Princess Mia, now age twenty-one, must forfeit the throne, according to an obscure bit of Genovian fine print, if she isn't married within a month. A forced-march sequel, in a creative desert. With Anne Hathaway, Julie Andrews, Hector Elizondo, John Rhys-Davies, Chris Pine, and Heather Matarazzo; directed by Garry Marshall.
A Marvel Comics avenger little different from a Steven Seagal or Arnold Schwarzenegger avenger. In a long slow prologue, his entire family gets wiped out by a Tampa ganglord, thus justifying the lonely-boy broodiness so common and so congenial to the comic fan. He has no superpowers, though he has …
A career girl in the glamorous world of high fashion discovers what really matters in life when she inherits three children from her deceased sister, and meets a hunky Lutheran minister. (She's stunned to learn a Lutheran cleric can date.) True-to-form Garry Marshall comedy: starry-eyed (over Kate Hudson), saccharine, smarmy, …
Medieval detective yarn about an innovative troupe of travelling players, including an incognito fallen priest, who deviate from Bible stories and (pioneers of the modern docudrama) tackle a local serial-murder case: "We'll perform this afternoon, and use the morning to find out more of what happened." Excitable, not to say …
Suave and sophisticated Gallic thriller of the type that some sloppy-speaking critic can be counted on to label "Hitchcockian." Adapted from a novel by Georges Simenon, it recounts a nocturnal automobile outing -- a Parisian couple en route to join their children at summer camp in the Basque region -- …
Pedestrian surf film, pieced together of archival footage and present-day talking heads, in salute to the pioneers of wave-riding. ("It was George Downing who carved the mold from which all other big-wave riders were cast," etc. ) The earlier pioneers, pre-Gidget, are more credible as pioneers, and their photo documentation …
Four separate episodes united by the common theme of robotics, the second of which deals only with toy robots and is in no sense science fiction. (All are written and directed by Greg Pak -- a four-Pak, if you please -- and the filmmaker himself plays a robot in the …
Rough-hewn, disorderly documentary by Robb Moss, a sequel of sorts to his 1978 documentary Riverdogs, which chronicled a summer idyll of often nude white-water rafting on the Colorado River. Five members of that sizable expedition submit now to follow-up interviews, and to examination of the changes in their lives over …
Ingmar Bergman's sequel to Scenes from a Marriage, after an unprecedented interval of thirty years, emerges not just as a relative trifle, but also as a less than legitimate sequel. Constructed in ten distinct acts, or chapters, plus a prologue and epilogue (Scenes from a Divorce, if you please), it …
Teen comedy with a different slant: it takes place at American Eagle Christian High School, a breeding ground for born-agains, and the exclusive social clique calls itself the Christian Jewels, an all-girl "road band for Jesus," and the misfit rebel is a Jewish nicotine fiend. The movie, directed and co-written …
Short for Jigsaw, nickname of a serial killer who "technically" has killed no one, but rather has contrived elaborate traps to compel his victims to do the killing. Cheap, crude, ugly, hokey chiller which you're likely to be sorry you saw. With Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover, and Monica …
Short for Jigsaw, nickname of a serial killer who "technically" has killed no one, but rather has contrived elaborate traps to compel his victims to do the killing. Cheap, crude, ugly, hokey chiller which you're likely to be sorry you saw. With Cary Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover, and Monica …
The titular Schultze, no first name, gets more than the blues. He gets a muse. A retired German salt miner and an amateur polka accordionist, he stumbles upon a piece of errant zydeco on late-night radio, the answer to a question he never knew to ask. After a bad reception …
Factual story of a Spanish quadriplegic who, after twenty-some years of paralysis, took his fight to the courts for the right to die. Given its intrinsic limitations, the film is well directed (by Alejandro Amenábar), well photographed (by Javier Aguirresarobe, who collaborated with this director on The Others), and well …