Category: Movies

In theaters.

Against my better judgment, I’m rather fond of Will Ferrell and his absurdist humor. His unwinking deadpan delights me, and I can’t help but appreciate how unreservedly he throws himself into his roles — no shame, no apparent self-consciousness, total commitment to whatever silliness or stupidity he’s perpetrating on his amiable audience. And much of it is silliness and stupidity, of course. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is no exception.

In theaters.

There comes a point in The Illusionist when you can easily guess (if you’ve seen enough movies) that from that point onward, nothing will truly be as it is presented — until, of course, the climax, when the movie helpfully reminds you of the turning point and pulls back the curtain to show you what was really happened.

Despite the utter predictability of the “surprise” ending, however, The Illusionist still manages to entertain. Sepia-toned and gently paced, the movie has a charming, fairy tale quality about it. Tales of young star-crossed lovers often do.

In theaters.

“What if your conscience conflicts with your faith?” The agony in the Hindu woman’s voice as she poses that question to her guru is heartbreaking, and for anyone who takes his or her faith seriously enough to wrestle with it, her pain is immediately recognizable. Water might be about people in very specific circumstances — Hindu widows exiled to a crumbling home in 1930s India — but the question at its heart is universal. Writer-director Deepa Mehta’s film is lyrical and beautifully shot, but the universality of its theme and the quiet profundity of Mehta’s examination of it make Water much more than a pretty picture postcard. Unsettling and powerful, Water lingers in the mind long after the screen goes dark.

In theaters.

Seven-year-old Olive Hoover is the only person in her small extended family with any joie de vivre. You could conclude, cynically, that life simply hasn’t had a chance to beat her down the way it has her harried mother, desperate father, seething brother, suicidal uncle and combative grandfather, but that kind of darkness is exactly what Little Miss Sunshine gently pushes away. One only has to take a look at sweet little Olive’s name to figure out what she represents.

Yet despite the fact that the heroine’s name is an exhortation and the moral of the story comes via Proust (really), Little Miss Sunshine is sweetly understated, never preachy or saccharine. The cast is simply too talented to let the movie become cloying.

In theaters.

The sequel was never going to be as much fun as the original. The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie succeeded because its charm was so unexpected: the wildly goofy story, the boisterous score and, of course, Johnny Depp's wonderfully weird performance, sneaking a cult-movie sensibility into a studio extravaganza. The sheer surprise of finding that much giddy joy in what appeared to be a by-the-numbers action movie made Pirates of the Caribbean charming.

How could the sequel hope to duplicate that, to again surprise us when the memory of the first surprise is what brought us to the theater in the first place? The makers of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest attempt to compensate for the lack of surprise by offering more — more pirates, more Depp, more action, more supernatural silliness — but their eagerness to please strains the movie's appeal. Subplots for every character weigh the story down. The set pieces feel contrived rather than organic, with director Gore Verbinski virtually shrieking, "Look at this! Isn't this cool?" Even some of Depp's loopy behavior feels like pandering now that his Captain Jack Sparrow is no longer a risk, no longer original.

In theaters.

Society is forever presenting women with false choices. You can be a good mother, or you can have a rewarding career.  You can be self-sufficient, or you can have a happy marriage. You can be a prim virgin, or you can be a self-loathing slut. But never both and never anything in between. The choice is either A or B.

The Devil Wears Prada cheerfully sets up its own false dichotomy: A woman can be ambitious, or she can be a good person. And this, too, is misogynistic crap. It doesn't matter that a woman wrote the smug, self-righteous novel on which the movie is based. Underneath the pretty clothes and tidy conclusions, The Devil Wears Prada is simplistic and insulting.

In theaters.

I’m no expert, but I can’t think of anyone in the comics pantheon who is more of a Christ figure than Superman, sent to Earth by his wise, noble father to save humanity. Superman Returns certainly doesn’t shy away from religious allusions. Two characters explicitly describe the Kryptonian knight as a savior and argue over whether the world needs such a champion. The confrontation between Superman and Lex Luthor — wielding a dagger of kryptonite, thus rendering the hero powerless — reads like the road to Golgotha: Earth’s savior is viciously beaten and taunted and left to die on a desolate landscape, the sky cracked by lightening. And at the film’s climax, Superman falls to earth with his arms spread wide like a man on a cross, though we know, of course, that he will rise again. Superman Returns is an action movie by way of The Passion of the Christ with a splash of The Da Vinci Code thrown in to muddy the waters.

In theaters.

I don't do crossword puzzles, and I've felt ashamed about that for years. As a word nerd with obsessive-compulsive tendencies and a brain full of trivia, I might have the personality for it, but crossword puzzles were always my mother's domain. A crossword puzzle fiend, the acknowledged master of all word games in my extended family, she was simply too intimidating an act to follow.

The documentary Wordplay, however, is so infectiously enthusiastic about crossword puzzles, its subject, that it made me want to get over my filial angst, pick up a pen and start filling in boxes. After all, I did beat Mom once in Scrabble — what a glorious day that was! — and as I haven't lived with my parents for years, I wouldn't have to fight her for the daily newspaper.

In theaters.

Everything I read about Army of Shadows said the movie is about the French Resistance, but it’s not, not really. The protagonists of the 1969 film, released for the first time in the United States this year, could be resisting virtually any repressive regime. The movie doesn’t concern itself with why these people are resisting their occupiers, how they’re doing so, or why few of their countrymen are supporting them. It doesn’t provide much in the way of back story either; we don’t know much about these people outside of their secret lives as part of the Resistance.

Army of Shadows focuses almost solely on the toll of plotting in secret and fighting in the shadows. It is about courage and loyalty and mortality. The close-ups of battered, bloodied faces keep it from becoming metaphoric — such graphic depictions of torture make the reality of physical danger inescapable — but Army of Shadows is still an extraordinarily introspective film, not a traditional war movie or a thriller by any stretch.

In theaters.

I’m not sure how to write about An Inconvenient Truth without descending into a stormy, tearful rant, but I’m going to try not to do that. First, I don’t like the cynical, bitter, occasionally paranoid side of my personality that I’ve developed over the past six years. Second, I think such a response does a disservice to the movie and its subject, Al Gore. Yes, the documentary about Gore’s effort to educate people about the danger of global warning has moments of quiet anger, but it is no diatribe. In fact, one of the most inspiring aspects of the movie is that Gore — after winning the popular vote but losing the presidency to an unprecedented, party-line Supreme Court ruling — refused to become cynical, bitter, and occasionally paranoid; he decided to do something.