Here’s the kind of useless exercise that only a true film dork with way too much free time on her hands could accomplish: I’ve listed all 36 of Woody Allen’s theatrical films (okay, there are actually 38, but I’ve never seen Cassandra’s Dream or Love and Death) and ranked them from best to worst.

I encourage you all to agree or disagree, call me names, rage against the very nature of our list-obsessed society, and express intense anger at my profound overestimation of Husbands and Wives and clueless underestimation of Match Point. But one thing you can never do is make me waver on number 1. Not only is Manhattan my favorite Woody Allen film, it is quite possibly my favorite film of all time.

1. Manhattan (1979)
2. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
3. Annie Hall (1977)
4. Husbands and Wives (1992)
5. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
6. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
7. Take the Money and Run (1969)
8. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
9. Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
10. Zelig (1983)
11. Sleeper (1973)...

Rating: 3.5 stars

It’s hard to convince people that Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, a fictionalized account the historic interview between British chat show host David Frost and disgraced American president Richard Nixon, is as edge-of-your-seat riveting as any good sports movie. But it is. Of course, the dry title doesn’t help. Maybe, Smackdown! Frost/Nixon would’ve been better.
The beauty of the film, based on the Peter Morgan play of the same name, is that Frost (Michael Sheen)—who had some minor success in the United States but was ultimately sent back to the UK with his tail between his legs—sees his exclusive interview with Nixon as a way to get back his table at Sardi’s. He craves fame, status, a kind of professional redemption. He has no idea that he’s out of his depth—his obsession is scoring the interview, not actually conducting it.
As for Nixon (Frank Langella), well, we already know what he’s like—brilliant, twitchy, paranoid, and self-pitying. But his loyal right-hand man Colonel Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon) convinces him to take the...

Rating: 1 star

Seven Pounds is a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, cloaked in a really crappy movie.
How best to describe this clunker? Let’s put it this way: Seven Pounds isn’t just bad—it’s historically bad; deserves to be mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000 bad; “I can’t believe what I just saw” bad. I’ll give my man Will Smith this: He does nothing halfway.
Smith plays Ben Thomas, an extremely bummed out IRS agent. As the film starts, he’s sitting on the edge of a bed in a fleabag motel, calling in a suicide—his own. Then we have flashbacks to happier days when Ben was some sort of aeronautical engineer living in a sweet beachside estate; then fragments of a horrific car crash; then many scenes of Ben being a spectral, stalkerish figure: He harasses a blind telemarketer (Woody Harrelson) to see if he’s a good man; he finds an abused mother of two (Elpidia Carrillo) who needs help getting away from her husband; he shadows a beautiful artist (adorable Rosario Dawson, who deserves better) with a congenital heart defect, and so on. What the heck is happening?...

Rating: 2 stars

What possessed Keanu Reeves to accept the role of Klaatu, the alien who arrives with his giant robot buddy on the planet Earth with big plans to save our planet by annihilating its inhabitants? Hasn’t Keanu heard enough times in his career that his acting is flat and robotic? Does he really want to give his critics ammunition by playing a part only a few syllables removed from “Take me to your leaders”? (In this case, he’s referring to the U.N.)
I guess I sort of see why 20th Century Fox decided to remake this classic sci-fi. Back in 1951, Klaatu was intent on saving the earth from the Cold War. Today, he wants to save it from global warming. He’s Al Gore From Another Planet.
But the film’s sensibility still seems rooted in the '50s. It’s a square, slightly wonky movie. Today’s action/sci-fi films are winking, fast-paced adrenaline rushes, a la Transformers or Iron Man. But Keanu’s Klaatu, aided by physicist babe Helen Benson (Jennifer Connolly) and her impossibly adorable step-son Jacob (Jayden...