Jailbait
The stage origins of this low-budget, indie prison movie are simply everywhere, but it is so fantastically acted that it inspires indulgence of its first-timers’ mistakes.
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Marrit Ingman, Aug. 18, 2006
Pulse
Pulse, the American remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 horror film Kairo, is the McDonald's Unhappy Meal to the original's elegantly obtuse sashimi o' sorrow.
Marc Savlov, Aug. 18, 2006
Accepted
Accepted asserts that a college run by students might be better than its institutional alternative, but who wants education advice from the creators of such a witless, uninspired excuse for a college comedy?
Brian Clark, Aug. 18, 2006
The Black Belly of the Tarantula
Marc Savlov, Aug. 11, 2006
Step Up
This snooty-dancer-meets-street-dancer musical romance is so painfully intent on teaching its characters life lessons every few minutes that it forgets to be trashy.
Marrit Ingman, Aug. 11, 2006
Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul
This trip through musical Istanbul is a little prettier than it is deep, but it provides a window into the variegated subcultures of a city one musician calls “a bridge crossed by 72 nations.”
Marrit Ingman, Aug. 11, 2006
Once in a Lifetime
The unexpected rise and meteoric fall of the North American Soccer League in the heady, silly mid-Seventies is chronicled for the first time in this charmingly chatty documentary, which ably tracks both the birth of the sport on these shores and its ignominious downfall, which arrived almost overnight with the leave-taking of Pelé.
Marc Savlov, Aug. 11, 2006
Los Lonely Boys: Cottonfields and Crossroads
Austinite Hector Galán’s reverential look at Grammy-winning "Texican" rockers Los Lonely Boys is a document of persistence, passion, and some of the finest rock & roll since Stevie Ray Vaughan’s untimely exit.
Marc Savlov, Aug. 11, 2006
Little Miss Sunshine
Like any indie comedy worth its weight in quirkiness, Little Miss Sunshine is packed with offbeat characters, all struggling to find meaning in life – in this case on a road trip to a children's beauty pageant. And the film is so much fun, it's almost impossible not to enjoy the journey.
Toddy Burton, Aug. 11, 2006
World Trade Center
This is not the 9/11 film we expected from Stone, who tells the fact-based story of two individuals who somehow survived the collapse of the World Trade Center and with a remarkable economy of expressionistic detail and bombast.
Marjorie Baumgarten, Aug. 11, 2006
The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green
This story of a young man in search of Mr. Right has a certain scrappy underdog charm but doesn’t flout any aspects of the romantic-comedy formula.
Marrit Ingman, Aug. 4, 2006
Shadowboxer
Not reviewed at press time. Stars Çuba Gooding Jr. and Helen Mirren as passionate yet unlikely lovers, as well as assassins and stepmother and stepson. And if that's not enough drama, one of them also has a fatal disease.
Brian Clark, Aug. 4, 2006
The Night Listener
This taut, wiry exercise in eerie bad vibes, about a writer-cum-radio personality and a disturbing teenage literary sensation, is emotionally dense but never fully takes flight.
Marc Savlov, Aug. 4, 2006
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Will Ferrell runs comic circles around NASCAR.
Toddy Burton, Aug. 4, 2006
The Descent
Urban professionals go spelunking in an attempt to wipe away old horrors, only to find some new ones to call their own.
Marc Savlov, Aug. 4, 2006
John Tucker Must Die
Teen female-revenge comedy doesn't live up to the edginess promised by its title.
Steve Davis, Aug. 4, 2006
Barnyard: The Original Party Animals
Yet another computer-animated film about talking animals offers a fine message for the kids, but little originality.
Brian Clark, Aug. 4, 2006
The Ant Bully
Childhood's fascination with all things small and squirmy makes this story of a boy who becomes an ant a pleasant, if undernourished, tale.
Marc Savlov, July 28, 2006
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
High-concept farce crashes down pretty low: Think Fatal Attraction meets X-Men and you basically have the gist.
Toddy Burton, July 28, 2006
America: Freedom to Fascism
Although grounded in Libertarian theory, this documentary by producer-turned-director Aaron Russo presents provocative material about the perceived illegality of income taxes – and various freedom-restricting consequences of the new world order.
Marjorie Baumgarten, July 28, 2006
Free Zone
Israeli film presents the region's conflict in terms of the world's most annoying, dysfunctional-family road trip, which renders the proceedings almost as exhausting as the real thing.
Marc Savlov, July 28, 2006
Who Killed the Electric Car?
This multifaceted documentary about the history of GM's electric car seeks the culprit responsible for its demise and finds plenty of blame to go around.
Marjorie Baumgarten, July 28, 2006
Miami Vice
Perhaps vice isn't what it used to be, or maybe Crockett and Tubbs don't belong in this new time slot, but Michael Mann's movie turns out to be dreary and monochromatic.
Marc Savlov, July 28, 2006
Scoop
Woody Allen's second British film with Scarlett Johansson finds the director falling back into the rut he carved for himself with every forgettable comedy since the underrated Deconstructing Harry.
Brian Clark, July 28, 2006
Shakespeare Behind Bars
'Tempest' in a jailhouse, and its implications
Marrit Ingman, July 28, 2006
Warner Bros. Pictures Tough Guys Collection
The end of an era on six discs
Steve Uhler, July 21, 2006
Little Man
If you can accept the very idea of Shawn Wayans’ face on the body of an infantilized baby-man in diapers, who’s to care about the quality of anything else in the movie?
Marrit Ingman, July 21, 2006
Strangers With Candy
The high school comedy of co-creators Dinello, Colbert, and Sedaris is completely over the top in its audacity and absurdity.
Toddy Burton, July 21, 2006
Monster House
This animated tale of a carnivorous, haunted house and the band of neighborhood kids who decide to put it out of commission feels maddeningly unfinished.
Marc Savlov, July 21, 2006
Clerks II
Kevin Smith is on solid footing with this sequel, which finds the filmmaker and his raunchy protagonists at the precipice of maturity but moving ahead with cautious baby steps.
