About a Boy (review)

I so wanted to be able to reduce About a Boy to One Man and a Baby or ‘Big Daddy’ Meets ‘Notting Hill.’ I was so prepared to whip off a snark-laden diatribe against Hugh Grant’s Annoying Tics Find True Love. But I can’t. Cuz this is an actual grownup-type movie about figuring out that … more…

Frailty (review)

It sends a shiver up my spine just thinking about the movie now, even as I gaze out the window onto a gorgeous, happy, sunshiny day. It’ll be great when this one finally comes out on DVD, cuz then I’ll be able to curl up on the couch in the middle of the night wrapped in an old afghan for protection and give myself the wild heebie-jeebies watching it.

Beauty and the Beast: The IMAX Edition (review)

Did I say what a tremendous impact this film had on me? I remember the first time I saw it, during its initial release, at a sold-out late-night showing, not a child in sight, and I was not the only adult sniffling back tears of joy, thunderstruck by the sheer wonderfulness of this movie. And that feeling came rushing back, times ten, when I saw the film again in IMAX.

Gosford Park (review)

Robert Altman’s latest saga is a sprawling yet intimate upstairs/downstairs murder mystery set at a shooting party at an English manor in 1932, a story much concerned with subtle class warfare and how very nasty very proper people can be. But don’t see it for that. See it for the catty gossip, the cheap rich … more…

A Beautiful Mind (review)

Toss a coin: Which do you prefer: A Heartwarming(TM) tale of one man’s triumph over mental illness? Or one director’s biting off more than he can chew and falling rather flat on his face? Or one more mostly terrific performance from Crowe? No need to look for a three-sided coin — you get all three in A Beautiful Mind.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (review)

Other critics have already dragged out the $10 words to describe this film — some of the ones I’d chose myself are ‘seductive,’ ‘masterful,’ ‘majestic,’ and ‘elegant’ — and you must believe what they say because they say True Things. But the one thing that strikes me most about LOTR: FOTR, besides its seductively masterful and majestic elegance, is simply how utterly right it is.

Ocean’s Eleven movie review: it’s so money, baby

Are you up for a little larceny that may be dangerous but is too much fun to pass up? Are you up for a smart dumb movie, the kind of delicious popcorn flick you get when some of the most talented and most watchable people in the biz let their hair down? Cuz this ain’t a movie that’s been fortified with vitamins and minerals or morals or anything good for you — this is pure cinematic junk food of the highest, tastiest order.

Behind Enemy Lines movie review: saving Owen Wilson

Oh my god, is Owen Wilson gonna be a huge star or what? This weekend, millions of people who have never seen Bottle Rocket, have never heard of Wes Anderson, and have no idea that Wilson is a screenwriter of no small talent will be cheering on an Owen Wilson who channels the spirit of Steve McQueen while kicking some collective Bosnian ass and being all that he can be. Cuz Bruce Willis is gettin’ too old for this shit, I guess.