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MOVIE REVIEW

Oct 10, 2008 11:37 AM CDT

Happy-Go-Lucky Dazzles

Famously miserable director Mike Leigh takes a look at the brighter side of life

(Newser) - British director Mike Leigh is famed for his gloomy films, but Happy-Go-Lucky leaves critics smiling. The complex look at happiness stars Sally Hawkins as Poppy, a London teacher with a perpetually sunny outlook. "I wanted to throttle her at first," writes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone, but she'll...

Low Approval Ratings Greet W.

MOVIE REVIEW

Oct 8, 2008 11:29 AM CDT

Low Approval Ratings Greet W.

Stone's third presidential biopic his weakest

(Newser) - If early reviews are any indication, Oliver Stone might want to avoid waving a “Mission Accomplished” banner. His George Bush biopic, W., is “a gutsy movie,” writes Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter, “but not necessarily a good one.” The movie comes too soon to...

Hathaway
a 'Revelation'
in Married

movie review

Oct 5, 2008 3:39 PM CDT

Hathaway a 'Revelation' in Married

Prada star gets edgy in new family drama

(Newser) - Anne Hathaway trades her Prada pumps for a junkie’s reckless bravado in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, and critics couldn’t be happier. Rick Groen of the Globe and Mail and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly both herald her performance as a “revelation,” with Gleiberman adding...

Blindness 'Fascinating'
But Difficult to Watch

movie review

Oct 3, 2008 2:56 PM CDT

Blindness 'Fascinating' But Difficult to Watch

Not that director Meirelles' film is necessarily bad

(Newser) - Blindness is a hard film to watch, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad one. Some critics hated Fernando Meirelles’ parable about a plague of blindness; Roger Ebert called it “one of the most unpleasant, not to say unendurable, films I've ever seen.” But others...

Beverly Hills
Chihuahua
Has Little Bite

movie review

Oct 3, 2008 2:00 PM CDT

Beverly Hills Chihuahua Has Little Bite

Genre going to the dogs, critics moan

(Newser) - “If you’re going to make anything as ridiculous as a talking-dog movie, you might as well go all the way,” and Beverly Hills Chihuahua does just that, writes Nathan Lee in the New York Times. The story of a lapdog of luxury who finds herself among Aztec...

Flash Entertains—Intermittently

movie review

Oct 3, 2008 11:35 AM CDT

Flash Entertains—Intermittently

(Newser) - Critics like/don’t like/like Flash of Genius, a movie about the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. “Go ahead, groan,” writes Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, but the movie works thanks entirely to star Greg Kinnear. The perennial supporting actor here takes the lead and “ignores...

Infinite Playlist Has Finite Appeal

MOVIE REVIEW

Oct 3, 2008 9:41 AM CDT

Infinite Playlist Has Finite Appeal

Love blossoms between indie fans in teen romance with savvy soundtrack

(Newser) - Teen romance Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist turned some critics starry-eyed and others into curmudgeons. Michael Cera and Kat Dennings star as a pair of indie-rock fans who have a crazy night in New York. The "often delightful love story that uses music as its primary backdrop" is reminiscent...

Nothing Divine in Lee's Miracle

movie review

Sep 26, 2008 1:41 PM CDT

Nothing Divine in Lee's Miracle

War epic tries to do too much, runs too long

(Newser) - Miracle at St. Anna strives to be inspiring and powerful and epic, but Spike Lee's latest isn’t any of those things, critics say. “Mostly it's just unfocused, sprawling and badly in need of editing,” writes Claudia Puig of USA Today. Full of odd tonal shifts, stereotyped characters,...

Rodanthe Heavy on the Syrup

movie review

Sep 26, 2008 12:04 PM CDT

Rodanthe Heavy on the Syrup

(Newser) - Tearjerker novel Nights in Rodanthe left some critics sobbing and others scowling. Now Unfaithful co-stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane are reunited for the movie version of the Nicholas Sparks romance, with a similar divide. The actors' "natural rapport" makes for a movie "one either utterly succumbs to...

Lakeview Not a Pretty Picture

movie review

Sep 19, 2008 11:50 AM CDT

Lakeview Not a Pretty Picture

Jackson can't save formulaic flick

(Newser) - Lakeview Terrace labors mightily to turn its B-movie cop/neighbor-from-hell premise into “deep social commentary about race, or real estate, or something,” writes Chris Farnsworth of E!, “but the result is an inexplicable mess.” The tensions between Samuel L. Jackson’s loose cannon cop and the interracial...

Gervais Gives Ghost Town Life

MOVIE REVIEW

Sep 19, 2008 9:19 AM CDT

Gervais Gives Ghost Town Life

(Newser) - A spirited performance from Ricky Gervais banishes the spectre of mediocrity from supernatural romantic comedy Ghost Town, critics say. The story of a dentist who starts seeing dead people is a touch generic, Bill Goodykoontz writes in the Arizona Republic, but Gervais—the UK creator of the original Office—shines...

Coens Burn, But Not Brightly

MOVIE REVIEW

Sep 12, 2008 5:11 PM CDT

Coens Burn, But Not Brightly

No Country follow-up funny, but not the brothers' best

(Newser) - Burn After Reading is your standard Coen Brothers comedy: It’s black, clever, and zany, and David Ansen writes in Newsweek that he “enjoyed just about every heartlessly jolly minute of it.” The film is nominally a spy/thriller spoof, its sidewinder plot involving airhead gym employees trying to...

Women Has Little to Like

MOVIE REVIEW

Sep 12, 2008 3:56 PM CDT

Women Has Little to Like

Stale stereotypes abound in update of '30s satire

(Newser) - The modern update of 1930s socialite satire The Women is meeting scorn from critics. Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, and the rest of the big-name cast do their best, Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone, but they struggle "with a script that resists being crowbarred into the 21st century."

Righteous Kill is Dead Ordinary

MOVIE REVIEW

Sep 12, 2008 2:47 PM CDT

Righteous Kill is Dead Ordinary

Generic cop flick falls flat despite De Niro, Pacino power

(Newser) - Not even the combined star power of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro can save the “tricked-up and often turgid” cop thriller Righteous Kill, critics conclude. The iconic duo finally share some serious screen time as a pair of veteran NYPD detectives tracking a vigilante killer in their midst,...

Bangkok Dangerously Bland

MOVIE REVIEW

Sep 5, 2008 10:37 AM CDT

Bangkok Dangerously Bland

Cage-starring remake of Asian hit lacks the spice of the original

(Newser) - The Pang brothers' Hollywood rehash of their 1999 hit Bangkok Dangerous lacks spice despite the exotic locale, say critics. The "rough, Bangkok underworld-set story" has morphed into "a cleaner tourist's take on crime and corruption," Jordan Mintzer writes in Variety, with Nicolas Cage playing a more conventional...

Traitor's Layered Thrills Impress

NEW RELEASE

Aug 29, 2008 7:40 PM CDT

Traitor's Layered Thrills Impress

'Twisty' plot covers all sides of the story

(Newser) - Critics are impressed with terrorism thriller Traitor’s maze of a plot, superb acting, and moral ambiguity. The film squeezes “a vast and sometimes contradictory compendium of post-9/11 fears and anxieties into 110 swift minutes” while trying “to cover every side and cater to just about every possible...

Burn Flares Up, Flames Out

NEW RELEASE

Aug 29, 2008 3:02 PM CDT

Burn Flares Up, Flames Out

Critics love and hate new Coen brothers film with top-flight cast

(Newser) - Burn After Reading, a dark comedy about Washington bureaucrats and other buffoons, “tries to mate sex farce with a satire of a paranoid political thriller, with arch and ungainly results,” Todd McCarthy writes in Variety. The Coen brothers dial everything up to “an almost grotesquely exaggerated extent...

Demented Hamlet 2's the Thing

MOVIE REVIEW

Aug 27, 2008 11:38 AM CDT

Demented Hamlet 2's the Thing

The play's the thing in deranged spoof of high school musicals

(Newser) - Hamlet 2 may not put the Bard out of business but it's not lacking for invention, critics say. The "genuinely bizarre and frequently hilarious comedy" follows the outrageous fortunes of a failed actor turned high-school drama teacher who tries to pen a Hamlet sequel, Rafer Guzman writes in Newsday....

The Office Jinx Strikes Again

GLOSSIES

Aug 22, 2008 2:12 PM CDT

The Office Jinx Strikes Again

Wilson repeats big-screen failures to which his sitcom-mates have become accustomed

(Newser) - Do The Rocker's poor reviews and sagging ticket sales prove there's an Office curse? Office stars can't replicate that show's success on the big screen, Dan Kois writes in New York, and the evidence backs him up: After The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Steve Carell starred in a series of mostly forgettable...

Faris Makes Bunny Hop

MOVIE REVIEW

Aug 22, 2008 12:40 PM CDT

Faris Makes Bunny Hop

(Newser) - Critics seem to split on the overall worth of sorority comedy House Bunny, but most agree that star Anna Faris is worth the price of admission. The stalwart of the Scary Movie franchise has a "sunny disposition and solid comic timing" that greatly improve what is "essentially a...