Movies >>

Reviews

Review: My Perestroika

Transitioning to capitalism
Socialism might be a dirty word in America, but for Russians during the Soviet era, it was the way things were.

By: PETER KEOUGH | April 07, 2011

Review: Potiche

Screwball comedy meets political boilerplate
The eclectic François Ozon often combines the offbeat and the generic to the benefit of both.

By: PETER KEOUGH | April 07, 2011

Review: Soul Surfer

Cheese instead of heart
What are Helen Hunt, Dennis Quaid, and Craig T. Nelson doing in this movie?

By: ALEXANDRA CAVALLO | April 07, 2011

Review: Winter In Wartime

Coming-of-age thriller
Evoking a similar scene in John Boorman's wonderful World War II memoir, Hope and Glory , a stricken British bomber crashes just outside a small Dutch town.

By: PETER KEOUGH | April 07, 2011

A short, painless family pleaser
This short, painless family pleaser, available in IMAX 3D, not only promotes the wisdom of environmental conservation but also shows how people can learn from other creatures on the planet.

By: TOM MEEK | April 07, 2011

Review: Hanna

Relentless tween assassin
For some reason, teenage and pre-teen girls have become the new action hero.

By: PETER KEOUGH | April 10, 2011

watch the movie trailer for the music never stopped

Review: The Music Never Stopped

An exploration of music’s power to heal
An exploration of music's power to heal, this maudlin movie (based on Oliver Sacks's essay "The Last Hippie") features go-to supporting player J.K. Simmons in a rare leading role.

By: BRETT MICHEL | March 31, 2011

Review: When We Leave

Honor bound
In 2005, at a bus stop in Berlin, Hatun Sürücü, a 23-year-old German of Turkish descent, was shot to death — by her youngest brother.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | March 31, 2011

Review: Certified Copy

Precious rather than profound, sententious rather than wise
With films like Taste of Cherry, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami has matched primal themes with self-conscious, self-reflective artifice to make some of the greatest movies of recent years.

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 31, 2011

Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

Ferris Bueller, sans the wit and charm
I don't know what the original wimp, Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon), in Jeff Kinney's novels is like, but in this second screen adaptation, he's less a nebbish than a self-interested conniver in the mold of Ferris Bueller, sans the wit and charm.

By: TOM MEEK | March 31, 2011

Review: Happythankyoumoreplease

Trivial hipster quandaries
Sam Wexler (Josh Radnor, who also wrote and directed) is an asshole.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | March 31, 2011

Review: Hop

Candy-colored, candy-pushing combo of animation and live action
This candy-colored, candy-pushing combo of animation and live action imagines an Easter Bunny who's a cross between Santa Claus and Willy Wonka and an Easter with no mention of the Passion of the You Know Who.

By: BETSY SHERMAN | March 31, 2011

Review: Insidious

Campy haunted-house knockoff
When young Dalton (Ty Simpkins) mysteriously falls into a coma, a doctor tells his parents Renai (Rose Byrne) and Josh (Patrick Wilson) that he's "never seen anything like it."

By: PETER KEOUGH | March 31, 2011

Review: Sucker Punch

Loud, sexy, and inane
The director of 300 and Watchmen has plenty of visual panache, but when it comes to storytelling, he's a bombastic hack.

By: TOM MEEK | March 31, 2011

Review: Super

Tailor-made-for-the-midnight-circuit curio
If, unlike me, you wish there had been more to the brief exchanges between Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page in Juno , then the dark new comedy from James Gunn ( Slither ) might be for you.

By: BRETT MICHEL | March 31, 2011

Review: I Am

The "new" Shadyac is still a Hollywood hack
Tom Shadyac found a perfect nest for his low-watt-lightbulb sensibility in today's Hollywood, where he helmed a series of blockbuster comedies that ranged in quality from the passably silly ( Ace Ventura: Pet Detective ) to the unforgivably execrable ( Patch Adams ).

By: GERALD PEARY | March 31, 2011