Starring:
Chazz Palminteri, Robert Davi, Peter Bogdanovich, Miriam Margolye...
Review:
Here's the little movie that could, a potent directing debut for actor Robert Davi, an immortal Bond villain in License to Kill. Davi plays Danny DePasquale, a star in his 20s when he and his chubby-chaser pal George Zucco (Chazz Palminteri, in top form) lead a doo-wop group called the Dukes. Cut ahead a few decades, and the guys are struggling in California, working in an Italian restaurant run by their Aunt Vee (Miriam Margolyes) and hassling their manager (a terrific Peter Bogdanovich) to repackage them as an oldies group. Danny and George dream of turning Aunt Vee's trattoria into a doo-wop club. But who has the bucks? So they cook up a heist that defines the term "fool's gold." For all the kickass fun, Davi offers a moving portrait of a man caught in the process of trying to...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Robert Davi, Chazz Palminteri
Review:
Here's the little movie that could, a potent directing debut for actor Robert Davi, an immortal Bond villain in License to Kill. Davi plays Danny DePasquale, a star in his 20s when he and his chubby-chaser pal George Zucco (Chazz Palminteri, in top form) lead a doo-wop group called the Dukes. Cut ahead a few decades, and the guys are struggling in California, working in an Italian restaurant run by their Aunt Vee (Miriam Margolyes) and hassling their manager (a terrific Peter Bogdanovich) to repackage them as an oldies group. Danny and George dream of turning Aunt Vee's trattoria into a doo-wop club. But who has the bucks? So they cook up a heist that defines the term "fool's gold." For all the kickass fun, Davi offers a moving portrait of a man caught in the process of trying to...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Catherine Deneuve
Review:
Holiday films in the hands of Hollywood make me puke. Mom is usually expiring from something terminal while the family dresses the Christmas tree with brave smiles. This French knockout, tough-minded and all the more affecting for it, turned my head around. It hits hard — even the laughs are killers. I should say that Mom (Catherine Deneuve, still an actress and beauty to die for) is slipping away from liver cancer. So what makes this one magic? Start with director Arnaud Desplechin, who co-wrote the deft script with Emmanuel Bourdieu. Desplechin (Kings and Queen, How I Got Into an Argument) is a world-class filmmaker, not some studio hack. He can maintain a light touch even in the face of tragedy. He can layer a film so that it's always springing surprises. He can reference...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Catherine Deneuve
Review:
Holiday films in the hands of Hollywood make me puke. Mom is usually expiring from something terminal while the family dresses the Christmas tree with brave smiles. This French knockout, tough-minded and all the more affecting for it, turned my head around. It hits hard — even the laughs are killers. I should say that Mom (Catherine Deneuve, still an actress and beauty to die for) is slipping away from liver cancer. So what makes this one magic? Start with director Arnaud Desplechin, who co-wrote the deft script with Emmanuel Bourdieu. Desplechin (Kings and Queen, How I Got Into an Argument) is a world-class filmmaker, not some studio hack. He can maintain a light touch even in the face of tragedy. He can layer a film so that it's always springing surprises. He can reference...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Gemma Arterton, Mathieu Amalric, Ju...
Review:
So shoot me. I left the action rush of this follow-up to the terrific 2006 Casino Royale feeling bummed out by James Bond. Well, not by the Bond of Daniel Craig — he's still one nasty-ass dude, with the kind of rough-edged style that the 007 franchise hasn't seen since the glory days of Sean Connery. But the character fun seems to have gone out the window in Quantum of Solace, a fancy-shmancy title (the only thing borrowed from Ian Fleming's short story) for a movie that pours crude oil all over the subtle pleasures and sexy beats that came before. The new movie picks up a few minutes after the last one. Big car chase (all together now: eww!) as Bond, barely recovered from the death of his lady love Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), burns rubber all over Italy with the wiggling body of...
Rating: 2 Stars

Starring:
Samuel L. Jackson, Bernie Mac, Jennifer Coolidge, Sean Hayes, Ken...
Review:
There's a shining moment in this uneven spin on Grumpy Old Men when Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson, playing feuding backup singers on an R&B comeback tour, stop in the desert to change a flat tire. Instead, they break into an impromptu version of the soul classic "I'm Your Puppet," riffing off each other with waves of affection that flow right off the screen. Mac died shortly after wrapping the movie, as did Isaac Hayes, who does a cameo as himself. Soul Men is a chance to salute these masters of mirth and music. Take it.
Rating: 2 Stars

Starring:

Review:
Sometimes a shamelessly stoopid, proudly profane R-rated comedy is all you want out of life. Role Models more than fills the bill. It's killer funny. Cheers to Paul Rudd — he should be a star by now — who takes just the right wry comic tone as Danny, an L.A. misanthrope flushing his life down the shitter. Danny and his sex-crazed partner, Wheeler (Seann William Scott, the immortal Stifler), earn cash by selling Minotaur energy drinks. Wheeler wears the hairy costume. Danny drives the monster truck, until self-loathing prods him to use the vehicle as a WMD. The result is a jail sentence that Danny's lawyer love (the underused Elizabeth Banks) gets reduced to 150 hours of community service, but not before dumping him. And so sit meets com, as our boys are enlisted by Sturdy...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga, Asa Butterfield
Review:
You may not buy into actors playing Nazis with high-toned Brit accents, but the power of this Holocaust tale sneaks up and floors you. Writer-director Mark Herman has adapted John Boyne's novel with admirable restraint. Eight-year-old Bruno (Asa Butterfield) isn't pleased when he and older sister Gretel (Amber Beattie) are forced to leave their friends in Berlin and settle in a remote area where Bruno's commandant father (David Thewlis) has been stationed. The kids and their mother (Vera Farmiga) believe the fence they see outside their window encloses a farm, not a concentration camp. Bruno even ventures out of bounds and meets Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), the boy in striped pajamas behind the fence. They develop a dangerous, covert friendship with devastating results. Delicate...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Paris Hilton
Review:
The idea of the director of Saw II, III and IV going at Paris Hilton seems like just revenge for her punishable assaults on acting. In this atonal, faux-arty rock opera about a futuristic bull market in internal organs, Hilton is suitably clueless as Amber Sweet, the daughter of an aria-singing mob boss (Paul Sorvino). Amber trades in her organs like fashion accessories. But a new pancreas costs money. Don't pay, and the Repo Man will tear out your guts. It gets worse, much worse. Talented actors are involved, and I will spare them by not citing their names. "Happiness is a warm scalpel," sings Hilton. Misery is enduring this Rocky Horror Paris Show.
Rating: 0 Stars

Starring:
Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Traci Lords, Jason Mewes, Jennifer S...
Review:
If there is such a thing as a stroke flick for your funnybone, then Zack and Miri is it. Writer-director Kevin Smith is back on comedy terra firma, after Jersey Girl drowned in goo and Clerks II defined backsliding. For those who wonder what happened to the Smith of the first Clerks and Chasing Amy, here's your answer. Seth Rogen, on loan from the Judd Apatow hit factory, is Zack, the scruffy chubmeister slacking his life away as a barista at Bean-N-Gone in a corner of Pittsburgh. Zack shares a funky dump of an apartment with his best friend, Miri (Elizabeth Banks trying futilely not to look like a blond goddess). These platonic BFFs don't have sex, except for money. Let me explain: Zack and Miri can't pay the rent. At their high school reunion, Miri runs into her football-hero crush,...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:

Review:
Does everything work in this mind-bender from Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? No way. Synecdoche, New York is exhilarating and exasperating in equal doses. But Kaufman, making his directing debut, is focused on something you don't find at multiplexes overrun with chihuahuas and violent escapism: That would be a life of the mind. Kaufman wants to prove that intellectual ambition isn't dead at the movies. Godspeed. Philip Seymour Hoffman creates a mesmerizing portrait of the artist as a young, old and middle-aged man. He plays Caden Cotard, a stage director struggling on the fringes in Schenectady, New York. Ailments attack his body in ways that would appall Dennis Potter. His shrink (Hope Davis) despairs of...
Rating: 2 Stars

Starring:
Lena Leandersson
Review:
With True Blood on HBO and the film version of Twilight on the horizon, vampires are the new zombies. Bloodsuckers are hot, baby. Stick your neck out for this Swedish horror show. It's a winner, full of mirth and malice, plus a young romance you'll never see on the Disney Channel. Eli (Lina Leandersson) shows up just in time for 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), who lives with his divorced mom in dank Stockholm. The kids at school are always kicking Oskar's ass, which helps fuel revenge fantasies. So it's good to have a vampire on your side, especially Eli, who arrives in town with Hakan (Per Ragnar), an older dude, and a thirst for blood that must be slaked. Cue a series of bloody murders. Oskar doesn't guess what Eli is at first, except that she smells funny and only comes out at...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Kristen Scott Thomas
Review:
Want a master class in film acting? Check out Kristin Scott Thomas as Juliette, a doctor just out of prison in this spellbinder from writer-director Philippe Claudel. Juliette has been invited by her sister, Léa (Elsa Zylberstein), to share her home in France, along with Léa's husband, Luc (Serge Hazanavicius), their two adopted Vietnamese daughters and Luc's sickly father. It's delicate, mysterious business, starting with the reason Juliette was locked up for 15 years, and I won't spoil it here. You need only know that the sisters are trying to heal old wounds. Zylberstein is deeply touching as a woman who doesn't know what to do in the face of the older sister she partially fears and unconditionally loves. Claudel, making an uncommonly impressive debut in films, gives the...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale
Review:
If you're gay and/or eight years old, HSM3 is the movie event of the year. From the first leering close-up of Zac Efron shaking off sweat on the basketball court before bursting into sappy song, the movie — like the two TV movies that preceded it — is a nonthreatening sexual marshmallow. But did it have to be so synthetic, so devoid of feisty life? Where's Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass when you need him? Efron and co-star Vanessa Hudgens have charm. But director Kenny Ortega buries them in formula dances, forgettable tunes and dialogue that makes Grease sound like Greek tragedy. I especially gagged on the egregious group number "We're All in This Together." You wish.
Rating: 1 Stars

Starring:
Ed Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, Noah Emmerich, Jennifer Ehl...
Review:
Yes, it's a police drama, but not the kind that clogs up TV with bullets and clichés. Pride and Glory, directed with grit and grace by Gavin O'Connor (Tumbleweeds, Miracle) from a probing script he wrote with Joe Carnahan (Narc), may be the perfect election-era indictment. Ostensibly about a steadily imploding Irish-cop family in New York, Pride and Glory sizzles with a subversive subtext that questions blind loyalty to institutions, from the White House to Wall Street, that keep selling us out. It's a portrait of America rotting from the inside. Edward Norton is customarily excellent as Ray Tierney, an honest police investigator caught between father Francis Sr. (Jon Voight), who plays it old-school; brother Francis Jr. (Noah Emmerich), who sees corruption and looks the other...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Mark Wahlberg
Review:
It doesn't look, sound or resonate like a movie, so what is Max Payne? It's a videogame, people, masquerading as cinema and yet one more blight on pop culture. Mark Wahlberg has followed his deserved Oscar nomination for The Departed with questionable choices, such as Shooter and The Happening. But this is a career low. Max Payne is a dank, dispiriting cop flick that merely requires Wahlberg to wear a scowl that could have been painted on digitally with more expressiveness. Wahlberg's Max is an NYPD washout reduced to handling cold cases, like the murder of his wife and child. Out for revenge, Max joins forces with Russian assassin Mona Sax (so sad to see Mila Kunis, the romantic highpoint in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, stuck in this dreck), who is equally vengeful. It seems that the same...
Rating: 1 Stars

Starring:
Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, John Turturro
Review:
Think of it as old Hollywood's version of Entourage, an insider's take on the greed and vanity that make Tinseltown tick. Based on a memoir by producer Art Linson, the movie stars Robert De Niro, actually good for a change (Die! Die! Righteous Kill!), as a stressed producer. He's got a Sean Penn movie that's tanking at test screenings because a dog gets shot in close-up. He also has a film about to start with Bruce Willis, who balks at dieting and shaving his beard. ?The fucker is as fat and hairy as ever,? De Niro moans to John Turturro, as Willis' agent. Willis is a hoot as a nightmare version of himself. There are funny scenes, nicely directed by Barry Levinson. Other stuff, involving De Niro's ex-wife (Robin Wright Penn) and their daughter (Kristen Stewart), are not much of anything....
Rating: 2 Stars

Starring:
Josh Brolin
Review:
Toss professionally incendiary Director Oliver Stone in the biopic ring with the worst president in U.S. history, and you rightly expect something more than a walk on the mild side. Josh Brolin is truly electrifying in the role of George W. Bush, from fuck-up son of privilege to fuck-up commander in chief, but Stone and Wall Street screenwriter Stanley Weiser can't decide whether to stick it to our departing president or just hug it out. Whatever you think of Dubya, he has balls. The movie doesn't. It's not that W. fails to score points. It's watchable, often fun and, on rare occasion, suitably fierce. But from Stone you expect a fire in the belly or the gravitas he showed in Nixon. Here, only Brolin and James Cromwell as George Sr. are allowed to play it for real. The film opens with a...
Rating: 2 Stars

Starring:
Greg Kinnear
Review:
For a while, it looked like Greg Kinnear showed his acting chops best with supporting roles in the likes of As Good as It Gets, Little Miss Sunshine and the current Ghost Town. Well, hang on. Kinnear takes the star spot in Flash of Genius and rides it to glory. He plays Robert Kearns, the Detroit professor, inventor and father of six who came up with the idea for the intermittent windshield wiper during the 1960s. Go ahead, groan. I felt the same way. A night reading patent law seems more exciting. But Kinnear takes this true story — John Seabrook's 1993 New Yorker article formed the basis of the script, by Philip Railsback — and runs with it. Kearns had his "flash of genius" when a champagne cork popped his eye on his honeymoon with wife Phyllis (Lauren Graham). Why couldn't a...
Rating: 3 Stars

Starring:
Michael Cera, Kat Dennings
Review:
"Slight" is too strong a word to apply to this teen spin on Martin Scorsese's After Hours. Peter Sollett, a director with indie cred thanks to his 2002 Raising Victor Vargas debut, takes us on an odyssey into Manhattan's night world that toddles when you ache for it to toot. The script, by Lorene Scafaria, is Afterschool Special 101: Nick (Michael Cera), an alt-rock bassist, makes mixtapes for mean girl Tris (Alexis Dziena), who dumps him. After a gig with his two gay bandmates, Nick meets and falls for Nora (Kat Dennings), who likes his tapes and his yellow Yugo. They drive around the five boroughs looking for her drunk girlfriend (a funny Ari Graynor) and the club where Where's Fluffy are playing a secret concert. I'm yawning just writing this. The compensations are Cera and Dennings,...
Rating: 2 Stars