Film Reviews

Public Enemies

Michael Mann's Public Enemies never lacks for interest, or interesting info. Back in the 1930's, for instance, the FBI was simply called the Bureau of Investigation before being formally federalized...

The Hurt Locker; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The Hurt Locker starts with a quote from the journalist Chris Hedges -- "War is a drug" – then makes that case with masterful clarity and phenomenal force…

In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a National Security Adviser confronts the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime – he's a good robot, trying to help us foolish humans defend ourselves against an army of bad Decepticons – and says, angrily, "Who are you to pass judgment on us?"

Whatever Works; The Proposal

Boris Yellnikoff is the prolix geezer played by Larry David in Woody Allen's Whatever Works. He was once a world-class physicist teaching string theory at Columbia, but the only string he strums now is misanthropy...

At one point in The Proposal Sandra Bullock shakes the handlebars of her runaway bicycle and says frantically, "Why are you not stopping? Stop! Stop!" At more than one point in this wheeze of a romantic comedy I wanted to shake her and say...

Imagine That; The Taking of Pelham 123

Raise those lowered expectations a bit before you see Eddie Murphy in Imagine That...

The Taking of Pelham 123 is Tony Scott's fevered remake of the 1974 thriller about a hijacked subway train...

Land of the Lost; 24 City

General Motors may be in a class by itself when it comes to bankruptcy, but so is Land of the Lost. This dramatically, thematically and artistically bankrupt fantasy cost something in the neighborhood of $100 million to make and isn't worth the celluloid it's printed on...

Studs Terkel, the late chronicler of American workers and their work, would have loved 24 City. I certainly did, and I hadn't expected to be stirred by an account of Chinese workers and their labors over the course of decades in a factory that became their whole world...

Drag Me to Hell; Departures

The good news -- and there's no bad news -- is that Sam Raimi's horror flick Drag Me to Hell is smart, funny and cringe-worthy for all the right reasons, and up to speed on the mortgage crisis too...

Most of the events in Departures flow from a comical misunderstanding. After a Tokyo orchestra is disbanded, a discouraged young cellist, Daigo, looks for a new line or work...

Terminator Salvation; Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

In Terminator Salvation, primal screams come with the bleak territory. Any character of consequence gets to unleash one, and there's plenty to scream about...

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is critic-proof; nothing I might say would have the slightest effect on its commercial fate...

Angels and Demons; Management

Angels and Demons draws a sharp historical distinction between the Illuminati (the bad guys) and the Catholic Church's Preferiti (the good guys), but the movie may leave you feeling like a member of the Stupefiti...

Management, a debut feature by Stephen Belber is a sentimental and modestly enjoyable fantasy of mutual need...

Star Trek; Galaxy Quest

Legacy Player:

Joe Morgenstern, film critic for the Wall Street Journal, reviews Star Trek. He also mentions Qalaxy Quest, which is just being released on DVD.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Legacy Player:

It's been a while since I've seen anything as unpleasant as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but one sequence sticks out...

Does anyone love to watch Matthew McConnaughey act?... If his self-pleasure seems unearned, it's at least appropriate to the character he plays in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, a bizarre conflation of chick flick and A Christmas Carol...

The Soloist

Legacy Player:

The Soloist is actually a duet on the theme of redemption. It's scored for two very different, though equally remarkable actors, and performed with uncanny bravura...

Every Little Step; State of Play

Legacy Player:

How long has it been since a mo vie left you literally speechless? For me it's been a week. When the lights came up after a screening of Every Little Step, a friend and I turned to each other but we could only gulp and emit small gasps...

Sources are as crucial to filmmakers as they are to investigative journalists. In the glossy, ambitious thriller State of Play, Russel Crowe is a powerful presence as Cal McAffrey, a veteran reporter for a newspaper that resembles the Washington Post...

Valentino: The Last Emperor; Adventureland

Legacy Player:

Early in the course of Valentino: The Last Emperor, an interviewer asks the legendary fashion designer whether he ever wanted to be a fireman or a train driver. “No, no,” Valentino says with amusement, he always dreamed about movie stars, the silver screen, “about everything beautiful in the world.…”

Greg Mottola (Superbad) is back, as both writer and director, with Adventureland, an ambitious film that sets the goofiness of extended adolescence against the sadness of being adrift in an adult world…

Monsters vs Aliens; Shall We Kiss?

Legacy Player:

One of the retro monsters in DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs Aliens is a scientist with the head of a cockroach. He points to another monster, a blobby blue cyclops called B.O.B., and says haughtily, "As you can see, he has no brain..."

Shall We Kiss? gives us storytelling as art. Emmanuel Mouret's romantic drama, in French with English subtitles, is expert, intricate, ineffably droll, surprisingly provocative and completely enchanting...

Duplicity; Sin Nombre

Legacy Player:

To give Duplicity its due, Tony Gilroy's romantic caper goes against the Hollywood grain by smartening itself up instead of dumbing itself down…

By Hollywood standards Sin Nombre is a very small movie, shot in Spanish on a tight budget in Mexico, but it's a very big deal…

Sunshine Cleaning

Legacy Player:

At the end of Sunshine Cleaning, a foxy grandpa shrugs off the extravagance of an advertising claim he has made by saying, "It's a business lie. It's no the same as a life lie..."