 |
 |
WALL-E
  Having created some of the top animated movies of
all time, including Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and Ratatouille,
what could Pixar do for an encore? Simple (for Pixar): Make another one....(more) |
|
 |
Wanted
 The Chinese and Japanese film
industries have often given their martial-arts heroes superhuman abilities. Remember the
old Japanese movies in which ninjas could toss shuriken (throwing stars) with
machine-gun-like speed, and leap up to a corner of the ...(more) |
|
 |
Kung Fu
Panda
Pandas are among
Nature’s most loved animals. Any time something happens to or with one of the pandas
at the National Zoo, every TV station in Washington, DC carries the news. Hollywood’s
first beloved panda was popular in the 1940s: Andy Panda, a creation of ...(more) |
|
 |
Sex and
the City
After a long wait, Sex
and the City is back, this time as a big, glossy feature film perpetuating the lives
and loves of the four female characters brought to life in the original HBO series, which
ended in 2004. Written and directed by Michael Patrick King, the movie continues ...(more) |
|
 |
Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Nineteen years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the
franchise returns. Though this fourth installment is not a total embarrassment, it’s
evident that the well of ideas from which George Lucas and Steven Spielberg first crafted
Indiana Jones is running dry....(more) |
|
 |
The
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
In our world, a year has past
since the four Pevensie children discovered Narnia, the magical world they first visited
onscreen in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). They re-enter Narnia via a
subway station, only to find that there, 1300 years have elapsed, during which the kingdom
has been invaded by the ...(more) |
|
 |
Made
of Honor
These days, it seems the most
romantic thing a person can do is to leave one’s betrothed on the day of the wedding
-- or, better still, at the altar itself -- and sprint off with one’s true
love, to live forever in the glow of undying love. You’ve seen it in many films ...(more) |
|
 |
Iron
Man
Transformers,
Robocop, and this film all have robotic, metal-suited lead characters. But Iron
Man is different. Thanks to a literate script and superb acting from Robert Downey,
Jr., the tin can at the heart of this film has soul. And because he does, we care what
happens to him....(more) |
|
 |
Shine
a Light
About 12 years ago, I took a two-hour bus trip to see the Rolling
Stones play Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. I have no idea how many people were in the
audience, but the whole thing was a larger-than-life, awe-inspiring spectacle that’s
burned into my memory as ...(more) |
|
 |
Forgetting
Sarah Marshall
Many romantic comedies tell a story of two lovers who, as Hollywood
formula demands, should be together but can’t seem to hook up. None, to my
recollection, specifically depicts the difficulty of forgetting ...(more) |
|
 |
The
Bank Job
In 1971, a Lloyd’s bank in London was robbed. The story hit the
headlines one day, and quickly died the next. In a blend of fact and fiction, The Bank
Job offers an explanation ...(more) |
|
 |
U2 3D
Having been completely won over to three-dimensional digital
projection by last year’s Beowulf 3D, I bought a ticket for U2 3D
expecting a similarly all-encompassing experience. But while thoroughly entertaining, this
concert film is not the same sort of 3D experience. If you haven’t seen Beowulf
3D, you’ll be pretty ...(more) |
|
 |
Rambo
The previews had
finished, and my buddy Doug and I were hunkered down in our seats waiting for Rambo
to begin. We had perfect seats: a space between us, no one in front, and the three rows
behind us completely empty. Then five guys sat down right behind us. Dismayed, Doug leaned
over toward me. "F**k!" he ...(more) |
|
 |
There
Will Be Blood
There Will Be Blood is a compelling study of a man
obsessed by greed, competition, and the unnamed demons of his past. It’s an early
chapter in the story of the dominion of oil over the American economy. It’s a profile
of a Christian evangelist as tainted as the oilman ...(more) |
|
 |
Untraceable
A psychopath catches the public’s attention by torturing
a cat on live streaming video. When he moves on to people, it becomes evident that there
is method in his madness: His placard, "Kill with Me," always appears onscreen
first, and it’s to be taken literally -- the more ...(more) |
|
 |
Cloverfield
After seeing Godzilla toys while visiting Japan with his son,
J.J. Abrams, the CEO of Bad Robot Productions (Lost), conceived of a new monster
with which he could terrorize the inhabitants of Manhattan. He pitched the idea to
Paramount Studios, the project was green-lighted, and Abrams teamed up with a ...(more) |
|
 |
The
Orphanage
If you want easy answers and a linear plot, The Orphanage
might not be for you. But if you enjoyed the ambiguity and enveloping style of The
Haunting, The Innocents, and, most recently, The Others, this film will
satisfy your yearning for an intelligent ghost story. It also has a lot of ...(more) |
|
 |
Juno
This single little low-budget movie might just balance out all the well-funded bad ones
and give the coming-of-age and teenage-romance genres a good name. It opens as something
of a screwball comedy, as 16-year-old Juno ...(more) |
|
 |
Before
the Devil Knows You're Dead
Not all great films are about pleasant subjects or leave one with a "feel good"
experience when leaving the theater. Sadly, great films are often seen only once by a
moviegoer and do not always do well at the box office. I’ve seen the ...(more) |
