The latest film from director Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly), Fast Food Nation, would seem to be another in a long line of important message pictures — think Super Size Me (2004), Lord of War (2005) or Crash (2005) — preaching to us about the evils of our culture. Instead of just stating the obvious […]
When I was a high school freshman, my social studies class took a field trip to the local minimum security prison. Being that this was a group of 15-year-olds, I remember someone making the obvious “don’t drop the soap” joke. While the movie is occasionally a bit above that type of gag, it still remains […]
When Christmas rolls around this year, I’m hoping Christian Bale gets filmmaker Christopher Nolan (The Prestige) a nice fruit basket or maybe some slipper socks, because if it weren’t for Nolan, Bale’s career would likely be toiling in obscurity right about now. That isn’t to say that Bale is a bad actor — far from […]
The first venture into computer animation for the traditionally clay-oriented Aardman Animations (the makers of the Wallace and Gromit series and Chicken Run (2000)), Flushed Away manages to set itself apart from the current onslaught of animated films. Despite trading Claymation for CGI (supposedly due to the fact that a number of scenes include water, […]
In a week where the big box office draw is the mindless torture-fest Saw III, it’s refreshing to find a movie that is actually thought-provoking. Set in South Africa during the 1980s, as apartheid’s hold on the country was just beginning to wane, Phillip Noyce’s Catch a Fire is an extremely topical, occasionally touching look […]
Since the entirety of my experience with horses ends at the Mountain State Fair and with the donkey that my neighbor would let my sister and me ride when we were about 4 years old, it’s pretty obvious that I am not the intended audience for Flicka. A supposed adaptation of Mary O’Hara’s children’s book […]
No, One Night With the King isn’t a movie about a date with Elvis. Rather, it marks the most recent entry (after Facing the Giants and Love’s Abiding Joy) in the sudden burst of Christian-themed movies to hit theaters in recent weeks. And while higher production values and name actors manage to set the movie […]
According to the English Language Monitor, a “global assemblage of linguists, professional wordsmiths, and bibliophiles,” there are approximately 988,968 words in the English language. Nonetheless, there is only one appropriate word to describe Employee of the Month: lame. The film from first-time director Greg Coolidge (whose other big credit is co-writer of 2002’s Sorority Boys) […]
The Guardian is simply one of those movies that exists: It’s not good; it’s not bad; it’s just there. It’s one of those movies that if you don’t see it in the theater, you’ll probably forget about it in a month (give it two months to fade from your memory if you happen to catch […]
One review for Flyboys, this week’s entry in the “inspired by a true story” genre of filmmaking, asked what’s wrong with making an old-fashioned, feel-good war movie. And while there’s no arguing with the fact that Flyboys accomplishes just that, when your film is cliched, hokey and, in some cases, downright irresponsible, then it’s safe […]
Crossover isn’t just a bad movie; it is painfully bad. It’s a movie where you check your watch every five minutes to see exactly how much of your life you have just wasted. It manages to raise itself above other bad movies by failing to even be interesting, and instead decides to wallow in minutiae […]
Predictable and safe in the tradition of Disney Studios, Invincible shows us once again that they have perfected the formula, and cornered the market on the uplifting, inspirational sports movie. The formula works in the sense that it’s impossible for the movie to be horrible, but at the same time, is unable to reach anything […]
Much like the southern migration of geese, Material Girls has joined what seems to have become an annual occurrence (after 2005’s The Perfect Man and 2004’s Raise Your Voice): the push to turn former teen sensation Hilary Duff into a honest-to-goodness adult actress (not that kind, get your mind out of the gutter). And while […]
What happens when you combine the director of the 2001 Mariah Carey disaster, Glitter, with a former underwear model? In the case of Waist Deep, you end up with a surprisingly decent B-movie — with a penchant for absurdity. While never reaching the sublime ridiculousness of, say, Wayne Kramer’s recent movie, Running Scared, the makers […]
