All Authors >

BRETT MICHEL

Latest Articles

Visitation rights

Hidden in plain sight
“In terms of the general public, most people I know have never seen the inside of a detention center."

By: BRETT MICHEL | April 16, 2008

Nim's Island

Ubiquitous Abigail Breslin in a mildly diverting adventure
Nim is home-schooled, her covert classroom an uncharted isle she inhabits with her scientist father, Jack.

By: BRETT MICHEL | April 09, 2008

Chaos Theory

A plot centered around one man's penis
Are you ready for the Truth? Here goes: it’s the name given by over-wound human clock Frank to his penis.

By: BRETT MICHEL | April 09, 2008

Double down and Hollywood up

Playing the facts against the fiction of 21
Sometimes Hollywood gets it right; sometimes Hollywood . . . ah, elaborates .

By: BRETT MICHEL | March 26, 2008

Shutter

Not scary and a measly PG-13
How frightening is this? A vengeful spirit begins turning up in pictures taken by a pair of newlyweds, ruining many a wedding and honeymoon photo.

By: BRETT MICHEL | March 25, 2008

Run, Fat Boy, Run

Cold feet and Nikes
Not even new leather can hide the sweat and desperation of this non-starting shill.

By: BRETT MICHEL | March 25, 2008

21

A novel transformation
An Asian leading man is, it seems, too big a gamble for Hollywood’s myopic big players.

By: BRETT MICHEL | March 25, 2008

Drillbit Taylor

Leftovers from the '80s
Early on in this Owen Wilson vehicle, someone says, “I got an old saying for you: you can’t polish a turd.” Indeed.

By: BRETT MICHEL | March 19, 2008

10,000 B.C.

Far out "history"
A really small continent, since the Anglo hero, D’leh (Steven Strait), is able to traverse its (flat?) surface in a matter of days without so much as needing a shave.

By: BRETT MICHEL | March 12, 2008

Be Kind Rewind

A shambling charmer
This isn’t Gondry’s best work — it’s too unstructured, labored when it begs to soar.

By: BRETT MICHEL | February 20, 2008

Shaggy frog

Interview: Michel Gondry goes lo-fi
Michel Gondry is not a household name.

By: BRETT MICHEL | February 20, 2008

Science and fiction

Hollywood teleports to MIT
It wasn’t all hyperventilation.

By: BRETT MICHEL | February 15, 2008

Jumper

An 88-minute flop
Life and this movie are too short to have to put up with the little shit.

By: BRETT MICHEL | February 13, 2008

Strange Wilderness

Lazy, lazy, lazy
Gaulke and Wolf (the actual ones) might have greater difficulty saving their careers.

By: BRETT MICHEL | February 06, 2008

The Eye

Two directers and still unoriginal
“I see . . . ,” says formerly blind concert violinist Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba, not believable as a musician even while visionless).

By: BRETT MICHEL | February 06, 2008

Teeth

An uncomfortable horror/comedy hybrid
Nearly 45 minutes of expectant foreplay culminates in an unsatisfying, messy anti-climax that’s, well, toothless.

By: BRETT MICHEL | January 23, 2008

El Orfanato | The Orphanage

An unoriginal technician's piece
Seek elsewhere if you’re hoping for the transporting originality of last year’s El laberinto del fauno|Pan’s Labyrinth .

By: BRETT MICHEL | January 09, 2008

Bodysong

The perfect fusion of sound and vision
From more than 400 sources, he’s created an operatic narrative of a single human life.

By: BRETT MICHEL | December 31, 2007

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

Genre futility
What a fitting subtitle for Fox’s latest offense to fans of not one but two venerable sci-fi properties.

By: BRETT MICHEL | December 31, 2007

The Great Debaters

The deck is stacked
The deck is stacked in favor of our earnest heroes, since Robert Eisele’s formulaic script never once allows our debaters to argue a contrarian’s viewpoint.

By: BRETT MICHEL | December 26, 2007

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Easy jokes? Absolutely
Stupid? Sure, but laced with a strange sense of logic.

By: BRETT MICHEL | December 19, 2007

<< first ...< prev 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | next >... last >>

14 of 16 (results 309)