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movie Review

May 9, 2008 5:44 PM CDT

Redbelt Gets a No-Decision

Reviews mixed for Mamet fight flick

(Newser) - Redbelt can’t quite score a knockout with critics. While many find much to admire in David Mamet’s fight movie, most also concede it’s a flawed affair, and some outright disliked it. In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis described it as “a satisfying, unexpectedly involving B-movie,...

Speed Racer Is a Slog

movie review

May 9, 2008 11:33 AM CDT

Speed Racer Is a Slog

Sparkling presentation doesn't make up for failed storyline

(Newser) - The Wachowski brothers’ Speed Racer is a flashy ride that would be great for kids—if it weren’t “like C-SPAN set in an arcade,” writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. Endless, aimless dialog, she says, dominates the “juvenile and hermetic” pastiche about a Grand...

This Vegas Is a Bad Bet

movie review

May 9, 2008 9:13 AM CDT

This Vegas Is a Bad Bet

Lightweight rom-com doesn't hit the jackpot

(Newser) - The new romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas probably should have stayed in Vegas, most critics think—or "in Hollywood, where such lamebrained ideas are hatched," writes Bill Goodykoontz in the Arizona Republic. Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher star as a couple who get hitched after a drunken...

Iron Man Solid Gold

movie review

May 1, 2008 5:30 PM CDT

Iron Man Solid Gold

Critics love Downey as avenger in superhero turn

(Newser) - Iron Man rockets into theaters tomorrow, and it’s so good it “practically dares the competition to measure up,” Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone. Critics are nearly unanimous in praising the latest superhero flick, admiring its “raw vitality” and “pitch-perfect casting.” Robert Downey Jr....

Few Surprises in Deception

movie review

Apr 25, 2008 1:04 PM CDT

Few Surprises in Deception

Sex thriller a 'slow case of déjà vu'

(Newser) - Deception is a twist-filled thriller, but critics say the cloak of deceit will be paper-thin to anybody familiar with the genre. Ewan McGregor stars as a dull accountant whose life gets spicier after an attorney, played by Hugh Jackman, introduces him to a secret sex club. Soon after, the thriller...

Harold and Kumar Slacks Off

movie review

Apr 25, 2008 10:42 AM CDT

Harold and Kumar Slacks Off

Pacing poor, comedy wildly uneven

(Newser) - Sometimes it's hard not to laugh at the slacker/stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, writes James Berardinelli in ReelViews. At other times, it's hard not to cringe at the film, a sequel to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. That's because the humor in Escape, about...

Baby Mama No Bundle of Joy

movie review

Apr 25, 2008 7:50 AM CDT

Baby Mama No Bundle of Joy

Only quiet chuckles in conventional flick

(Newser) - Critics don't seem thrilled about the arrival of Baby Mama, which tells the story of an overachieving, infertile career woman (Tina Fey) who hires a rough-around-the-edges high school dropout (Amy Poehler) to bear her a child. The movie's not "laugh-out-loud funny," writes Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post....

Sarah Marshall Is Memorable

NEW RELEASE

Apr 18, 2008 9:40 AM CDT

Sarah Marshall Is Memorable

Apatow project racy, touching, hilarious

(Newser) - Forgetting Sarah Marshall is another raunchy romantic comedy from Judd Apatow's repertory company, with an important difference: star/screenwriter Jason Segel. His performance as a clueless spurned boyfriend is "awkward and embarrassing," yet "sweet" and "disarming," writes Scott Tobias of The Onion A.V. Club. Segel...

People Not Smart Enough

movie revew

Apr 11, 2008 1:45 PM CDT

People Not Smart Enough

Critics say indie romantic comedy needs an IQ test

(Newser) - Critics like the big-name actors in family serio-comedy Smart People —especially Dennis Quaid, who stars as a cranky professor with much to learn about people—but think they might have been smarter to choose a different script. Screenwriter Mark Jude Poirier "is aiming for Scrabulous dialogue but his...

Film Critics Fading
in Cyber-Culture

column

Apr 5, 2008 7:54 PM CDT

Film Critics Fading in Cyber-Culture

Fans surf web for trailers, ignore esteemed critics

(Newser) - Gone are the days when film critics swayed the culture and sparked serious debate, Anne Thompson laments in Variety. None of her college film students can name a critic besides Roger Ebert, though all are intense cinematic aficionados. Instead, most turn to review roundup sites, or “get their movie...

Nim's Island a Little Too Busy

movie review

Apr 4, 2008 2:34 PM CDT

Nim's Island a Little Too Busy

Adventure film with plucky young heroine one for the tweeners

(Newser) - The spectacular scenery in Nim's Island impressed the critics, as did the film's focus on the pluck and intelligence of its young heroine (Abigail Breslin). Multiple storylines, however —about Nim's life in a Pacific paradise, her lost-at-sea father, and her relationship with an agoraphobic writer (Jodie Foster)—end up...

No Juice in My Blueberry Nights

MOVIE REVIEW

Apr 4, 2008 11:01 AM CDT

No Juice in My Blueberry Nights

Film starring Norah Jones doomed by hackneyed script

(Newser) - As the lead in My Blueberry Nights, Grammy-winning jazz-pop chanteuse Norah Jones doesn't exactly dazzle. Her performance as a waitress, who ditches New York City for the open road after being ditched by her boyfriend, is "agreeable but bland," writes Todd McCarthy of Variety and "oddly behind...

Leatherheads Fumbles

MOVIE REVIEW

Apr 4, 2008 8:16 AM CDT

Leatherheads Fumbles

Film about early football never quite scores

(Newser) - Critics seem to want to like Leatherheads, a screwball comedy about pro football's early days, directed by and starring George Clooney. The Roaring '20s costumes, sets and music are terrific, notes Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter. Clooney, as an aging player/team owner, and his leading lady, Renée Zellweger,...

Ebert Ready to Review Again

Apr 1, 2008 9:07 PM CDT

Ebert Ready to Review Again

Critic gives thumbs up to imminent return

(Newser) - Roger Ebert—beset by a series of serious health ailments in recent years—will soon resume reviewing films, he wrote in a letter to Chicago Sun-Times readers. The critic was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002; since then he’s undergone several surgeries, including a tracheotomy that cost him his...

Is 21 Bad? Bet the Bank on It

movie review

Mar 28, 2008 9:57 AM CDT

Is 21 Bad? Bet the Bank on It

Take your money and run away from the theater

(Newser) - There’s a problem with 21, a movie based on a true story (and the book it inspired) about some MIT math nerds who set up an elaborate system to beat the house in Las Vegas. “None of the main stars is remotely convincing as a smart person,”...

Stop-Loss Earnest But Flawed

movie review

Mar 28, 2008 7:24 AM CDT

Stop-Loss Earnest But Flawed

Movie about Iraq war loses steam stateside

(Newser) - While some critics are calling Stop-Loss, Kimberly Peirce’s long-awaited Boys Don’t Cry follow-up, earnest and, at times, riveting, none of them seem to see it as the definitive Iraq war film. But the picture, about some GIs who’ve completed their tours of duty only to be told...

Faithfull Shines in Irina Palm

movie review

Mar 21, 2008 10:31 AM CDT

Faithfull Shines in Irina Palm

1960s icon plays a grandma-turned-sex-worker

(Newser) - Irina Palm, about a frumpy grandmother who resorts to prostitution so she can pay for her desperately ill grandson's operation, is winning over critics, both because of its unsentimental portrayal of the sex trade and because of the performance given by its star, singer/songwriter/actress and '60s icon Marianne Faithfull.

Drillbit Taylor a Total Bore

movie review

Mar 21, 2008 7:31 AM CDT

Drillbit Taylor a Total Bore

Critics describe high-school comedy as aimless, 'listless'

(Newser) - Combine the talents of the creative team behind Superbad and Knocked Up with the considerable charms of actor Owen Wilson and what have you got? The "dispiritingly mediocre tweener comedy" Drillbit Taylor, writes Marc Savlov of the Austin Chronicle. He's far from alone in his assessment of the movie,...

Funny Games Not Much Fun

Mar 14, 2008 11:40 AM CDT

Funny Games Not Much Fun

This take on a terrorized family isn't easy to watch

(Newser) - Director Michael Haneke uses Funny Games to toy with his audience—and that can make the "mockingly sadistic and terrifying watch-the-middle-class-writhe-like-stuck-pigs thriller" tough viewing, Owen Leiberman writes in Entertainment Weekly. Critics are split on the merits of Haneke's remake of his disturbing 1997 German-language original—about a vacationing family...

Horton Enormously Entertaining

Movie review

Mar 14, 2008 7:56 AM CDT

Horton Enormously Entertaining

Seuss' elephant tale succeeds where others have failed

(Newser) - The big-screen adaptation of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! succeeds in large part because the film's actors are not seen. "Unlike those behind the recent live-action grotesqueries The Grinch and Cat in the Hat," observes Carrie Rickey of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the makers of the CG-animated Horton...