The Princess and the Frog (review)
You know how they say that cops come in only one color, blue? Well, Disney princesses come in only one color: pink.
musical
Michael Jackson’s This Is It (review)
In the Year of the Gloved One 50, which was also called in the old calendar 2009, the people of the town of London came unto Michael with much wailing and despair. “Michael!” they beseeched Him. “Bestow upon us Your awesomeness. Bestow upon us the wisdom of Your spirit, and telleth us once again how Billie Jean is not Your lover and the kid is not Your son, for we long to be reassured. Giveth unto us 50 shows, one for each year of Your beneficence.”
Sunday School Musical (review)
Oh, for shame! How Christian is theft? Not very — isn’t one of their Big Rules against it? This direct-to-DVD flick is a bald-faced attempt to latch onto the phenom that is *High School Musical*…
Mamma Mia! movie review: out of tune
If there’s one thing that’s clear from this revue of ABBA’s hit songs, it’s that there really aren’t all that many great ABBA songs, hits or no.
Enchanted movie review: toon in, toon out
The sweet silliness of the collective Disney animated fairy-tale landscape meets the rough reality of Noo Yawk. Why didn’t someone think of this sooner and pull it off as perfectly as Enchanted does?
Happy Feet (review)
Fluffy baby penguins dancing and singing and waddling around their world with wide-eyed wonder? You have to have a heart of stone not to be a puddle of goo after coming in contact with that.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie review: think of the children!
How did a cautionary tale about obnoxious little kids and a celebration of nonconformity turn into a cautionary tale about the psychosis of reclusive oddballism and a celebration of obnoxious kids?
The Star Wars Holiday Special (review)
Here’s what you have to do in order to survive *The Star Wars Holiday Special*: Don’t watch it. If you must, then 1) Have alcohol or some other inebriating substance close to hand — a rock to bang against your skull will do in a pinch. And 2) Remember that your tender 10-year-old self probably witnessed this atrocity the one time it aired on TV to unsuspecting, nay, *eager* audiences, and suffered such psychological trauma that your brain blocked off the memory in order to spare you further harm; know that you may suddenly experience violent flashbacks to Christmas 1978 as that mental wound is viciously reopened.
Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, Young Frankenstein, Little Shop of Horrors, and Beetlejuice (review)
Why do slasher movies make us laugh in the instant after we jump and scream? When comedy works, it’s for the same reason that horror does: It surprises us, and laughter and screams emanate from that same primitive lizard part of our brains, one that reacts before we can think.
Chicago (review)
Their *Chicago* — based on the stage musical by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse — is utterly singable, danceable, cheerable, with musical numbers that straddle the unwillingness of today’s movie audiences to suspend our disbelief about movie characters breaking into song unless they’re Disney lions or talking candelabra.
