Recent Reviews

I can't remember the last time a George Clooney movie arrived in the marketplace with less buzz than The American, a purported thriller about a hit man in the midst of an existential crisis. Filmed mostly in Italy -- with a European supporting cast -- the movie's title misleads: The American, couldn't be further from the Hollywood noise machine. It plays like a deliberately paced foreign film.

Before a recent preview screening of The Last Exorcism, a surprisingly taut new horror film, two representatives from a local paranormal society spoke about their experiences observing the fine art of banishing demons. Their take: Many exorcisms prove to be shams; at least one they knew of seemed distressingly real.

In Eat Pray Love, Liz Gilbert travels the world and patches up her baggage with an impressive collection of bumper sticker philosophy.

The skinny story doesn't have enough muscle to make The Expendables the mantastic masterpiece it should've been.

Scott Pilgrim is the latest incarnation of supernerd Michael Cera. At least this Scott Pilgrim is 22 -- not a teenager -- and he's not hopelessly geeky, in spite of his casting. He plays in a band that isn't very bad, and he acquires two (count 'em) girlfriends in the first few minutes of screen time. Still, with Cera in the lead, you know roughly what kind of movie this is going to be: a coming-of-age story for those at the bottom of the cool totem pole.

It seems the Chinese are just like everyone else. They have artists out on the edge of society, they have run-down factory buildings, and just like in the West, when you mix the two you get a hip urban district and art incubator. You also get the certainty that the arty part of town will become gentrified by an influx of galleries, bistros and the idle rich.

Take it with a grain of salt and Angelina Jolie's latest is a perfectly good popcorn thriller.

In Inception, a movie packed with ideas, it is said an idea is like a virus. With any luck, the big ideas that illuminate Inception will spread through Hollywood like a contagion and raise the game of others toward telling exceptional stories exceptionally well.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is formulaic and predictable, but it's also fun and endearing.

This story about a really nefarious, evil man has a whole lot of heart.

Even with its fanciful world of characters skilled at bending air, bending fire, bending earth, and bending water, The Last Airbender winds up breaking wind.

Knight and Day is the kind of high-energy, low-calorie confection that's hard to hate, but not easy to love.

Neil Jordan returns to the screen with a movie that flirts with being kid-friendly without being cloyingly sweet.