One bad actor. Michael Keaton, giving a hard workout to his one-and-a-half expressions, is a dedicated narc who must provide a happy and stable home for his slain partner's three children while coming within a hair's-breadth of death every day on the job. Things get a little sticky when he …
Cop-partner comedy from Adam McKay, not to say cop-buddy, with Will Ferrell wobbly in tone as a contented desk jockey and Mark Wahlberg a steady straight man as a pent-up eager beaver. It evinces a deathly pale image, a fair amount of industry, and a few amusing ideas (a fight …
Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel falls compliantly in line with the post-Get Shorty view of the author as a fashion plate of the hip, the flip, the cool, the edgy. The result: a cops-and-robbers game that sacrifices logic and suspense for snigger and swagger. In the process, …
Yuppie paranoia about a sinister lodger who won't be dislodged from his apartment in a renovated Victorian mansion in San Francisco. Hammering and sawing noises, along with an army of cockroaches, emanate from within. What's he up to? A nice slow buildup; a not-so-nice, long-drawn-out windup. Michael Keaton, fresh from …
Director Ron Howard continues to toss and turn and sweat profusely in the grips of bestselleritis: one of those multi-character Arthur Hailey-type things, set this time in the exciting world of newspaper publishing (the fictitious New York Sun: "It Shines for All"), where every day brings a new deadline, a …
Thick-laid comedy with Alexis Bledel as an honors graduate of fictitious Creston U., who, unwelcomed in the job market, struggles to escape the embarrassments of her family (Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch, Carol Burnett). The viewer can sympathize, but he can also choose to escape sooner. With Zach Gilford, Rodrigo Santoro, …
A tough Detroit cop (Joel Kinnaman) gets blown to bits, and the best of those bits get stuck inside a heavily armed robot. Personal crises and ethical complications ensue, as do some remarkably intense (for a PG-13 film) gun battles. Director Jose Padilha (Elite Squad: The Enemy Within) brings his …
Rabid underdoggism on a tight leash. Plucky little second-division Kilnockie makes a run at the Scottish Cup through a gauntlet of Goliaths. (Real-life soccer star Ally McCoist, in his confident acting debut, leads the way.) Bright clean color from veteran cameraman Alex Thomson; irrepressibly prancing Celtic background music from Mark …
Michael Keaton and Geena Davis as a couple of insomniac speechwriters for opposite political parties, who meet-cute over the last Nytol bottle in the hotel gift shop, and who carry on ever more cutely from there. We are told that they are not modelled on real-life sweethearts James Carville (Clinton …
Takes its name from a team of investigative journalists at The Boston Globe, and provides a touching ode to the old-fashioned notion that some things simply need reporting; never mind the effort, the expense, or the effect on circulation. Here, the thing in question is the awful failure of the …
Two-different-worlds romantic comedy: he's a Chicago hockey star nicknamed "The Hornet"; she's an unmarried Latina with a troublesome son. Some of the realities of ghetto life are acknowledged in passing, and Maria Conchita Alonso (of the sparkling dark eyes) fills in some emotional realities as well. These don't help with …
The second sequel adds little but minutes to the previous one, and for a computer-animated children’s film it adds quite a lot of those, somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and five. In specific, the new 3-D adds little (but four dollars of admission) to the prevailing depth of …
Serious-minded, studiously researched occult thriller on the topic of EVP, short for Electronic Voice Phenomena. Or in plain words, communication from the Other Side through household appliances and gadgets. Sitting in front of a bank of AV equipment, looking at snowy screens and listening to staticky speakers, does not make …