Rio (review)

So tediously familiar that I could barely remember most of it after I left the cinema. I’m exaggerating just a tad, but even if I didn’t remember it, I could have told you what it was about anyway, because it deviates not one whit from the formula that we’ve come to understand is somehow “essential” for “family” movies…

Mars Needs Moms (review)

Do kids really need to be reminded — in IMAX 3D! — that Mom loves you and has your best interests at heart when she tells you to eat your broccoli and gets mad when you feed it to the cat instead? I guess someone at Disney figured this was the case.

Chalet Girl (review)

Behold! It’s a romantic comedy about a young woman who’s not looking for a boyfriend! A rom-com about a human female whose life is not consumed by the terror that she will be Alone Forever! A rom-com about a person of the not-male persuasion who has ambitions beyond the romantic!

The Kentucky Fried Movie (review)

If I had been introduced to this film at a more impressionable age, I might today have pleasant adolescent memories of it that would color my grownup response to it today, and perhaps I could be kinder to a movie considered a comedy classic by some. But I wasn’t, I haven’t, and I can’t.

Paul (review)

What if you and your most superbly geeky bestest friend ever met an alien? I mean a real life honest-to-Carl Sagan extry terrestrial. What if? You would plotz. You would. Like Nick Frost’s Clive does here, you would giggle like a loon and then faint, out cold from the sheer splendidness of this happenstance. I know I would.

Just Go with It (review)

Is it any wonder that is always seems to be Jennifer Aniston, America’s It Girl, who gets screwed by spectacularly selfish men who embody this new American ideal of “Do whatever you want, to whomever you want, no matter how evil, no matter how wrong, and you will not only escape punishment, you will be richly rewarded for your antisocial behavior”? Poor Aniston: She is the foreclosure crisis of the modern Hollywood romantic comedy.

Gnomeo & Juliet (review)

It’s garden gnomes… in love… even though they’re supposed to hate each other! It’s funny cuz they’re plaster lawn decorations and say things like “Let’s kick some grass!” and have a plastic pink flamingo pal with a funny generic South American accent who gives them wise advice about romance.

The Dilemma (review)

The real dilemma here is not: Should Vince Vaughn tell Kevin James that his — James’s — wife is cheating on him? It’s: How did Ron Howard get attached to this train wreck of a movie?