Moneyball (review)
I had been reduced to a slobbering gushy mess by the end of this gloriously entertaining movie even though I’d spend the entirety of the running time before this marveling at how this is the least sentimental baseball movie ever.
sports
How Do You Know (review)
I’d really like to give writer-director James L. Brooks the benefit of the doubt here, because I think — as I usually don’t about asinine romantic comedies — that he means well. He simply doesn’t seem to realize that pathologically messed up characters are neither cute nor charming.
Secretariat (review)
It starts out all sad music at momma’s funeral and we gots to sell the horse farm, but dang if nobody can keep Diane Lane down.
Just Wright (review)
A tepid, almost conflict-free romantic drama that takes no chances whatsoever. Still: Queen Latifah!
Men with Brooms (review)
Desperate for more curling? You could check out the world’s most famous movie about curling. True, you’ve probably never heard of Men with Brooms, but that tells you something about how many movies about curling there actually are.
Invictus (review)
Hoorah! Nelson Mandela united South Africans, black and white, and overcame their long-held suspicions and hatred and bigotries in the postapartheid upheaval by getting them to refocus their hate on Australia and New Zealand. Or at least on their stupid rugby players. Hoorah!
The Blind Side (review)
‘Is this some sort of white guilt thing?’ one of Sandra Bullock’s ladies-who-lunch friends asks her Tennessee socialite after she informally adopts a homeless black teen…
The Golden Age of Television (review)
As pure drama, these are still fascinating to watch, especially to see the early work of some now very famous names. But as a look at what TV was doing half a century ago, it’s riveting.
The Damned United (review)
I might not know from football, I do know people, and *The Damned United* is an absolutely thrilling story, one both hilarious and poignant, about a man who is downright classical in his flaws…
Whip It (review)
I always knew Drew Barrymore could be this cool: her directorial debut is a simultaneously sweet and kickass story about one girl’s finding her bliss, a movie that works within Hollywood conventions of storytelling to handily demonstrate that just because a tale is familiar doesn’t mean it can’t be fresh and funny and edgy, too.
