Robert Wilonsky

A fun and loving biopic

Buried somewhere in here, about 6 feet deep, is an intriguing premise.

The star's the thing, the only thing, and he's brilliant at playing a thinly veiled version of himself.

A trifle at best, a lightweight, wink-wink amalgam of myriad other films, some of which have even starred Chan and Wilson.

A remarkable movie, because, like "Crumb" or even "American Splendor," it adores the very people most of us might ignore if they passed us on the street. It's a love letter to someone who desperately needs one, even 10 years after his death.

The Guys is less a tearing open of old wounds than a balm to be applied over them. It doesn't wallow. It doesn't weep.

After trying to prove himself a serious actor in deadly dull movies, Ledger lightens up and brightens up a movie that attempts the trick of bringing a new spin to an old story but can't pull off the stunt.

Gaghan's a filmmaker for the gamer who doesn't need to have the plot follow a neat, linear path. Besides, you don't need to know precisely what's going on; no one else in the film does either. Which is Gaghan's point.

If there's a flaw with the film, it's that Justman doesn't trust his narrators enough; too often he'll stage a re-enactment while someone's talking, as if he's afraid the mere tales themselves won't hold our interest. But they will, as long as there's a kid slapping a bass, a sampler swiping a groove or some middle-aged couple slow dancing to Marvin Gaye or the Miracles.

One expects more from writer-director Wes Anderson (and his co-scribbler, Owen Wilson) than such frivolous fun that bears no lingering effect.

Just as you feel the numbing, clammy clench of paranoia on your neck, you realize, nope, the grip is just the director's attempt at tickling you to death. Demme's movie had no right to work. It does, and then some.

Engaging and revelatory, turning forgotten footnotes and discarded minutiae into the stuff of riveting drama and poignant laughs.

It's too easy, but here goes: This movie's a Loser. Sorry.

This Shrek is both funnier and warmer than its predecessor; it's better-looking, too, no longer as clunky and junky as video-game graphics.

It's the most uplifting movie of a numbing year -- a feel-good film full of songs about feeling god-awful.

It's either the world's greatest infomercial for fame (and its omnipresent companion, notoriety) or the saddest eulogy of all.

Breezy and easy to swallow. Its maker, Steven Spielberg, hasn't had so much fun in two decades.

As frantic and frenzied as its source material.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of About a Boy is how substantial it plays -- as a feel-good film with weight, a knowing comedy with dramatic depth.

It's but a witty, engaging hodgepodge of archetypes and clichés; it retreads not only the TV show's story lines, but also those of every "Star Trek" and "Gunsmoke" episode. It needed the room of a big screen just to fit all of its influences into a single place.

What the books suggest, the movie reveals and revels in--the songs, in other words, those brilliant, backbreakingly fast anthems.

It's too turgid and redundant to have any real impact. As a thriller, it barely thrills; as a lecture, it has nothing new to say.

It's vibrant and verdant and heartbreakingly inviting, begging you to escape into a lovely tale in which children, through a simple act of faith, find their own heaven on earth.

Little more than direct-to-vid nonsense offered by Disney at dollars on the penny to parents looking to waste time and money keeping kids occupied away from the TV screen.

Were it not for the involvement of producer Bruckheimer, who has made billions by conning millions into believing they can't live without his celluloid crack, it's doubtful Kangaroo Jack would even exist. As it stands now, the "movie" barely exists anyway.

My Kid Could Paint That's about art—and it IS art, among the best documentaries ever made about that elusive process of manufacturing something out of nothing. But it's also a must-see for every single parent who believes their children are special, when all they want to be is your children.

Rodriguez clearly assumes Sin City to be his "Pulp Fiction," his rambling portmanteau--a blending of disparate tales to form a complete, overwhelming epic.

That he (Hetfield), and his band, still lives is astonishing enough; that you get to see how and why in a movie so painfully intimate is nothing short of extraordinary.