Big-screen blowup of the culty Comedy Central series built around Amy Sedaris, looking uncannily like Tracey Ullman in one of her countless disguises, as a sexually ambiguous (or ambidextrous) ex-con ex-junkie who returns to high school in her late forties, afflicted with all the normal anxieties about "fitting in." A …
The first filmed screenplay of Zach Helm crowds in on the domain of Charlie Kaufman: a Pirandellian brainteaser about a robotic IRS auditor (Will Ferrell, constrained by catatonia) who discovers he is a character in the work-in-progress of a blocked novelist (Emma Thompson) and is slated to die at the …
A true sequel, despite the nineteen-year hiatus since the fourth and final appearance of Christopher Reeve in the part. (The new Superman and his new Clark Kent alter ego, the little-known Brandon Routh, not only bears a creepy physical resemblance to Reeve, but also patterns his performance on Reeve's so …
A breakthrough role for the wholesome beauty and noble forehead of Elizabeth Reaser, as a mail-order bride advertised as Norwegian but in fact German, persona non grata in rural Minnesota in the days following the Great War. After an eye-catching supporting part in Stay and a barely noticeable supporting part …
Inspirational pablum, "inspired," to begin with, "by a true story," that of Pierre Dulaine (played by that loverly Latin, Antonio Banderas), who volunteers to bring his courtly Old World manners and his ballroom dance steps into Detention Hall at a rough New York high school: Mad Hot Ballroom meets Blackboard …
Goro "Son of Hayao" MIyazaki's takes the world created by Ursula K. Le Guin and runs with it. Dragons!
Will Ferrell vehicle, on the NASCAR circuit, goes too far, too fast, too often, but the excesses are usually easygoing (the bratty brothers' response to the news of their parents' divorce: "Yeah! Two Christmases!"), and the nonstop product plugging is satirically motivated (i.e., dramatically justified), and John C. Reilly and …
Satire with teeth, discolored though they may be. There is nothing exceptional cinematically about the directing debut of Jason Reitman, son of the mainstream comedy director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Twins, Kindergarten Cop, and the like), but from the opening credits -- the witty cigarette-pack graphic motif, Tex Williams's C&W; oldie, …
Kirby Dick's video documentary on the inconsistencies, injustices, etc., of the anonymous and arbitrary MPAA ratings board. The blabbedy-blah of the talking heads -- filmmakers, critics, lawyers, scholars -- is intermittently alleviated by some Michael Moore-style mischief, whereby a lesbian private investigator attempts to ferret out the identities of the …
Kevin Reynolds, the director of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Waterworld, tries to rescue the legendary lovers from the clutches of Wagner and deliver them to the shopping mall. Deliver them, more exactly, to mushy, muddled action scenes, to dull, gray, lightless photography, to moonfaced, crêpe-flat closeups, to a …
Not a straight adaptation of the Laurence Sterne classic, but a sort of parabolic pass at one. The fact that the novel is widely acknowledged to be "unfilmable" (openly acknowledged to be that within the film itself) does not stop Michael Winterbottom from filming the attempt of a fictitious film …
Relationship comedy revolving around a quartet of enviable New Yorkers, a sister and brother (Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup) and their respective mates (David Duchovny, Maggie Gyllenhaal), all of whom are, or have been, engaged in fruitful creative pursuits: a celebrated actress of stage and screen, a couple of writers, and …
Ultraviolent vision of the future, where a more virulent strain of HIV (labelled HGV) has touched off the Blood Wars between humans and hemophages (a/k/a vampires). A live-action cartoon, or anyway partly live-action, built around Milla Jovovich as a martial-arts superheroine with a computer-airbrushed face. It gives a chill. Not …
Kate Beckinsale, back again in the blue-hued sequel as the black-leather vampiress and werewolf-slayer, demonstrates fidelity if not taste: the director, Len Wiseman, is her hubby. Fidelity in this case could indicate no taste as well. With Scott Speedman, Derek Jacobi, Steven Mackintosh, and Bill Nighy.