Rating: 1.5 stars

About 5 minutes into Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the new animated film from Lucas Studios, I turned to my friend Travis and said, “Wait. I thought Anakin went bad in Revenge of the Sith. Then why is he swashbuckling right alongside Obi-Wan Kenobi?” “Because this film takes place before that one,” he explained.
Let me get this straight: The most recent three Star Wars films—Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Sith—were not sequels, but prequels, right? So what does that make this? A midquel? Episode 2.5? A palate cleanser? The mind reels.
Actually, the mind doesn’t reel at all. It’s quite clear what Star Wars: The Clone Wars is—a giant advertisement for Lucas’s next project, an animated Star Wars TV series that will run on the Cartoon Network and TNT.
Surely, that explains why the animation is so horrible—the faces are so stiff and robotic they bring to mind Max Headroom—and the voice work done by a cast of no names (except for a random cameo from Samuel Jackson). Why set up fans for a...

Rating: 2.5 stars

Anyone who watches the new documentary American Teen, about high school life in a small town in Indiana, will be compelled to cast a fictitious version of the film in their mind. Alt-rocky, angsty teen girl Hannah Bailey could be played by Julia Stiles, who played a similar character in 10 Things I Hate About You. Nerdy, but deceptively self-aware Jake Tusing could be played by Michael Cera, who played a similar character in Juno (and Superbad). Wealthy queen bee Megan Krizmanich, who is probably just responding to fierce pressures at home, could be played by Rachel McAdams, who played a similar character in Mean Girls. Sensitive popular kid Mitch Reinholt, who dates Hannah until peer pressure compels a break-up, could be played by Zac Efron, who plays a similar character in the High School Musical movies.  And so on.
These similarities point out what is good—and not so good—about this documentary. On the one hand, American Teen is extremely watchable—it’s fast paced, suspenseful (will Megan get into Notre...

Rating: 2.5 stars

There’s a certain contract that the creators of a stoner comedy make with the audience: There will be lots of doobie jokes, lots of infantile men over-reacting (and sometimes, drastically under-reacting) to the madcap misadventures they’ve gotten themselves into, and, most importantly, the whole proposition will be amiable, no-consequence fun. While Pineapple Express follows most of the rules of stoner comedy—it’s funny and the pot jokes fly a plenty—it commits a cardinal sin: The violence in this film has consequences—people get maimed and they even die. Duuuuude.
Seth Rogen, channeling a young Albert Brooks, plays Dale Denton, a process server who witnesses a drug kingpin commit a murder and, in his haste to leave the scene, drops the rare strain of pot he was smoking. The drug kingpin (Gary Cole), who has ties to Dale’s dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco), immediately recognizes the contents of the roach: Pineapple Express pot. Now both Saul and Dale are on the run.
The best thing about Pineapple Express...

Rating: 1.5 stars

Anyone who knows me, already knows that I am no fan of Kevin Costner. I find his whole self-styled Everyman routine tiresome and pretentious. He’s had some great movies over the years—Bull Durham remains one of my all-time favorites—but every time he gets into that preachy, Jimmy-Stewart-wannabe mode, I check out.
So Swing Vote, which was produced by Costner (most likely explaining a prolonged scene featuring him and his band), was something of a special ordeal for me. There was Costner, playing Bud Johnson, a (supposedly) lovable loser from New Mexico, who, through a remarkable series of events, has 10 days to cast his vote and determine the next president of the United States. Costner is in his full-on hang dog, sheepish, aw shucks persona here. Yuck.
He’s a single dad, raising a movie-precocious daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll, one of the film’s saving graces)—or,  more accurately, she’s raising him. She rouses him from bed every morning, gives him civics lessons, and even drives the truck when he’s drunk. (Mind you, she’s in the...