy mutant’s story. Somewhere in the wilds of northwest Canada in the early 1800s, two boys grow up amid violence: half-brothers with very special [...]

Next Page »