by KYW's Bill Wine
(Use your browser's "search" feature to
quickly find any title listed below)
|
Moon
Sam Rockwell has an acting challenge on his hands for reasons best left unexplained here, but he's more than up to it.
|
Public Enemies
"Gangbusters" describes the subject matter of Public Enemies, but unfortunately not its quality level.
|
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.
|
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.
|
My Sister's Keeper
Movies don't come much sadder than this one. But there's nothing sad about the talent on display.
|
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.
|
Year One
Year One is primitive, juvenile, and nonsensical. So why is it so much fun?
|
The Proposal
Don't be surprised if moviegoers accept The Proposal with no questions asked.
|
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.
|
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.
|
The Taking of Pelham 123
This new version has been given the characteristically amped-up-action treatment of director Tony Scott.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
Your Summer Movie Preview 2009
Here are twenty of the biggest movie attractions coming down the pike between now and the end of August, a good number of them potential blockbusters.
|
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Is anyone else tired of Matthew McConaughey's signature act yet?
|
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?
|
Is Anybody There?
Is Anybody There? opens as if it has something magical up its sleeve. It does. His name is Michael Caine.
|
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.
|
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?
|
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.
|
17 Again
17 Again is a star vehicle for emerging icon Zac Efron, but it should have been more.
|
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.
|
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.
|
Hannah Montana: The Movie
The screenplay, by Daniel Berendsen, was concocted at Clichés-R-Us.
|
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.
|
Alien Trespass
Alien Trespass is a parody of, and tribute to, the campy, low-budget science fiction movies of the Red Scare-drenched 1950s.
|
Adventureland
It's a "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essay with sprocket holes. And real insight.
|
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.
|
12 Rounds
This is not a bad outing as an actor for professional wrestler John Cena. The movie, however, is another story.
|
The Haunting in Connecticut
Is this film creepy? Spooky? Disturbing? Only at first. Later it turns hokey, which ain't okey-dokey.
|
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.
|
Knowing
On paper, Knowing looks like yet another subpar Nicolas Cage-starring thriller. But movies aren't made on paper.
|
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.
|
Duplicity
Duplicity may not have simplicity or even authenticity, but it's got more than its share of electricity.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
Phoebe in Wonderland
Phoebe in Wonderland boasts three splendid performances by a trio of gifted actresses. And one of them is ten years old!
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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?
|
Inkheart
The main character in Inkheart makes it real. He makes fictional characters come alive merely by reading their descriptions aloud.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
Last Chance Harvey
It seems an unbeatable combination. Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. But it doesn't really work.
|
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.
|
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.
|
The Wrestler
In The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke delivers not only a career best but one of 2008's top performances.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
Bedtime Stories
The half-baked screenplay for this colorful but confused kidflick doesn't hold up to even the most superficial scrutiny.
|
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.
|
Marley & Me
They're not just dogs, these pets of ours.
|
Yes Man
Yes Man is a comedy that only a yes-man would profess to love.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
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.
|
Nothing Like the Holidays
The biggest problem with Nothing Like the Holidays is that too often it feels nothing like real life.
|
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.
|
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.
|
Milk
Director Gus Van Sant keeps the film, with its impressive sense of both time and place, flowing smoothly from year to year, locale to locale, election to election, confrontation to confrontation, and incident to incident, making effective use of archival footage whenever it helps to further the verisimilitude.
|
Four Christmases
Director Seth Gordon, who made a bit of a splash last year with his terrific, unique videogame documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, takes his first shot at a narrative feature with problematic results.
|
Australia
Australia is a sweeping World War II-era romantic western drama about greed, injustice, and destiny (manifest or otherwise).
|
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.
|
Twilight
As this romantic vampire drama fades into memory, it's easy to see why the essential target audience -- young women and girls -- is expected to respond to it. Twilight casts quite a spell.
|
Slumdog Millionaire
Slumdog Millionaire is a sweet-and-sour comedy-drama about a poor kid who wants to be a millionaire and goes on the TV show "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" But in India.
|
Let the Right One In
Let the Right One In just might be the best vampire movie I've ever seen.
|
Quantum of Solace
Director Marc Forster is certainly accomplished but does not seem especially well suited to this kind of action thriller, having never directed an action sequence before.
|
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a noticeable improvement on its bright, bouncy computer-animated predecessor, which was itself a fetching and respectable entertainment.
|
Soul Men
Soul Men is fun. It's also eager to please -- to a fault, actually -- and, at times, out of control. But this boisterous lark is a blast nonetheless.
|
Role Models
You respond to this buddy comedy the way you do to charming youngsters you feel great affection for but have to discipline anyway: you disapprove and chide, then smile, maybe even giggle, when they're out of sight.
|
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The movie version of John Boyne's best-seller is a miraculously powerful, haunting, indelible film, a story for everybody about the twentieth century's defining atrocity told from the uncomprehending point of view of an eight-year-old.
|
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Writer-director Kevin Smith's latest comedy is a naughty but undeniably romantic romp that's remarkably sweet at its core but wincingly, exasperatingly bad in spots -- lots of spots.
|
Changeling
Director Clint Eastwood's streak of fine, forceful films continues: Changeling is another powerhouse.
|
What Just Happened
Hollywood, once described as a sunny spot for shady people, is the focus of director Barry Levinson's latest comedy.
|
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
The High School Musicals take a page from the let's-put-on-a-show songbook and help to instill in a new generation an appreciation, and maybe even a hunger for, musical theatre and performance.
|
Pride and Glory
This film is so formulaic and indistinctive -- that is, we've been down these mean streets in just this way so many times -- that we find ourselves yearning for something in the way of a surprise or twist or variation along the way.
|
Filth and Wisdom
Madonna's directorial debut is a block and a half from filthy, but a mile and a half from wise.
|
The Secret Life of Bees
No one minds heartstring tugging that's earned. The Secret Life Of Bees, all the better for its natural sweetness and charm, earns it.
|
''W.''
W. is director and provocateur Oliver Stone's satirically toned bio-dramedy about the forty-third president of the United States.
|
Rachel Getting Married
In Rachel Getting Married, Anne Hathaway just might be saying hello to Oscar. Or at least to a nomination.
|
City of Ember
City of Ember is a post-apocalyptic children's fantasy adventure that begins with the words, "On the day the world ended..."
|
Body of Lies
During wartime, truth and trust go out the window. Body of Lies is about that window.
|
The Express
The Express is as straight-ahead as a quarterback sneak. But it's one that manages to get, if not a touchdown, at least a first down.
|
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
The voiceover work, especially by Drew Barrymore, is energetic and acceptable. But the talking-dog gimmick runs out of steam early on.
|
Blindness
Blindness is an apocalyptic fable about an immediate and unexplainable epidemic of sightlessness.
|
Appaloosa
Nearly as much a comedy of manners as it is a western, Appaloosa focuses on the bond between two armed law-enforcement mercenaries, played by Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen.
|
Miracle at St. Anna
No miracle this time for director Spike Lee.
|
Eagle Eye
Our simultaneous reliance on and fear of modern technology gets a high-energy workout in this race-and-chase action techno-thriller.
|
Nights in Rodanthe
Richard Gere and Diane Lane reunite for a third on-screen collaboration, their characters brought together by the fates as each faces middle-age turmoil.
|
Igor
The animation style is striking but distant, and the voiceover work by most of the cast just isn't animated enough.
|
Lakeview Terrace
When you move into a new home and your next-door neighbor is menacing, you call a cop. But whom do you call when your menacing next-door neighbor is a cop?
|
Ghost Town
Ghost Town is a supernatural comedy about what happens to a curmudgeonly dentist when the ghost of a man who died a year earlier asks him for a favor.
|
Righteous Kill
Pacino and De Niro. Who needs first names?
|
The Women
The Women is a remake of -- but no improvement on -- a 1939 comedy directed by George Cukor.
|
Burn After Reading
You exit this movie feeling burned after watching.
|
Bangkok Dangerous
Nicolas Cage plays a hitman on his last job. Is there a more tired, generic, played-out combo of protagonist and premise than that?
|
Everybody Wants to Be Italian
Everybody Wants to Be Italian falls short as a romantic comedy because hamfisted dialogue combined with fingernails-on-a-blackboard delivery don't get the job done.
|
Your Fall Movie Preview
The summer 2008 movie season -- and a compelling and successful one it was -- is now in the books. So bring on the autumn big-screen lineup!
|
Tropic Thunder
Wearing four hats, Ben Stiller tries to use a movie within a movie to send up moviemaking and moviemakers. His movie is uneven, but it has memorably funny moments.
|
Fly Me To The Moon
There is admittedly some graceful and arresting 3-D choreography, especially the zero-gravity sequences, and there's the new and improved 3-D technology. But the storytelling is lethargic, unnecessarily simplistic in the way of Saturday morning TV cartoons.
|
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
All that producer and executive producer George Lucas came up with for this movie is what amounts to a lengthy promo for his upcoming TV series.
|
Baghead
It's a heady mix of romantic comedy, horror thriller, and relationship psychodrama. Think Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice meets The Blair Witch Project.
|
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
This film's main strength might well be its acting: there's lots of youthful, natural talent on display, and the four leads contribute a four-pack of lived-in performances.
|
Pineapple Express
The last thing a stoner lark needs is excessive violence. Yet that's exactly what this "action comedy" trafficks in.
|
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
The first two Mummy flicks in the current series were mediocre at best. But the threequel is so awful that it makes the original and its sequel, in retrospect, start to resemble the first two Godfather dramas.
|
Swing Vote
Disguised as a farcical romp with Democrats and Republicans, Swing Vote is a cautionary fable that doesn't bring enough refreshment to the party -- either party -- or the political process.
|
|
