Plump computer cartoon about a tubby panda (voice of Jack Black, tubby typecasting), an envious aficionado of the martial arts, dissatisfied with his lowborn “place” in the family noodle business. Wanting nothing more than to witness the anointment of the new Dragon Warrior, inheritor of the Secret of Limitless Power, …
More animated martial arts and loveable Chinese-bear antics in Jennifer Yuh’s sequel. Voices by Jack Black, Gary Oldman, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Well, it worked for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. To finish out its trilogy about a pudgy, Type-B panda (Jack Black) with a battle-ready, Type-A destiny, Dreamworks adds a long-absent father (Bryan Cranston) and amps up Part 1’s storyline. In Indiana Jones, the Ark of the Covenant got replaced …
Well, it worked for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. To finish out its trilogy about a pudgy, Type-B panda (Jack Black) with a battle-ready, Type-A destiny, Dreamworks adds a long-absent father (Bryan Cranston) and amps up Part 1’s storyline. In Indiana Jones, the Ark of the Covenant got replaced …
After three death-defying adventures defeating world-class villains with his unmatched courage and mad martial arts skills, Po, the Dragon Warrior (Golden Globe nominee Jack Black), is called upon by destiny to … give it a rest already. More specifically, he’s tapped to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of …
After three death-defying adventures defeating world-class villains with his unmatched courage and mad martial arts skills, Po, the Dragon Warrior (Golden Globe nominee Jack Black), is called upon by destiny to … give it a rest already. More specifically, he’s tapped to become the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of …
Noah Baumbach's somewhat disappointing follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, though maybe not so disappointing if proper heed had been taken of his slovenly visual style, the inexact camerawork, the mismatched shots, the gray, murky, dingy color. But still somewhat disappointing, in the central characterizations, for the sacrifice of …
What color is your sad, bleak underbelly? How about modest and moody, with an alt-folk soundtrack? Stephen Dorff, looking like Ewan MacGregor after a three-week drug binge, and Emile Hirsch, looking like Jack Black on an all-bourbon diet, play a couple of hard-luck brothers and self-avowed fuckups dealing with their …
With help from Princess Peach, Mario gets ready to square off against the all-powerful Bowser to stop his plans from conquering the world. Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, starring Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, and Jack Black as Bowser.
Any similarities between Jim Henson’s antron-fleece assemblage and hack-screenwriter Jason Segel’s fleece job are coincidental. Bright lights, brittle colors, forced cheer, and production numbers lifted from a Dr. Pepper commercial (and backed by a knitting-needles-through-your-ears score) combine for a fatal dose of nostalgia. In the past, at least we had …
Nothing if not esoteric: a backhanded salute to Mexican wrestling movies -- campy superhero adventures of masked luchadores with names like Santo and Blue Demon -- and, more broadly, the whole south-of-the-border wrestling subculture. Odd, offbeat, outlandish as it is, it makes a fitting, albeit unforeseeable, followup to Napoleon Dynamite …
Confused-teen-crazy-world comedy, fairly formulaic (a gallery of stereotypes, a splash of gross-out, a dab of sentiment, an instructive moral), notwithstanding the genuflections to Fine Literature. Agile comic turns by Jack Black, Catherine O'Hara, Lily Tomlin, and John Lithgow. But the romantic leads, Colin Hanks and Schuyler Fisk, bear so strong …
Strenuously lowbrow antics around the attempts of two postadolescent losers to rescue a third loser (and fellow member of a Neil Diamond tribute band) from domination by a ball-busting beauty. With Steve Zahn, Jack Black, Jason Biggs, Amanda Peet, and a cameo by Neil Diamond; directed by Dennis Dugan.
An imposter substitute teacher, and local laughingstock rocker, instructs a class of grade-schoolers in What He Knows: rock-and-roll, history and practice. The participation of director Richard Linklater (Slacker, etc.) and screenwriter Mike White (The Good Girl, etc. ) might raise expectations slightly, and similarly raise the results: head of the …