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A Four Letter Word(1)

Truth in stereotypes?
At a certain point in its history, a movie genre achieves self-reflection, pondering the validity of its conventions before it sets forth toward self-parody.

By: PETER KEOUGH | May 14, 2008

The Dhamma Brothers

Meditation rehabilitating prisoners
Since the US has more people in prison than any other country, shouldn’t we be working on an effective method of rehabilitation?

By: PETER KEOUGH | May 14, 2008

Before the Rains

Competent, intelligent, unadventurous
The narrative tumbles at the self-conscious, obviously constructed rainy ending.

By: GERALD PEARY | May 14, 2008

Duplicate Prince

Caspian walks the lion
“Things never happen the same way twice,” says the messianic lion Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) near the end of Prince Caspian .

By: PETER KEOUGH | May 14, 2008

Roman de gare

Don't be fooled into thinking this film has substance
Claude Lelouch is a fabulous fibber.

By: NICK McCARTHY | May 16, 2008

Son of Rambow

A pint-sized Be Kind Rewind
Funnier than anything in this vaguely dark comedy is the thought of Stallone sitting through it.

By: ROB NELSON | May 07, 2008

Redbelt

Pleasingly nuts
Not quite a neo-noir, still less a martial-arts movie, David Mamet’s taut, dank drama has a foot in each camp.

By: GRAHAM FULLER | May 07, 2008

Mister Lonely

Weird meets revelatory unsuccessfully
Harmony Korine aspires to the weird and revelatory but too often achieves the merely creepy.

By: PETER KEOUGH | May 07, 2008

Another faulty family film
When Andy and Larry Wachowski pitched The Matrix to producer Joel Silver, they showed him the seminal anime Ghost in the Shell , claiming their ambition was to re-create it in live action.

By: BRETT MICHEL | May 07, 2008

Made of Honor

Scottish-related gags and other dumb stuff
Paul Weiland’s Made of Honor is not your usual formulaic romantic comedy: it’s stupid, its leading man is unlikable, and its jokes are unfunny and sometimes cruel.

By: ELIZABETH FLOCK | May 07, 2008

Jellyfish

Israeli magic realism
The addition of this baby Botticelli will either charm or annoy you.

By: GERALD PEARY | May 07, 2008

Fugitive Places

An Aegean tear-jerker
Podeswa’s adaptation is so glossy and polished — the actors too good-looking, the cinematography too breathtaking, the stoic narration too majestic — that the menace of the Holocaust dissolves.

By: ADAM WINOGRAD | May 07, 2008

Iron Man

Robert Downey, Jr. saves the day
Though a Marvel Comics fan, I never thought much of Iron Man.

By: PETER KEOUGH | May 01, 2008

Bad seeds?

Errol Morris checks the apples, not the tree, in Standard Operating Procedure
For Errol Morris, film doesn’t show reality, it organizes it in an attempt at arriving at the truth.

By: PETER KEOUGH | April 30, 2008

Then She Found Me

Overplotted pregnancy flick
Helen Hunt bites off more than she can chomp on, choosing also to star in this her first try as a film director, a clumsy, overplotted rendition of Elinor Lipman’s 1990 novel.

By: GERALD PEARY | April 30, 2008

Irina Palm

Marianne Faithful dispenses handjobs in this unrealistic romance
In Sam Garbarski’s improbable British melodrama, chanteuse Marianne Faithfull plays a working-class granny who takes work in a Soho sex parlor in order to pay for a grandson’s expensive operation.

By: GERALD PEARY | April 30, 2008