Formulaic computer cartoon rounds up a group of pop-acculturated, smart-mouth, bipedal farm animals who all look like kitsch knickknacks from a souvenir shop, a menagerie of cream pitchers, salt shakers, piggybanks, paperweights, and toothpick holders; rubber, plastic, ceramic; felt-covered, feathered, frosted. The focal figure is a bovine party animal who …
There are actually two Lebowskis, a big one and a little one, a multimillionaire philanthropist and a lazy, laid-back bowler, both christened Jeffrey; and when the latter — who prefers to be addressed as "the Dude" — is mistaken for the other by a pair of dim-bulb thugs, he is …
There are actually two Lebowskis, a big one and a little one, a multimillionaire philanthropist and a lazy, laid-back bowler, both christened Jeffrey; and when the latter — who prefers to be addressed as "the Dude" — is mistaken for the other by a pair of dim-bulb thugs, he is …
Topical, pot-stirring political melodrama in the vein of Advise and Consent. In fact it tells the same story (pruned of subplots and subordinate characters), with the slight difference that whereas that one was about the midterm nomination of a new Secretary of State, this one is about the nomination of …
Did you hear about Did You Hear about the Morgans?? Well, it’s not as bad as you may have heard. The premise of a splitsville Manhattan couple whisked away together to wild, wild Wyoming in the witness protection program is no worse than that of many a screwball comedy of …
If Eddie Murphy could get away with playing a cop, maybe Whoopi Goldberg could get away with it too. A big if, and a definite maybe-not. She wears funny clothes, makes funny cracks (or would-be funny: "You know, guys like you are the reason abortion's legal"), punches people in the …
Unstirring epic fantasy, set in a parallel universe where people's souls walk beside them in the form of talking animals, called "daemons." In addition, there's a whole glossary of made-up proper nouns, an obligatory oppressive, thought-policing Ruling Power, and a young girl singled out by destiny to be the Savior, …
Three years after Brave, Pixar gets around to making a film that’s actually about bravery, aka the right response to fear. The setup: dinosaurs never went extinct; instead, they turned into people. That is, they became farmers who keep chickens and store up crops, and also cowboys who guard their …
A modern dress mutation of High Noon with a pro-life message substituting for the “real time” western’s obvious allegory against blacklisting. Instead of a cowardly Marshal soliciting the aid of local townsfolk (including his girlfriend!), storming granny Lily Tomlin races against the clock, going hat-in-hand to various guest stars (including …
Undeniably a cowboy movie, though not exactly a Western, set as it is in New Mexico circa World War II. At many points it may look and feel like a Western, with fine nostalgic images of men on horseback, occasional (possibly too frequent) splashes of calendar-art Southwest landscape, an idiomatic …
The death of one animal (a faithful dog) and the arrival of another (an invading rat amid the tasteful, immaculate environs of a California bungalow) signal a change in the life of composed, content (complacent?) Chardonnay connoisseur Carol (a luminous yet thoroughly terrestrial Blythe Danner). First there's a new pool …
Hokey supernatural thriller set in the English countryside in a traditional Old Dark House, complete with spooky housekeeper and battalion of cats. Sam Elliott is incongruously entertaining as a California tourist with a handsome suntan, a Mark Spitz mustache, and a fondness for expressions like "No deal" and "Take it …
At thirty-two, the lifelong lifeguard faces the question, indelicately phrased by his father, "When will you ever grow up?" The crisis comes in concert with his embarrassing fifteen-year high-school reunion and a prosperous old pal's tantalizing offer of a job in a Porsche dealership. The movie arrives, by and by, …