More so than any film in recent memory your enjoyment of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” hinges entirely upon what generation you’re a part of. It’s a nonstop barrage of pop culture references, and it is filled to overflowing with video game throwbacks and comic-book storytelling. It speaks very specifically to one age group; if you were born during the 1980s, you’re in the wheelhouse.
As cartoonist Robert Crumb explains at the beginning of the documentary “Crumb,” he’s most famous for three things: that “Keep on Truckin’” drawing, the cover of Janis Joplin’s “Cheap Thrills” album and the X-rated animated cartoon “Fritz the Cat.”
Even if you don’t give an Aswan Dam about Egypt, it’s hard not to be swept up by the grandeur of one of its most beautiful and mysterious metropolises in “Cairo Time.”
First there was “The Nanny Diaries.” Now we have what can best be titled “The Nanny Diarrheas,” or as image-conscious Universal Pictures prefers to call it, “Nanny McPhee Returns.”
Here's the good news: "The Switch" is better than Jennifer Aniston's last romantic comedy, "The Bounty Hunter." Here's the bad news: A test pattern would have been better than "The Bounty Hunter."
“Nanny MacPhee Returns” would pass unnoticed on my radar if not for the very clear and present danger it represents to Mr. Flicks’ home life with regard to Mrs. Flicks and her BFF (Best Flicks Friend). When Nanny comes around, so too do the British accent and cries of “Nanny!” ringing through Flicks Manor. It’s a special, if short-lived torture no amount of immaturity on my part can stamp out.
The artist formally known as Lil Bow Wow is movin’ it on up after purchasing a $350 million lottery ticket.
Robert Duvall is simply to die for as hermit looking to bury past. It’s a casket full of miracles thanks to Duvall, delivering his finest performance since 1997’s “The Apostle,” as Felix, one of the most likable curmudgeons you’ll ever meet.
Lance Daly’s beautifully rendered film "Kisses" will not only capture your heart, it will break it with a series of haunting images of two hardscrabble children stuck in hopeless situations.
"Life During Wartime" is a look at extremely dysfunctional modern American families and romantic relationships gone bad and various people who, no matter how hard they try, can’t cope with the cards they’ve been dealt.
Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg have "grate" chemistry as world’s worst cops in "The Other Guys." Wahlberg is one of my favorite performers and a proverbial American success story. But that success was built on drama, not comedy, which seems to suit him more in small doses. As a leading man, like he is here opposite a long-slumping Will Ferrell, his deficiencies become all too prevalent.
They don’t make concert films like they used to. These days, they’re all high-tech setups captured on dozens of high-def cameras in perfect fidelity, with the bands playing more to the TV viewers than the folks filling the seats of the arena.
In comedy, there are the ridiculous one-note rom-coms; the gross-out, over-the-top shock jocks; the dark and twisted types; and the goofball spoofs. Then there are the other guys. The guys like Judd Apatow (who produced funny heavyweights like “Superbad,” “Knocked Up,” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”) and Adam McKay, who has directed some of comedian Will Ferrell’s best work, including “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” “Step Brothers” and now “The Other Guys.”
There's a enough testosterone coursing through the veins of "The Expendables" to transform the Girl Scouts into the Marine Corps.
Does the thought of seeing Brainy, Grouchy, Jokey, Smurfette and Papa Smurf on the big screen make you feel, well, smurfy? I thought so. I think it’s a smurftastic idea.
I briefly considered this a baton passing (i.e., “The Rundown”) but who’s taking the handoff? No one in the cast makes sense. No, “The Expendables” is a wink and a nod to action fans. It’s part farewell tour, part joke. And one assumes — hopes — we’re all in on it. The actors know their best days are behind them, the fans know this is the last hurrah, a one-way mission for the guys who always save the day, always get the girl and always live to tell the tale.
The other day, my son saw the commercial for “Piranha 3D” and had exactly the reaction you’d expect from a 9-year-old boy: “I WANT TO SEE THAT!” And I had the response required from said boy’s 42-year-old father, namely, “Absolutely not. It’s completely inappropriate.” By which I of course meant, “I WANT TO SEE THAT!”
Forget ``3-D'' referring to three dimensions. In movie theaters these days, the term has morphed into 3 ``Ds'' -- ``Dismal, Dreary and Disastrous.''
Film director Todd Solondz's critics accuse him of everything from being sympathetic toward pedophiles to being a misanthropic provocateur out to get a rise by exposing his audiences to the most unpleasant aspects of human behavior in movies like “Happiness,” “Palindromes” and Storytelling.” But what really interests Solondz is happiness, forgiveness and human behavior.
"Life During Wartime" is a look at extremely dysfunctional modern American families and romantic relationships gone bad and various people who, no matter how hard they try, can’t cope with the cards they’ve been dealt.
