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Review: Precious

Purple's prose makes for wrenching melodrama
If you thought Celie in Alice Walker's The Color Purple had a tough time of it, wait till you get a load of Precious.

By PETER KEOUGH | November 18, 2009

Despite what you may think, it's not a Sandra Bullock movie
It’s tough for any self-respecting critic to refrain from joyously tackling a Sandra Bullock movie — so it’s a good thing The Blind Side isn’t one.

By CHRIS FARAONE | November 17, 2009

Review: Planet 51

Even aliens get paranoid sometimes
The opening for the latest animated kids’ fantasy is promising — but it’s for another movie.

By PETER KEOUGH | November 18, 2009

Review: Pirate Radio

Richard Curtis’s boat rocks
A rusty, red-painted trawler bobs in the waves of the North Atlantic. Inside is a claustrophobic warren of rooms: tiny, brine-smelling bunks, a well-stocked bar, and, crucially, a broadcast booth, its shelves crammed with the latest 45s and LPs, its turntables manned in shifts by a motley squad of hirsute rogues.

By MIKE MILIARD | November 16, 2009

Review: 2012

Doom and doomer: the bullshit hits the fans
Doomsday is good therapy. What does it matter that billions die if that brings a family together in one big hug?

By PETER KEOUGH | November 12, 2009

Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

Bleating hearts tame Goats
Here’s a subject that really could have used a Stanley Kubrick or a John Frankenheimer or a Robert Altman. But are there any great cinematic satirists left, auteurs with the knack for black comedy and cold-blooded irony?

By PETER KEOUGH | November 06, 2009

Review: Michael Jackson's This Is It

Is this it?
The Star Wars –style titles that begin Kenny Ortega’s hastily assembled Michael Jackson tribute documentary explain that the film has been whittled down from 100 hours of behind-the-scenes video shot between last April and June during rehearsals for the King of Pop’s planned 50-date “This Is It” London concert series.

By BRETT MICHEL | November 12, 2009

Review: Disney's A Christmas Carol

State-of-the-art technology allows actors to reach new heights of hamminess
Charles Dickens made a mint with readings of A Christmas Carol , but a century and a half of technological progress has not been kind to the property.

By PETER KEOUGH | November 09, 2009

Review: The Fourth Kind

Creepy, but clumsy
If the “actual footage” used in this film is real, then there’s something going on up in Alaska even more frightening than the rise of Sarah Palin.

By DAVID WILDMAN | November 04, 2009

Review: The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

This is bullshit.
You’d think Troy Duffy would have learned something in the decade since he blew his golden ticket with The Boondock Saints .

By BRETT MICHEL | November 02, 2009

Review: Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Harry Potter it ain’t, but it’s fun all the same.
You’ve seen it all before: a boy with a special destiny tangles with the occult and gets sucked out of his normal life and into the twilight realm of the supernatural, in the process setting the stage for paranormal war between good and evil.

By SHAULA CLARK | October 28, 2009

Review: Saw VI

Surprisingly timely
Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), the self-righteous serial killer of the long-toothed franchise, may have succumbed to cancer a few films back, but he remains very much alive in plot and presence.

By TOM MEEK | October 30, 2009

Review: Amelia

Plane bad
The hallowed formula for an Oscar Best Picture nomination — legendary figure, pat rise and fall scenario, overproduced visuals and music, a showboating performance from a name actor, reassuring platitudes — falls flat in what is Mira Nair’s worst picture.

By PETER KEOUGH | October 29, 2009

Review: The Stepfather

Remake fails to get any blood flowing
If you call a film The Stepfather , then your title character should have the decency to marry into that perfect little family that he’s predisposed to butcher and kill.

By BRETT MICHEL | October 21, 2009

Review: Astro Boy

Partisan politics rain down like meatballs
Five-year-olds who attend MoveOn.org rallies in between tee-ball and bath time are sure to love the new David Bowers–directed interpretation of Osamu Tezuka’s flagship character.

By CHRIS FARAONE | October 21, 2009

Review: Where the Wild Things Are

Jonze, Eggers, and Sendak aren’t kidding around
I can’t speak for the kids, but I would rate Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s 40-page children’s picture book up there with Up and Wall•E as topping the recent renaissance in children’s movies. If pressed, I’d rank it close to The Wizard of Oz .

By PETER KEOUGH | October 19, 2009

Review: Couples Retreat

Couples (and everyone else), retreat.
This movie has the power to make any date feel as endless and soul-sucking as the lifetime’s worth of defective, hateful marriages that doom the film’s protagonists.

By SHAULA CLARK | October 14, 2009

Review: More Than a Game

More than a LeBron James showcase, too
Most know about the rise of LeBron James from impoverished Ohio roots (fatherless and raised in public housing) to mega-millionaire and NBA phenom, so why make a documentary?

By TOM MEEK | October 14, 2009

Review: Chelsea on the Rocks

Abel Ferrara paints an affectionate portrait
Manhattan’s Chelsea Hotel has been the roost of artists, writers, musicians, actors — and a lot of wanna-bes.

By BETSY SHERMAN | October 14, 2009

Review: Earth Days

Did you know Nixon once signed progressive eco-legislation?
Those who worry that the eco-movement seems incapable of getting beyond its white upper-middle-class base will be disturbed anew by Robert Stone’s Earth Days , where every talking head is a well-bred Caucasian.

By GERALD PEARY | October 07, 2009

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