Remember when your high school teacher would wheel out a 16mm projector and proceed to put the class to sleep with hopelessly unengaging educational films? That at least offered students a vacation from science class, which is more than can be said for the fate of audiences attending Christopher Nolan’s …
Sincere story of answered prayers, mostly those of one Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), an ex-con who tastes mercy and tries to break free from his criminal past (he stole a loaf of bread). But the reformed man is pursued by Javert (Russell Crowe), a lawman who does not believe reform …
Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal play two attractive people who enjoy having sex. But it turns out that while both are nice to look at, neither is particularly appealing. She’s sick and getting sicker, coping with the pain by diagnosing everyone else. He’s an aspiration-addled jerk who’s never said “I …
Worth seeing if for nothing more than the opening credits, unspooled in front of a Victorian toy theater of the type that Stevenson memorialized in his essay, "A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured." Each of the principal players is represented by a look-alike paper cutout, and the behind-the-scenes collaborators are …
Fairy-tale success story: from little nobody to big somebody, minus any desire or effort, more like a lottery prize. More exactly like an unexpected inheritance: the throne of Genovia (pear capital of Europe), by subterranean bloodline. What a surprise for a frizzy-haired, four-eyed, fifteen-year-old San Franciscan misfit! The transformation of …
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 sort of Rainbow Coalition wedding weekend: the father of the Jewish bride had remarried a black, the bride too is marrying a black (it might be noted that Sidney Lumet, the father of first-time scriptwriter Jenny Lumet, had remarried a black himself), and the theme of the wedding is …
Anne Hathaway joins Will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, and Tracy Morgan in an animated film about Brazilians and their birds. The result is a little bland and a little hip-hop. (George Lopez provides a soupçon of Latino flavor as a toucan with 17 kids.) Jesse Eisenberg, however, makes perfect sense as a …
Composer Steven Lauddem is creatively blocked and unable to finish the score for his big comeback opera. At the behest of his wife, Patricia, formerly his therapist, he sets out in search of inspiration and finds much more than he bargained for. Directed by Rebecca Miller, starring Anne Hathaway, Marisa …
Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Shirley MacLaine, Emma Roberts, Julia Roberts, Taylor Swift. —There. That’s about all that need be said, and the ads already …
Please excuse the disadvantaged viewpoint, but having never read Roald Dahl’s source novel nor seen Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 big screen adaptation, it’s difficult to determine how much of the dark appeal of Robert Zemeckis’ remake can be attributed to the filmmaker. The setting’s been modified from England to Alabama at …