by KYW's Bill Wine
(Use your browser's "search" feature to
quickly find any title listed below)
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The Blind Side
The Blind Side has blind spots. That's why, despite the best of intentions, this pigskin parable gets nowhere near the end zone.
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The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The ponderous New Moon, which features lots of mooning but is in no way new, emerges from the second book in Stephanie Meyer's four-book "Twilight" series.
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Planet 51
A rejoinder to all those science-fiction creature features of the 1950s, Planet 51 is an animated alien adventure comedy that flip-flops the residents and the interlopers.
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Pirate Radio
Fact-based it may be. But it's so overloaded and underachieving, it ends up shipwrecked.
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2012
This latest disaster thriller by the commercially successful Roland Emmerich isn't disastrous, exactly, but it is bloated to the extent that it's unintentionally hilarious at times.
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Precious
So impactfully intense is Precious that it stays with you long after the final credits roll even if you try to leave it behind -- it's moving and memorable and marvelous.
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The Fourth Kind
There is, apparently, no place like Nome. Not if you buy what's being sold by this tingly horror thriller, which believers will find to be upsetting while detractors dismiss it as half-baked (or just plain faked) Alaska.
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A Christmas Carol
This version of A Christmas Carol might scare the dickens out of the wee ones. But visually at least, it wows the rest of us.
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The Men Who Stare at Goats
In its most inspired moments -- which are not constant but are at least frequent -- this fanciful, farcical film recalls such great military satires as Dr. Strangelove and Catch-22.
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The Boondock Saints II - All Saints Day
Writer-director Troy Duffy plays to the Death Wish crowd, leaving no room for disapproval of the bloodletting or the amorality on display.
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This Is It
Well, if you're a big Michael Jackson fan, this is it.
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Good Hair
Good Hair delves into the roots of its subject and manages to make its share of valid sociopolitical points even though its tone is playful and its pace is brisk.
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Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
Get ready for another vampire movie that bites the neck that feeds it.
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Amelia
We've always been perversely fascinated by the way Amelia Earhart died. But here's a movie about the way she lived.
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Astro Boy
It's a CG-animated science fiction adventure about a little robot boy who looks like Bob's Big Boy but smaller, and who acts like Mighty Mouse.
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Where the Wild Things Are
This edgy, fleshed-out, live-action adaptation of the classic 1963 children's storybook by Maurice Sendak is unique and powerful, and it's marvelous.
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Law Abiding Citizen
This exploitative revenge thriller has a sadistic streak that puts a sour taste in your mouth in its very opening scene that stays there until the final credits roll.
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New York, I Love You
Is meant to be a love letter to the Big Apple, but it's a grab bag that never really grabs us.
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The Boys Are Back
Its opening image, a dad driving along the beach at top speed as his young son perches dangerously on the hood of the car, proves to be a metaphor for the whole film.
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Couples Retreat
Sitting through this dashed-off destination date-flick romp, it's we who want to retreat.
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Capitalism: A Love Story
Those of us who admire his work acknowledge that he's disgusted. His detractors merely find him disgusting. That's the love-him-or-hate-him provocateur, Michael Moore.
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The Invention of Lying
What the inventors of The Invention of Lying forgot to invent was a third act. Or even a second act.
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Whip It
Whip It is a coming-of-age tale, a mother-daughter story, a female bonding dramedy, and a sports flick about an underdog on an underdog team.
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Zombieland
Can the undead be fun dead? Sure. Take a look at Zombieland.
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Pandorum
This screecher of a creature feature is a reacher. And its reach exceeds its grasp -- by plenty.
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Surrogates
Yes, it reminds you of lots of other sci-fi movies. But it also establishes itself as a thoughtful and intriguing escapist entertainment.
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Fame
Fame is a shame, so who do we blame? We'll start with director Kevin Tancharoen.
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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
This just might be the year's funniest animated movie, so generous is it with spirited sight gags and clever wordplay, and so sharp is its comic timing.
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Love Happens
Our response to the title of this romantic drama? True, but not between us and the movie.
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The Informant
Matt Damon, dominating the movie from first scene to last, is terrific as a wacky whistleblower.
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Sorority Row
Our addiction to slasher flicks remains a mystery for the ages. And this been-there, bludgeoned-that do-over, Sorority Row, will do nothing to clear it up.
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Whiteout
Director Dominic Sena apparently focused all his creative energy on the CGI blizzards at the expense of the plot.
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Nine
A stitch in time may save nine, but adding time can't save Nine.
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World's Greatest Dad
One thing we can say about this surrealist fable: you will be uncomfortable. And should be, considering the subject matter.
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All About Steve
It's stinkeroo time.
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Extract
The number of laughs you extract from Extract depends, appropriately enough, on just how hard you have to work to enjoy them. Too hard for most, it turns out.
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The Final Destination
Installment number four in this series of supernatural horror thrillers offers the same basic premise as its three predecessors: Death sets out to collect those who somehow evaded it earlier.
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Taking Woodstock
Taking stock of Woodstock is what Taking Woodstock is all about. Sort of.
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Big Fan
You just might end up a big fan of Big Fan, even if you don't share the passion of its protagonist for professional football.
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Inglourious Basterds
Ever the bold and brazen provocateur, Quentin Tarantino reimagines World War II as only the movies could, managing to deliver a cartoonish tall tale while simultaneously writing a love letter to cinema.
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Post Grad
"If you want to make God laugh," the saying goes, "make a plan." That's what the protagonist of Post Grad does. Pity that the movie itself so sorely lacks a workable plan.
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Bandslam
Bandslam is no grand slam, but, like an overachieving cover band this music-driven coming-of-age comedy in the High School Musical mode hits mostly right notes and easily exceeds our expectations.
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The Time Traveler's Wife
Whereas faster and/or breezier films about time travel distract us from the illogic of it, this one allows us far much too much time to pose rude quesions and dismiss its narrative inconsistencies.
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District 9
Hold onto your hats: District 9 is one breathlessly intense and fabulously engrossing thriller, one that works as science fiction, horror, action, or sociopolitical allegory.
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GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra
The Hasbro company has, you might say, transformed themselves into moviemakers. But you also might say that, as moviemakers go, they're pretty good toymakers.
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Orphan
Orphan adopts a novel twist that might have landed with considerable dramatic impact in a respectable suspense thriller. Pity that it's not that kind of suspense thriller.
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The Ugly Truth
The ugly truth about The Ugly Truth is that its many fibs and fictions don't add up.
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(500) Days of Summer
Here's a fizzy and whimsical romantic comedy that's as curved and unusual and stylized as the parentheses in the title.
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Tetro
Tetro is the latest from Francis Ford Coppola, an operatic family drama set in Argentina that seems as personal a movie as Coppola has made in quite a long time.
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Some Early Oscar Contenders
We don't know yet whether increasing the number of Oscar nominees for best picture (from five to ten) will compromise the prestige of the award or spike interest in the Oscar race -- or both.
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The sixth Harry Potter flick doesn't pretend to be anything but a prelude, so don't expect anything in the way of closure. But taken on its own terms, it's another admirable and entertaining book-to-screen adaptation.
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The Hurt Locker
Moviegoers haven't exactly flocked to films about the war in Iraq. And chances are droves won't drive to this drama either. But The Hurt Locker deserves an audience.
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Bruno
Outrageousness is once again the name of the game, and satirist Sacha Baron Cohen is once again the name of the gamer. But the result this time, despite major-league chutzpah, is minor-league humor.
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I Love You, Beth Cooper
Ah, unrequited love. Even worse, unrequited love in high school. And the most excruciating of all, unrequited love between a nothing-to-lose outcast nerd and an unattainable, popular head cheerleader.
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Moon
Sam Rockwell has an acting challenge on his hands for reasons best left unexplained here, but he's more than up to it.
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Public Enemies
"Gangbusters" describes the subject matter of Public Enemies, but unfortunately not its quality level.
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Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Somewhere between the second and third installments of this lively and popular franchise, Ice Age saw much of its mojo melt away.
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Whatever Works
It's often laugh-out-loud funny, which has not been Woody Allen's mode of late. And it's set in New York City.
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My Sister's Keeper
Movies don't come much sadder than this one. But there's nothing sad about the talent on display.
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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Calling the screenplay (to use the term loosely) preposterous gives it more credit than it deserves. It's really just an assault on the senses.
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Year One
Year One is primitive, juvenile, and nonsensical. So why is it so much fun?
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The Proposal
Don't be surprised if moviegoers accept The Proposal with no questions asked.
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Away We Go
The two leads are TV notables about to make a much bigger splash on the big screen as a result of their joint portrayal of thoroughly believable thirtysomethings expecting their first child.
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Imagine That
Eddie Murphy has starred in good family movies and bad. His latest is neither as good as his best nor as bad as his worst.
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The Taking of Pelham 123
This new version has been given the characteristically amped-up-action treatment of director Tony Scott.
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The Merry Gentleman
It's nice to see Michael Keaton -- the sharp, witty star of Batman, Beetlejuice, Clean and Sober, Mr. Mom, and Multiplicity, who's been under the radar in recent years -- back on the big screen.
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My Life in Ruins
Nia Vardalos, who made mainstream movie moneymaking magic as the writer and star of 2002's My Big Fat Greek Wedding, tries to extend the goodwill she generated in that surprise hit.
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Land of the Lost
This special effects-driven comedy-adventure goes nowhere in a hurry, running out of gas by the end of the first reel and landing at our feet with a dull thud.
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The Hangover
The repetitious screenplay consistently takes the low road, refusing to reach for any gag of subtlety or resonance when there's an easier automatic gutbuster available.
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Drag Me to Hell
A funny thing happened to Sam Raimi on his way to becoming the cult king of minor horror hair-raisers: he became a praised prince of major movies.
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Up
This makes ten great feature-length, computer-animated cartoons from Pixar: Up comes from the studio that also brought us Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and Wall-E.
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Under the Sea
Under the Sea is a short documentary adventure shot in the Imax process that offers underwater locations in Southern Australia, New Guinea, and the Indo-Pacific region.
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Dance Flick
Where there's a will, there's a Wayans movie. Lots of genre parodies, which is not necessarily to say lots of laughs.
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Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
The makers of the 2006 hit Night at the Museum couldn't come up with a creative reason for a followup. But they went ahead and made one anyway. The result is one mess of a movie.
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Terminator Salvation
Does this one have the spark and impact of the first two Terminator installments? Nope. But does it deliver the goods at about the level of the third? Yep.
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Management
Although the charming, involving movie-that-might-have-been surfaces every so often, it always pops its head back beneath the surface just as quickly.
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Angels & Demons
Although the action sequences are more polished and the screenplay less thematically crowded than The Da Vinci Code, this being closer to a pure action thriller, there's nonetheless still too much of the high-octane conflict.
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Every Little Step
Every Little Step is a perfect documentary that uses auditions for the 2006 Broadway revival of A Chorus Line as a springboard to explore the origins and development of the smash Broadway hit.
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Next Day Air
Next Day Air is an amateurish screwball action comedy that aims to deliver laughs but, thanks to clunky direction, sends most of them to the wrong address.
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Star Trek
The director updates the look and sound and feel of the franchise, but never lets go of the character-driven property's original and basic appeal.
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Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Is anyone else tired of Matthew McConaughey's signature act yet?
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X-Men Origins: Wolverine
He has an alloy skeletal system, iron blades for fingernails, the ability to heal from virtually any wound, and a sky-high level of rage. Well, would you tell him where to sit?
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Is Anybody There?
Is Anybody There? opens as if it has something magical up its sleeve. It does. His name is Michael Caine.
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Fighting
Even though this unpretentious little action drama offers its fight scenes as highlights, it ends up just as interested in the scenes between the fights. Which is what gives Fighting a fighting chance.
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The Soloist
The story is interesting, the acting is credible, and the plea for the plight of the poverty-stricken and mentally ill is well-intentioned. So why isn't this based-on-truth drama more engaging and poignant?
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Earth
Most of the eye-popping and spellbinding images in this environmentally aware nature documentary are not new. But they're new to the movie screen.
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17 Again
17 Again is a star vehicle for emerging icon Zac Efron, but it should have been more.
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State of Play
It's based on a BBC television series, but has been transplanted from London to Washington, DC so that it now stands in the tradition of American journalistic dramas like All the President's Men and Absence of Malice.
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Paris 36
Here's a delicious period musical drama, a heart-on-its-sleeve backstage extravaganza set in 1936 in a working-class district in the north of Paris.
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Hannah Montana: The Movie
The screenplay, by Daniel Berendsen, was concocted at Clichés-R-Us.
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Observe and Report
Although it steps over the line that separates funny/haha from funny/peculiar a few too many times, Observe and Report is nonethless startlingly original in tone and often laugh-out-loud funny.
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Alien Trespass
Alien Trespass is a parody of, and tribute to, the campy, low-budget science fiction movies of the Red Scare-drenched 1950s.
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Adventureland
It's a "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essay with sprocket holes. And real insight.
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Fast & Furious
The fast one that this high-octane thriller pulls as a finale would normally be enough to make us furious. That is, if anything preceding it had much mattered anyway.
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12 Rounds
This is not a bad outing as an actor for professional wrestler John Cena. The movie, however, is another story.
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The Haunting in Connecticut
Is this film creepy? Spooky? Disturbing? Only at first. Later it turns hokey, which ain't okey-dokey.
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Monsters vs. Aliens
Monsters vs. Aliens, for all its monstrous energy, leaves us grownups feeling ever-so-slightly alienated even as we're impressed with its technical pizazz.
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Knowing
On paper, Knowing looks like yet another subpar Nicolas Cage-starring thriller. But movies aren't made on paper.
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Sunshine Cleaning
By the time Sunshine Cleaning gets to cleanup time, you realize that it's been an original and touching drama. Okay, drama-comedy. Dark dramedy.
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Duplicity
Duplicity may not have simplicity or even authenticity, but it's got more than its share of electricity.
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I Love You, Man
If you've somehow not yet noticed Paul Rudd's subtle comic gifts, this is the movie (structured like a romantic comedy but with a friendly, gentle gender-bending twist) that makes them plain to see.
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Miss March
What I want to tell you is that Miss March is a mistake, a disastrously bad movie. But that wouldn't be accurate because it isn't even a movie.
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The Last House on the Left
Where genre movies are concerned, there's nothing like low expectations going in to boost your appreciation coming out.
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Crossing Over
Crossing Over is a melting-pot drama that tries to capture the immigrant experience by crossing over from motion picture to emotion picture. But it never quite arrives.
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Phoebe in Wonderland
Phoebe in Wonderland boasts three splendid performances by a trio of gifted actresses. And one of them is ten years old!
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Watchmen
The movie plays to the eyes and ears without truly engaging the mind or the heart. It's visually enthralling to a mind-blowing degree, and that alone should keep most viewers stimulated.
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Echelon Conspiracy
Echelon Conspiracy is a cautionary tale that deals with the Big Brother implications of the computerization of modern life. But we don't buy a minute of it.
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Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
Whether you're a fan of the Jonas Brothers, or know someone who is, or just love 3D movies, expect to be moderately engaged but not really stimulated.
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Two Lovers
If, as has been reported, that Joaquin Phoenix about to begin a rap career, then he exits on the heels of arguably his very best work.
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Friday the 13th
Six years after the previous sequel and nearly thirty years after Sean S. Cunningham's original, we're still chasin' Jason. Or, rather, he's still chasing victims.
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Confesstions of a Shopaholic
Played by Isla Fisher, Rebecca is a beginning journalist in New York City who's hopelessly addicted to shopping and, not by coincidence, drowning in a sea of debt. Yep, a screwball comedy showcasing fiscal irresponsibility. Talk about bad timing.
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The International
The film is strikingly, often elegantly, shot, but our admiration for the glossy images we're gaping at never really translates into any kind of emotional participation.
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Pink Panther 2
The animated credits roll and that familiar theme music plays. Good start. Then the movie kicks off at a needlessly frenetic and counterproductive pitch and immediately squanders all that goodwill.
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He's Just Not That Into You
The film does make the same point over and over again, but is entertaining and holds our interest in spite of its tendency to repeat itself, thanks to an ensemble of watchable performers adeptly handling lively dialogue.
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Coraline
Coraline is a dark, edgy fairy tale, a benevolent nightmare but a nightmare nonetheless. Writer-director Henry Selick is willing to stimulate young viewers' imaginations with material that can be on the frightening side.
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The Uninvited
Perhaps it's the double whammy of a horror thriller that's released in January that sends our expectations into a nosedive. Whatever, this genre piece is a pleasant surprise.
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New in Town
Danish director Jonas Elmer makes his English-language debut and works from a choppy screenplay by C. Jay Cox and Ken Rance that has some some gaps that ought to be filled and far too pat an ending.
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Taken
Liam Neeson, in his first action role, stars as a divorced ex-CIA agent whose daughter has been abducted in broad daylight by a gang of underworld sex-slave traders.
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They Wuz Robbed!
The slate of Oscar nominees for 2008 is now in the books. But what about the poor deserving few who were snubbed, ignored, underappreciated, or forgotten?
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Inkheart
The main character in Inkheart makes it real. He makes fictional characters come alive merely by reading their descriptions aloud.
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Outlander
Suppose an alien creature turned up on the Nordic coast 13 centuries ago. Of such ruminations are movies born -- even if they ought to be "Saturday Night Live" sketches.
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Paul Blart: Mall Cop
This movie, despite whatever narrative or production-value limitations it may have, passes the only test that ultimately matters in comedy: it's funny.
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Hotel for Dogs
In the wake of one runaway, barkaway hit comes another canine-contemplating comedy. But whereas Marley & Me was a family film, Hotel for Dogs is a kidflick.
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Last Chance Harvey
It seems an unbeatable combination. Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. But it doesn't really work.
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Not Easily Broken
Not broken, maybe, but this film is at least bent. Life, love, faith and fidelity are the central concerns of the marital drama, Not Easily Broken, and it nearly buckles under the weight of all those lofty themes.
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Bride Wars
Bride Wars is a broad, raucous comedy that for too long takes on the characteristics that one bride-to-be has pinned on her: it's obnoxious and overbearing.
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The Wrestler
In The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke delivers not only a career best but one of 2008's top performances.
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Worst of 2008
With the year’s best films firmly established – at least, according to the Academy of Me, Myself, and I – it’s time to acknowledge the year’s absolute worst.
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Best of 2008
With all the movies of 2008 -- some still on big screens, some already off -- in the books, it's time to salute the cream of that crop.
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Revolutionary Road
The chasm between “should be happy” and actually being happy is explored with smarts and finesse in the scenes-from-a-marriage drama, Revolutionary Road.
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Bedtime Stories
The half-baked screenplay for this colorful but confused kidflick doesn't hold up to even the most superficial scrutiny.
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This is a large-scale romantic drama, loosely based on a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, about a man who is born in his 80s and ages backward.
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Marley & Me
They're not just dogs, these pets of ours.
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Yes Man
Yes Man is a comedy that only a yes-man would profess to love.
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Seven Pounds
Seven Pounds opens with the main character calling 911 to report an imminent suicide: his own. Then the movie goes about showing us how this character got to this point.
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Doubt
Philip Seymour Hoffman is a liberal parish priest open to modern elements being incorporated into the school's Christmas pageant. This does not sit well with the stern principal, played by Meryl Streep.
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The Day the Earth Stood Still
To purists who won't sit still for the remake of a movie classic, I say: the new The Day the Earth Stood Still I can live with.
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Frost/Nixon
It's a cat-and-mouse drama in which the mouse wants to be the cat. It's a David-Goliath faceoff in which David seeks Goliath status. It's Frosty the Show Man versus Tricky Dick.
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Nothing Like the Holidays
The biggest problem with Nothing Like the Holidays is that too often it feels nothing like real life.
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Nobel Son
Nobel Son is no prize. Part black comedy, part psychological caper, and all adrenaline rush, it's a jigsaw puzzle of a crime flick that's self-consciously quirky, terminally hip, and thoroughly unpleasant.
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Cadillac Records
Writer-director Darnell Martin, the first African-American woman to be put in charge of and deliver a movie for a Hollywood studio, tries to cram in too much material and a few too many characters. But her film is never less than interesting and at least moderately entertaining.
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Bolt
Bolt's no dolt. And he's no mutt either. He's the canine protagonist of Bolt, a smart, funny, edgy, and heartwarming CG-animated comedic adventure with lots of loopy laughs aimed both at kids and ex-kids. I kid you not.
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