Satirical science fiction, alternative-universe subdivision: What would have happened had the South won the Civil War? (One thing: it would have become known as the War of Northern Aggression.) A viable idea, but throttled by ham-fisted humor, amateur acting, and a cheap and expedient mockumentary format, mixing archive footage, staged …
Juvenile monkeyshines, scrimpingly animated, monopolistically voiced by Will Ferrell as the primate's adopted human, and accompanied by a posy of insipid songs. Based on the books by Margret and H.A. Rey; directed by Matthew O'Callaghan.
The reunion of filmmaker Zhang Yimou with his one-time muse and leading lady, Gong Li, over ten years after their personal falling-out, post-Shanghai Triad, makes this film into a real "event," and the actress brings to it an inner fire to outglow even its molten-lava color scheme. In addition to …
In the mode of Scary Movie, a witless collection of references to, thefts from, and spoofs of, assorted romantic comedies, nonromantic comedies, noncomedies, anything at all, My Big Fat Greek Wedding to Lord of the Rings. The assumption seems to be that mere recognition will bring forth laughter. With Alyson …
The titular comedian hosts a hip-hop concert on a rainy September day in Brooklyn (Kanye West, Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, the Fugees), and beforehand rounds up extra partygoers in his stamping ground of Dayton, Ohio, including the entire marching band of Central State U., to be bused to …
Nonsensical retelling of the Dan Brown best-seller, premised on "the greatest cover-up in human history," namely the murderously guarded secret that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene married and multiplied. (The additional premise that the disclosure of the secret would have the immediate effect of liberating the oppressed worldwide and bringing …
Filmmaker Rachid Bouchareb, of Algerian descent, has a point to make about the debt of the French to the North African volunteers who, despite second-class treatment, helped liberate their "motherland" from Nazi occupation, a debt ignored at the time and still today. He makes the point frequently and clearly ("We're …
Writer and director Karen Moncrieff, of Blue Car, goes at the title figure -- not just dead, but brutally murdered -- by way of five separate storylines, one after another, some more tangential than others, all populated by horridly stunted humans. Structurally intriguing, but grindingly grim and condescending. With Toni …
The Christmas spirit turns competitive -- keeping ahead of the Joneses, straight across the street -- and the competition is laughlessly lopsided. With Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick, Kristin Davis, and Kristin Chenoweth; directed by John Whitesell.
Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet narrate this journey into the depths...of the sea.
Requires you to park your reason, along with your car, outside the theater. A ferry boat blows up in post-Katrina New Orleans, killing 543, mainly returning Navy men and their welcoming families; and the uncounted body of a young woman bearing residue from the explosion has been fished out of …
Documentarist Amy Berg puts a human face on the pedophiliac priest: the extremely creepy one of Father Oliver O'Grady (familiarly, "Father Ollie"), a serial abuser, of both sexes, in several parishes in Northern California in the Seventies and Eighties (youngest victim: nine months). His willingness to talk about the case, …
Martin Scorsese's career-changing turn to the overblown epic, a turn marked by Casino, would seem to be a course difficult to reverse. Kundun ... Gangs of New York ... The Aviator.... And now even a trashy light diversion, adapted from an average-length Hong Kong action film, will get dragged out …
Grueling and gruesome British-made horror film about six women friends (plenty for sacrifice), out for adventure, who enter an uncharted Appalachian cavern ("If there's no risk, what's the point?") and encounter a subterranean tribe of omnivores. Director Neil Marshall, straight-faced, businesslike, unpretentious, had a real movie going -- a movie …
Working-girl comedy in the vein of, oh, say, Working Girl, the eager, gifted, underemployed, and underpaid secretary ("A million girls would kill for that job") and the imperious, capricious, queen-bee boss. An ice queen, more descriptively, with snow-white hair, just a bit of sludge showing through at the neck, and …