I had something of a revelation about Michael Moore during  his latest, Capitalism: A Love Story: The man just can’t help himself.

Many of us watch Moore’s films and think: If only he’d be a little more temperate, if only he would lay it on a little less thick, if only he could avoid the easy mark or the knee-jerk sentimentality—then he could successfully deflect all of his critics.

But then, I realized, Moore wouldn’t be Moore. His mournful over-identification with the plight of the working man—and his sense of himself as their champion—isn’t manufactured or cynical in any way. It is who he is. It makes him great. It also, let’s face it, makes him a bit of a pain in the neck.

So it is with Capitalism: A Love Story, which is not Moore’s best work (I’d vote for Bowling for Columbine), but carries his usual sense of impeccable timing: America is just about as fed up with capitalism as he is.

Moore is grappling with his favorite themes here: Greed, government collusion, the exploitation of...

After the brilliant Shaun of the Dead (and the decidedly less than brilliant Zombie Strippers!, among others), I figured the zombie spoof genre had played itself out.

Zombieland proved me wrong. The genius of the film is that it’s more buddy flick than horror spoof. And director Ruben Fleischer keeps things fresh with a freewheeling, anything-goes narrative (out of nowhere, for example, he will cut to the “Zombie Kill of the Week”) and a blissfully short attention span (the film clocks in at a perfect 82 minutes). It’s also funny. As hell.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Columbus, one of the few survivors of an epidemic virus that turned most people into flesh-eating zombies. How did a scrawny, brainy outcast (he even has iritible bowel syndrome) like Columbus survive the zompocalypse? By adhering to his own very strict sense of rules. (One rule: “Always Check the Back Seat.”)

Columbus meets another survivor—an alpha male brimming with guts and swagger dubbed Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson, who hasn’t had a role this juicy in years.) Under normal circumstances, these men would have nothing to do with each other. In Zombieland, they team up to kick some zombie butt (well,...

You know what has changed the most since Fame, Alan Parker’s beloved 1980 film about a New York performing arts high school? The nature of fame itself. Today, fame is a reality TV show, viral video, or testy town hall meeting away. The question isn’t who gets to be famous? It’s who doesn’t get to be famous? So the stakes are pretty low on this update—and the film clearly knows it.

I mean, say what you will about Parker’s original (I loved it), but it was made with a real affection for the young cast and a kind of messy, earnest joy. This update is as slick and calculated as a McDonald’s commercial.

Sure, there are some show stoppers. Newcomer Naturi Naughton gives Irene Cara a run for her money as Denise, the classical pianist who really just wants to sing. (Of course, I hate films that depict classical music as somehow stifling, but that’s a personal pet peeve.) And the inevitable cafeteria music extravanganza, while cheesy, is fun to watch.

But for the most part, we don’t care about these kids, whose stories are barely...

To say that Love Happens should’ve gone straight to video is an insult to films that have gone straight to video. The story of Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart, dishy but dull), a self-help guru who can’t seem to help himself, is so tone deaf, so muddled, so poorly put together, I can only assume that the parts of the movie that made sense were left on the cutting room floor.

For starters, what kind of self help guru is Burke? His mission appears to be helping people get over a recent loss, but his motto is a smarmy and facile, “I’m A-Okay!” So is Burke, whose wife died in a car accident, supposed to be a sensitive guy with real insight into human suffering (except for his own)? Or a cheesy hack?

Burke’s world is turned upside down by the arrival of florist Eloise (Jennifer Aniston). I think Eloise is supposed to be quirky and full of life—she wears hats and drives a vintage truck, tell tale movie shorthands for free-spiritedness—but the only thing we really know about her is that she’s a vandal: She writes obscure words...