RATING:
How do you solve a problem like Angelina Jolie? To me, she is one of the great movie stars of our time. Notice I didn’t say great actress—although she certainly is a better than average one—I said movie star. When she’s on screen, you can’t take your eyes off her—she's almost ridiculously sexy and [...]

RATING:
Oh what a curious—and sometimes flat-out weird—movie WALL-E is. I have to admit, it took me a while to grasp its shades and rhythms—and even now I’m not sure if it’s a masterpiece or a miscue or both.
For starters, the beginning feels more like a horror film than a Pixar romp for kids. We [...]

The experience of watching Hard Times at Douglass High is akin to that of walking into a very dark room that has a few slivers of sunlight peaking in.
The documentary, filmed by Susan and Alan Raymond over the course of one school year in Baltimore and airing this month on HBO, doesn’t really tell you [...]

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RATING:
Mike Myers is a funny guy. He made three awesomely funny Austin Powers movies (I’m partial to the second—when Mini Me was introduced and joined Dr. Evil in a rendition of Will Smith’s Just the Two of Us) and had several funny SNL sketches, even if some of his characters (I’m talking to you, [...]

RATING:
A conspicuously big budget and some game work by the leads elevates Get Smart from utter mediocrity to serviceable entertainment. But still, this update of the popular 60’s series never truly gains its footing. Is it an homage to the show? If so, they should’ve made Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) more of a [...]

RATING:
Oh, the quandary of M Night Shyamalan. On the one hand, you’ve got to really admire a guy who relies on good old-fashioned storytelling and suspense—nary a CGI effect in this guy’s films—to get the job done. On the other hand, enough already.
It’s all been down hill since the ingenious Sixth Sense, a [...]

RATING:
I’ll admit that Ang Lee’s Hulk, released in 2003, was a bit of a dud. It was overlong, overwrought, oddly joyless, and featured a drippy Bruce Banner played by Eric Bana. But still, it was, for all intents and purposes, an Incredible Hulk movie. The special effects were pretty cool. The Hulk was ginormous [...]

RATING:
They say most movie pitches can be boiled down to a quick sentence, usually combining two hit movies (it’s Titanic meets Lord of the Rings!) to create some unstoppable box office juggernaut. But lordy, starting with the awkward title (You Don’t Mess with. . . Lindsay Lohan?) and right down to the premise—super hero [...]

RATING:
Art and shameless commerce don’t usually intersect, but they do (sort of) in Kung Fu Panda.  In many ways, the film feels like it was created by some harried Dreamworks exec in a focus group. I can see his notes now . . .
1. Cuddly panda bear: check
2. Kid-fave Jack Black: check
3. Under-achiever makes [...]