Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

Reviews

Civic Duty

Stylishly silly stuff

By PETER KEOUGH | May 2, 2007

2.5 Stars

RUSSAIN ROULETTE: Not every scene is loaded.

Falling Down takes a post-9/11 turn in this psychological thriller from Canadian filmmaker Jeff Renfroe that starts out tense and stylish and ends up silly and self-betraying. At first glance, it seems Terry (Peter Krause) might be a fanatic; his eyes are dead, his expression is set. Turns out he’s just lost his job as an accountant. The timing couldn’t be worse; he and his wife had been hoping to buy a house. So like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, Terry idles in the apartment alone, sending out résumés, watching TV (saturated with fear-inducing news of the terrorist threat), and taking an increasing interest in the young “Middle Eastern guy” (Khaled Abol Naga) who’s moved into a basement unit in his building and is acting suspiciously. Is Terry projecting his own frustrations onto a scapegoat? Or could it be that even paranoids have enemies? Renfroe tries to please every point of view, and he does so at the expense of those who just want a satisfying flick.

Related: Haven, Legend of the last, The Messengers, More

Haven
Orlando Bloom executive-produced this crime thriller set in the Grand Caymans back in 2004; it got a look at the Toronto Film Festival that year and has been sitting on the shelf ever since — with good reason. Watch the trailer for Haven (QuickTime)
Legend of the last
They all start the same way.
The Messengers
Twin directors Danny Pang and Oxide Pang Chun explored the supernatural downside of cornea transplants in The Eye ; in their first non–Hong Kong horror movie, they unearth ghosts of the Northern Plains with stylish but unfrightening results. Watch the trailer for The Messengers (QuickTime)
After the fall
The evil is boiled down in the revival of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and that makes for a stew far tastier than Mrs. Lovett’s human-hamburger pies.
Last man standing
In his 1954 novel I Am Legend , Richard Matheson conjured up a terrifying scenario: a man-made plague has killed most of humanity.
Sound bites
In space, so the tag line for Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi thriller Alien goes, nobody can hear you scream.
Review: District 9
You have never seen anything like District 9 — or so went the early buzz for Neill Blomkamp's feature-length directorial debut. The concept is the stuff nerdgasms are made of: a vérité sci-fi thriller set in an alternate-reality South Africa where 2.5 million Cthulhu-faced bug aliens crash-land into human society and a zillion boffo explosions ensue.
Close shave
If it weren’t for his beloved turn as Jack Sparrow in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Johnny Depp would best be known as the cinematic alter ego of Tim Burton.
Hindsight
“I’m not much on rear-window ethics,” quips Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 masterpiece.
Swamp gas
Shrek has metastasized into a symptom of and metaphor for the entertainment industry and modern culture in general.
Paris je t'aime
The concept for this anthology was a short film representing each of Paris’s 20 arrondissements, from the Jardins des Tuileries (#1) to the Cimitière du Père Lachaise (#20).
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[ 02/16 ] 3rd Annual Boston Chili Cup @ Ned Devine's

[ 02/16 ] Boston Conservatory Dance Division @ Boston Conservatory Theater

[ 02/16 ] Jim Gaffigan @ Wilbur Theatre

ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH

REVIEW: CORIOLANUS | February 16, 2012
In a line of fascist-style stagings of the Bard from Orson Welles's 1937 black-shirted Julius Caesar to Richard Loncraine's brown-shirted Richard III (1998), Ralph Fiennes sets his lean and hungry take on Shakespeare's tragedy in a mo dern-day war zone, paring the play to a brisk two hours.

REVIEW: SAFE HOUSE | February 15, 2012
Daniel Espinosa's over-edited but engaging spy thriller delves into edgy territory untouched by any of the numerous movies it imitates: it has Brendan Gleeson do an American accent.

REVIEW: THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY | February 15, 2012
The most touching love story and best children's movie in a long time, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's adaptation of Mary Norton's book The Borrowers employs old-fashioned animation techniques to create a world that is familiar, uncanny, and luminous.

REVIEW: RAMPART | February 15, 2012
The rotten cop flick has become a mini-genre of sorts, a subset of noir, going back at least to Orson Welles's Touch of Evil .

REVIEW: THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012: DOCUMENTARY | February 10, 2012
The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.

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