Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: The Premiere Episode (review)

With his Law & Order empire, producer Dick Wolf has achieved the impossible: TV with both widespread popularity and cult appeal, thanks to its ripped-from-the-headlines stories and its respect for the smarts of the audience. While new episodes rank high in the weekly broadcast ratings, reruns dominate the schedules of cable networks and the attention … more…

Zus & Zo (review)

Somewhere in the very progressive Netherlands, three catty sisters get a bombshell dropped on them by their gay brother: He’s getting married. To a girl. As their own mother calls the sisters “selfish bitches,” and they clearly are, it’s no surprise that it’s not their brother’s well-being that concerns them… it’s the fact that he … more…

Sounder (review)

It’s fine and warm and satisfying and, yes, inspiring, but this second adaptation of the novel by William H. Armstrong mostly just inspires us to ask, simply, Why? The 1972 original was nominated for multiple Oscars and continues to bewitch viewers today, so why remake it? Kids will enjoy the tale of the coonhound named … more…

Punch (review)

Topless female boxing. There you go. This bizarre, would-be literary exploration of incestuous father-daughter attraction, anger management, and women beating the crap out of each other while their particulars flap in the wind is actually nowhere near as salacious as it sounds but nowhere near as interesting as it could have been, either. Troubled teen … more…

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind (review)

Joni Mitchell is “a true poet,” says New York Times music critic Stephen Holden, and this lovely documentary is a beautifully poetic exploration of her unconventional life and uncommon career. Narrated by Mitchell friends and fellow musicians including David Crosby and Graham Nash, her former agent David Geffen, and Mitchell herself, this evocative montage of … more…

Legally Blonde 2: Red White and Blonde (review)

It’s Ms. Woods Goes to Washington as the superchipper Barbie-with-a-brain and her pink wardrobe head to the nation’s capital for some fun with law and politics. It can’t hope to match the original for sheer surprise — who’d have thunk fashion and the judicial system could play so nicely together? — but it tries harder … more…

Sinbad: Legend of the 7 Seas (review)

You know what? I’m not even going to complain that this kind of stuff is inappropriate for kids and what is it doing in what is basically a children’s film, cuz honestly, it’s all gonna go right over their head, except for the naked butt cheek, of course, but kids think that’s pretty funny particularly if a dog was involved in that teeth-to-the-butt-rips-the-pants kind of way, as is the case here.

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Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (review)

You know it’s true: A film like *T3* you anticipate with a kind of dread tempered with only a little bit of hope. I mean, come on: It’s Arnie doing the same tired thing yet again and Cameron’s not involved and fer Kyle Reese’s sake, the title needs the tagline built right into it so we know where to orient ourselves in the story.