It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (review)

Snarky and sweet at the same time and loaded with cameos of celebs having a great time, it’s even set in the old Muppet Theater, like the show was, with the star on the door of Miss Piggy’s dressing room and Statler and Waldorf heckling from the balcony and everything. I felt 8 years old again.

Christmas Rush (review)

*Christmas Rush* has all the inevitability of, well, the made-for-TBS Superstation movie that it is, but it has a goofy kind of wannabe *Die Hard* charm to it. Only half the laughs are unintentional and, actually, the best ones are intended. I think.

Far From Heaven (review)

With its lush Technicolor palette of autumn hues and lavish Elmer Bernstein score and slightly stylized acting and crisp costumes of crinoline and taffeta and gray flannel, Far from Heaven is a note-perfect pastiche of early studio melodramas.

Santa Clause 2 (review)

By three minutes into the film I was so caught up in its genuine, unsentimental Christmas magic that I forgot to be snide and sarcastic and cynical. *Santa Clause 2* is just that wonderful. Oh, it’s nice to be reminded how much fun Christmas is.

Bowling for Columbine (review)

Michael Moore is pissed off. Not exactly a newsflash, I know, but nobody is as entertaining when he’s about to bust a gut as Moore is, so his rants are always cause for celebration. Though this may only be true if you’re predisposed to agree with the substance of his rants.

One Hour Photo (review)

The cleanest, neatest discount store you’ve ever seen appears in Mark Romanek’s *One Hour Photo,* a clean, neat, all-corners-squared psychological thriller whose quiet precision is the most unnerving thing about it.

Road to Perdition movie review: pulp fiction

There’s not a thing that isn’t hauntingly, quietly electrifying about this, the first truly grown-up comic book movie. Fans of the medium have known for years that the form had no trouble being Important, but the film industry (though perhaps not all filmmakers themselves) has stubbornly insisted on treating comic adaptations as juvenile.

Men in Black II (review)

Sequels are hard. Science fiction sequels are a bitch. Every once in a rare while, we get an ‘Empire Strikes Back’ or an ‘Aliens,’ a sequel that expands and deepens the original, a sequel better than the original. Usually, alas, we get ‘Highlander II.’ ‘Men in Black II’ is, thankfully, no ‘Highlander II.’ But it ain’t no ‘Aliens,’ neither.