reviews

The 1950 film of which this is just barely a remake depicted a family of 14 struggling to get by at the turn of the 20th century. At the turn of the 21st, one couple spawning a dozen kids by choice smacks of self-indulgence… the very sin this flimsy and obvious domestic comedy purports to … more…

Can I borrow a phrase — actually, a book title — from Ebert and say I hated, hated, hated this movie? Oh my god, she said, banging her head against the table in frustration and exasperation, is there anything that makes you want to scream more than a film that’s this full of its own gravity and import? All the long, quiet, contemplative shots of The House shrouded in Fog… all the long, quiet, contemplative shots of Jennifer Connelly, beautifully disintegrating… all the long, quiet, contemplative shots of Ben Kingsley, morose and determined… It’s been ages since I so longed to throw something at the screen.

Here’s the thing: *Calendar Girls* will invariably be compared to *The Full Monty.* It’s charming English-type people getting naked for a good cause, so how could it not be? But not to put down *The Full Monty,* which is a lovely little film, or men — some of my best friends are male, after all — but there’s a world of difference between *Monty* and *Girls,* and that difference is the one between how male and female nudity are depicted onscreen.

Have you heard? The 1950s were tyrannically conformist. Women were horribly oppressed. All that underwear — girdles and bullet bras and such — was like a prison. And everyone’s minds were even more shackled than their floppy bits. It’s downright startling, isn’t it? I mean, who knew?

Quite possibly the most preposterous film of the year. It doesn’t start out that way, of course. No, it seems at first that director Norman Jewison (The Hurricane) is adding to his string of strong thrillers with a political conscience, but it rapidly descends into inescapable absurdity. As a young man, Frenchman Pierre Brossard (Michael … more…

Shallow, fickle people doing stupid things… and those are the characters we’re supposed to be rooting for. When impossibly popular high-school hottie Paris Morgan (Christina Milian) crashes her mother’s Cadillac SUV, nerdy Alvin Johnson (Nick Cannon) sees his chance: in exchange for spending his own hard-earned, scrimped-and-saved $1500 on parts and doing all the work, … more…

What inspired one of Johannes Vermeer’s most enigmatic paintings, a portrait of a sad, mysterious girl wearing a blue headband and a single earring? This speculative but informed story, based on Tracy Chevalier’s best-selling novel, posits domestic intrigue at the 17th-century Delft household of the painter (Colin Firth: Love Actually) when a new maid, young … more…

Am I the only one who’s tired of seeing Jack Nicholson doing his best Jack Nicholson impersonation? Am I the only person not charmed by Diane Keaton’s typically twitchy, neurotic, uptight intellectual? Am I the only one who doesn’t see, in *Something’s Gotta Give,* two fictional characters who’re crazy about each other but instead two iconic movie stars pretending to be in love for our entertainment?

This exercise in improvisational acting and low-budget on-the-fly filmmaking is more interesting in its ambitions than it is entertaining or intriguing as a story in its own right. Director Straw Weisman set up 24 digicams in 20 rooms of a Hollywood Hills mansion and invited a small army of actors — including John Ritter (Bad … more…