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Indy's Still Kicking Butt in Crystal Skull

MOVIE REVIEW

May 18, 2008 6:52 PM CDT

Indy's Still Kicking Butt in Crystal Skull

Seeing Indiana Jones 'is like meeting an old friend,' LA Times says

(Newser) - Who you calling old? It may be 19 years since Indiana Jones last donned a fedora, but Harrison Ford amply kicks Russian butt in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Kenneth Turan writes in the Los Angeles Times. The flick, opening in the US on Thursday, premiered...

Waltz Explodes at Cannes

movie review

May 16, 2008 2:10 PM CDT

Waltz Explodes at Cannes

After lousy 'Blindness' opening, Bashir shakes up festival

(Newser) - Now that's more like it. After a typically lousy opening—allegorical disaster Blindness—the Cannes Film Festival shook things up yesterday with Waltz with Bashir, a ferocious animated documentary from Israel recounting the 1982 massacre at Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. It’s “stunning,” writes Manhola Dargis in...

Applause for Reprise

Movie review

May 16, 2008 11:54 AM CDT

Applause for Reprise

Critics celebrate double 'portrait of an artist'

(Newser) - Joachim Trier’s debut film, the honest and amusing dramedy Reprise, is wowing critics. The film, which tells the story of a pair of young aspiring writers, “opens like a portrait of the artist as a young man (times two) and, with stealth and wit, metamorphoses into something wide...

Narnia Still Casts a Spell

movie review

May 16, 2008 8:59 AM CDT

Narnia Still Casts a Spell

Return to fantasy kingdom is darker, crisper

(Newser) - The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian returns to the fantasyland 1,300 years after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and all is not well in the kingdom. The "darker, more conventional, and more crisply made" follow-up features "more clashing swords than all the Robin Hood movies...

Redbelt Gets a No-Decision

movie Review

May 9, 2008 5:44 PM CDT

Redbelt Gets a No-Decision

Reviews mixed for Mamet fight flick

(Newser) - Redbelt can’t quite score a knockout with critics. While many find much to admire in David Mamet’s fight movie, most also concede it’s a flawed affair, and some outright disliked it. In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis described it as “a satisfying, unexpectedly involving B-movie,...

Speed Racer Is a Slog

movie review

May 9, 2008 11:33 AM CDT

Speed Racer Is a Slog

Sparkling presentation doesn't make up for failed storyline

(Newser) - The Wachowski brothers’ Speed Racer is a flashy ride that would be great for kids—if it weren’t “like C-SPAN set in an arcade,” writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. Endless, aimless dialog, she says, dominates the “juvenile and hermetic” pastiche about a Grand...

This Vegas Is a Bad Bet

movie review

May 9, 2008 9:13 AM CDT

This Vegas Is a Bad Bet

Lightweight rom-com doesn't hit the jackpot

(Newser) - The new romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas probably should have stayed in Vegas, most critics think—or "in Hollywood, where such lamebrained ideas are hatched," writes Bill Goodykoontz in the Arizona Republic. Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher star as a couple who get hitched after a drunken...

Iron Man Solid Gold

movie review

May 1, 2008 5:30 PM CDT

Iron Man Solid Gold

Critics love Downey as avenger in superhero turn

(Newser) - Iron Man rockets into theaters tomorrow, and it’s so good it “practically dares the competition to measure up,” Peter Travers writes in Rolling Stone. Critics are nearly unanimous in praising the latest superhero flick, admiring its “raw vitality” and “pitch-perfect casting.” Robert Downey Jr....

Few Surprises in Deception

movie review

Apr 25, 2008 1:04 PM CDT

Few Surprises in Deception

Sex thriller a 'slow case of déjà vu'

(Newser) - Deception is a twist-filled thriller, but critics say the cloak of deceit will be paper-thin to anybody familiar with the genre. Ewan McGregor stars as a dull accountant whose life gets spicier after an attorney, played by Hugh Jackman, introduces him to a secret sex club. Soon after, the thriller...

Harold and Kumar Slacks Off

movie review

Apr 25, 2008 10:42 AM CDT

Harold and Kumar Slacks Off

Pacing poor, comedy wildly uneven

(Newser) - Sometimes it's hard not to laugh at the slacker/stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, writes James Berardinelli in ReelViews. At other times, it's hard not to cringe at the film, a sequel to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. That's because the humor in Escape, about...

Baby Mama No Bundle of Joy

movie review

Apr 25, 2008 7:50 AM CDT

Baby Mama No Bundle of Joy

Only quiet chuckles in conventional flick

(Newser) - Critics don't seem thrilled about the arrival of Baby Mama, which tells the story of an overachieving, infertile career woman (Tina Fey) who hires a rough-around-the-edges high school dropout (Amy Poehler) to bear her a child. The movie's not "laugh-out-loud funny," writes Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post....

Sarah Marshall Is Memorable

NEW RELEASE

Apr 18, 2008 9:40 AM CDT

Sarah Marshall Is Memorable

Apatow project racy, touching, hilarious

(Newser) - Forgetting Sarah Marshall is another raunchy romantic comedy from Judd Apatow's repertory company, with an important difference: star/screenwriter Jason Segel. His performance as a clueless spurned boyfriend is "awkward and embarrassing," yet "sweet" and "disarming," writes Scott Tobias of The Onion A.V. Club. Segel...

People Not Smart Enough

movie revew

Apr 11, 2008 1:45 PM CDT

People Not Smart Enough

Critics say indie romantic comedy needs an IQ test

(Newser) - Critics like the big-name actors in family serio-comedy Smart People —especially Dennis Quaid, who stars as a cranky professor with much to learn about people—but think they might have been smarter to choose a different script. Screenwriter Mark Jude Poirier "is aiming for Scrabulous dialogue but his...

Film Critics Fading
in Cyber-Culture

column

Apr 5, 2008 7:54 PM CDT

Film Critics Fading in Cyber-Culture

Fans surf web for trailers, ignore esteemed critics

(Newser) - Gone are the days when film critics swayed the culture and sparked serious debate, Anne Thompson laments in Variety. None of her college film students can name a critic besides Roger Ebert, though all are intense cinematic aficionados. Instead, most turn to review roundup sites, or “get their movie...

Nim's Island a Little Too Busy

movie review

Apr 4, 2008 2:34 PM CDT

Nim's Island a Little Too Busy

Adventure film with plucky young heroine one for the tweeners

(Newser) - The spectacular scenery in Nim's Island impressed the critics, as did the film's focus on the pluck and intelligence of its young heroine (Abigail Breslin). Multiple storylines, however —about Nim's life in a Pacific paradise, her lost-at-sea father, and her relationship with an agoraphobic writer (Jodie Foster)—end up...

No Juice in My Blueberry Nights

MOVIE REVIEW

Apr 4, 2008 11:01 AM CDT

No Juice in My Blueberry Nights

Film starring Norah Jones doomed by hackneyed script

(Newser) - As the lead in My Blueberry Nights, Grammy-winning jazz-pop chanteuse Norah Jones doesn't exactly dazzle. Her performance as a waitress, who ditches New York City for the open road after being ditched by her boyfriend, is "agreeable but bland," writes Todd McCarthy of Variety and "oddly behind...

Leatherheads Fumbles

MOVIE REVIEW

Apr 4, 2008 8:16 AM CDT

Leatherheads Fumbles

Film about early football never quite scores

(Newser) - Critics seem to want to like Leatherheads, a screwball comedy about pro football's early days, directed by and starring George Clooney. The Roaring '20s costumes, sets and music are terrific, notes Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter. Clooney, as an aging player/team owner, and his leading lady, Renée Zellweger,...

Ebert Ready to Review Again

Apr 1, 2008 9:07 PM CDT

Ebert Ready to Review Again

Critic gives thumbs up to imminent return

(Newser) - Roger Ebert—beset by a series of serious health ailments in recent years—will soon resume reviewing films, he wrote in a letter to Chicago Sun-Times readers. The critic was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002; since then he’s undergone several surgeries, including a tracheotomy that cost him his...

Is 21 Bad? Bet the Bank on It

movie review

Mar 28, 2008 9:57 AM CDT

Is 21 Bad? Bet the Bank on It

Take your money and run away from the theater

(Newser) - There’s a problem with 21, a movie based on a true story (and the book it inspired) about some MIT math nerds who set up an elaborate system to beat the house in Las Vegas. “None of the main stars is remotely convincing as a smart person,”...

Stop-Loss Earnest But Flawed

movie review

Mar 28, 2008 7:24 AM CDT

Stop-Loss Earnest But Flawed

Movie about Iraq war loses steam stateside

(Newser) - While some critics are calling Stop-Loss, Kimberly Peirce’s long-awaited Boys Don’t Cry follow-up, earnest and, at times, riveting, none of them seem to see it as the definitive Iraq war film. But the picture, about some GIs who’ve completed their tours of duty only to be told...