(Jessica Miglio/Warner Bros.) Long-distance relationships are the center of study in Going the Distance, Warner Bros’ unexpectedly bawdy, often quite funny end-of-summer entry. But the film itself struggles to survive at least as much as its bicoastal pair of leading lovers. You see, it’s hard out there for a romantic comedy. In the age of […]
Movie Review: ‘The American’
(Giles Keyte/Focus) It requires careful skill to be an assassin: exemplary marksmanship, precision in movement, and certainty in intention. The same can be said of successful filmmaking, and even of convincing performance. It’s a good thing, then, that Focus Features’ The American, a meticulously crafted, retro-styled exercise in vigilance and meditation, subsists on those who […]
Movie Review: ‘Eat Pray Love’
It’s quite ironic that Eat Pray Love, the film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling memoir, is being pegged as “boring” or “uneventful.” It is in these very qualities—the estimations of our immediate perceptions, or reactions from a persistent quest for superficial gratification—that the film cautions against placing value. Rather, Eat Pray Love champions soul-searching in […]
Weekend Movie Review: ‘Dinner for Schmucks’
(Merie Weismiller Wallace/Paramount) This weekend, Paramount Pictures invites you to a Dinner for Schmucks. If I were you, I wouldn’t be so quick to RSVP. Paul Rudd plays Tim, an earnest financial analyst hoping to fill a recently vacated upper-level position. His boss (Bruce Greenwood) is all but ready to give it to him, too, […]
Weekend Movie Review: ‘Salt’ and ‘The Kids Are All Right’
(Andrew Schwartz/Columbia) “Who is Salt?” inquires the promotional push for the latest Angelina Jolie-starring spy thriller from Columbia Pictures. It’s a question we ponder often during the film, and one whose answer is well explored, unexpected, and not so simple, really. The story proper begins like a punch-line: so a guy walks into the Central […]
Movie Review: ‘Inception’
Inception (Warner Bros.) (Warner Bros./Stephen Vaughan) So here’s the problem with Inception. Molded from remarkable ambition and complexity, the film must spend a considerable amount of time introducing and explaining its significant set of rules and procedures. At the same time, Inception requires us to understand these rules—to grasp this intricate swirl of concepts—in order […]
Weekend Movie Review: Despicable Me, and Playing Catch-Up
Hello, good readers! You may have noticed I’ve been absent from these parts the past few weeks, so let’s get back up to speed with the movie world, shall we? First, a new release: the animated Despicable Me, from Universal Pictures. The year has featured a robust slate of block-busting animated fare—from Dreamworks’ lovely How […]
Weekend Movie Review: ‘The A-Team,’ ‘Mother and Child’
The A-Team (20th Century Fox) (Michael Muller/20th Century Fox) Whipped, nipped, and tucked into submission, The A-Team is an expensive-looking, high-gloss action bonanza, so calculative as to feel mechanical, and so unobtrusive or unchallenging in any way that it’s almost spooky. Four renegade army types team up for militaristic operations under the US Army’s banner […]
