Rating: 2.5 stars

The trailers and poster art for Oliver Stone’s W. make it seem like a scathing work of satire but in reality, it’s a fairly standard biopic, with a healthy dose of Freudian speculation about the relationship between the elder Bush and his wayward son. Sure, there are some funny moments—a guy like Dubya would have to yield a few chuckles—but it’s mostly benign and dare I say . . . sympathetic? (This from the guy who gave us Natural Born Killers and JFK?)
Of course, the film is already controversial—and unprecedented. While there have been many presidential biopics—Stone has done one of his own (1995’s Nixon)—this is the first time one has been filmed while the president was still in office. In that sense, W. works best as a novelty film—and Stone seems to know it.
Why else, then, would he start the film with a “name that cabinet member” tableaux, as George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) and his advisers sit around the Oval Office coming up with the phrase Axis of Evil? You spend the first few minutes trying to figure out who’s...

Rating: 2 stars

Turns out the ’80s teen sex comedies Losin’ It, The Last American Virgin, and The Sure Thing were cinematic classics. How else to explain why Sex Drive so shamelessly cribs from them? Oh, well. It’s not like today’s teenagers will know the difference.
Those of us over 30 can do this in our sleep: Ian (Josh Zuckerman), our sensitive, virginal, donut-shop employee hero wants to drive across the country to hook up with a “sure thing” he met on the web, and is joined by his horndog pal Lance (Clark Duke) and his tomboy best friend Felicia (Amanda Crew) who is—altogether now—secretly perfect for him.
Still, Sex Drive does have some distinguishing features—although not all good.
First the pluses: James Marsden is positively inspired as Ian’s amped up motorhead brother—a guy so rabidly homophobic he simply has to be gay himself.
Then there’s Seth Green, the film’s most unique and hilarious creation, a passive-aggressive Amish man the gang meets on the road who helps them with their engine trouble—and...

Rating: 3.5 stars

Several weeks ago, Bill Maher had his favorite sparring partner, conservative political pundit Andrew Sullivan, on his HBO show, Real Time With Bill Maher. Sullivan was exasperated with what he perceived to be Maher’s complete intolerance of religion. It’s true, when Maher, an avowed agnostic, discusses religious people, he tends to be both derisive and dismissive. Not an ideal guy, then, to do a probing and comedic documentary on faith and religious devotion, right?
Actually, he’s just the guy. For starters, Maher is drawn to the very subjects our society deems taboo—and there’s no subject more tiptoed around than religion. Also, he’s smart as a whip and naturally inquisitive. As he goes around in his documentary, interviewing various evangelicals and Passion Play participants and Muslim clerics, he wants to simply  see what they see. A born skeptic, he keeps challenging people’s assumptions, their leaps of logic, the very foundations of their faith. To his credit, he never comes across as rude, just intellectually curious (and a bit befuddled).

...

Rating: 2.5 stars

Flash of Genius is probably better than any movie about the guy who invented intermittent windshield wipers deserves to be. That’s not to say it’s a great film—it’s far too earnest to be truly entertaining (it’s very excited about patent law)—but it does have a certain shaggy charm.

Greg Kinnear plays Bob Kearns, an engineer who notices the inadequacy of his car’s wipers on a rainy day and becomes obsessed with improving them. Kearns pitches his idea to the Ford Motor Company. At first they don’t believe he’s done it (their own team of crack inventors has come up empty), then they buy his invention. Then they promptly steal it.

Of course, it’s easy to share Kearns’ zeal for taking on the greedy corporation and exposing them as the thieves they are. But when Kearns’ obsession with justice becomes all consuming—he ends up in a mental facility—it’s hard to get behind him, especially when Ford is offering him a megabucks settlement that he piously refuses.

In a way, Greg Kinnear, who has an ability to disappear into the role he’s playing, is the...