Consider this the biggest ornithological misappropriation since Little Richard accused Walt Disney of using, “his Donald Duck singing my ‘Tutti Frutti’… yet I never received a quarter.” It’s March of the Penguins with Ed Helms’ anthropomorphic asides substituting for Morgan Freeman’s “voice of God” narration. I’m all for Disney trying …
The first voice you hear is that of Werner Herzog. The pre-credit dismembering of March of the Penguins is enough to make one believe that Dreamworks may have finally produced a product to rival Pixar. (Either that, or Herzog wrote his own dialogue.) But it’s all downhill once the credits …
According to the terms of his estranged father’s will, Chris Pine must deliver $150,000 in a shaving kit to Elizabeth Banks, the 30-year-old sister he didn’t know existed. Initially reluctant to hand over the cash to Dad’s hippie love child, Pine manages to become a major part of his sister’s …
One year after catching his wife doing a fat guy at their twin daughters’ birthday party, a comic book artist/teacher (Jemaine Clement) vacillates between reuniting with his now-engaged ex (Stephanie Allynne) and dating the mother of one of his students (Regina Hall, far outclassing the pack). The kids are cute, …
After witnessing her husband and daughter succumb to a spray of Mexican gangsters’ bullets, Riley North (Garner) not only annihilates the trio of thugs directly responsible for the slaughter, she personally exterminates every scumbag on L.A.’s skid row — and takes down a few audience members in the process. The …
Sanaa Lathan is forced to enlist the services of ex-boyfriend Morris Chestnut when current beau — dreamy blue-eyed soul brother Michael Ealy — begins to exhibit unexpected signs of psychotic behavior. Cat lovers and Remington (firearms, not electric shavers) shareholders are the only ones likely to find redemption in this …
A chef (Ewan McGregor) and an epidemiologist (Eva Green) fall in love while the world around them gives way to a sensory-depriving epidemic. Be it zombies or infectious plagues, an assault on the immune system has long been a staple of horror and melodrama. Not since Todd Haynes’s Safe has …
At the outset of the war, before word of Hitler’s genocide had spread, Hollywood cast Nazis as dummkopfs, vincible comic relief marching in goose step. In the spirit of Nazis past comes Commandant Klaus Koch (Lars Eidinger), an egomaniacal martinet whose dream is to move to Tehran after the American …
By day, Maureen (Kristen Stewart) haunts the premium racks looking to outfit her vainglorious celebrity boss Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten). By night, she’s a paranormalist eager to connect with her dead brother’s spirit. (The two made a Houdini pact in which the first to die swore to contact the other.) …
It’s rare that I bail in mid-movie — Instant Family was my last walk out. This year, Marks met his Peterloo. The exquisite natural lighting and period decor (think Barry Lyndon only boring) weren’t enough. You’ll need Cliff’s Notes, surveyor's instruments, and a pound of crystal meth to get through …
An affectionate note of Tex Avery mayhem opens the story — in an instant, a bucolic chorus of Disney-esque birds in flight is rendered utterly oofty-magoofty — and for the next 90 minutes, I looked on in amazement as the studio that regularly begot cartoon child abuse in the form …
Gone is co-screenwriter Rob Lieber (Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) and in his is place freshman scribe Patrick Burleigh. Lieber brought a sense of uncontrollable mayhem to Beatrix Potter’s bucolic landscapes and the mixture of live action and CG animation had reached such a level …
A little girl walks down a hospital corridor, stopping in every room to exchange brief goodbyes with the patients. Her grandmother passed and Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) is accompanying her parents to help gather her belongings and clean out the family home. That night, Nelly’s mother (Nina Meurisse) puts her daughter …
A techno-terrorist with a Picasso stew of a face demands $1 billion lest a computer virus of his own design blanket the Eastern seaboard. Enter a hospitalized cop who deputizes the disembodied aura of a young cancer patient, a supernatural superhero of sorts who helps infirmed spirits reclaim their bodies. …
Maurice Flitcroft (Mark Rylance) was the Ed Wood of drivers, Forrest Gump a few bucks shy of the green fees, known in media circles as the worst golfer in the history of the sport. (His answer to “What’s your handicap?” is “I’m not sick.”) Without once having played a round, …