Screen
Not in the Zone
Matt Damon stars in Green Zone as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, who is increasingly frustrated by the pointless missions he’s sent on, finding empty warehouses where intel has pinpointed weapons of mass destruction. Leading the government conspiracy is Clark ...
Despite cast, ‘Nine’ is a bore
How can a movie starring six Academy Award-winning actors be such a bore...
Freebie fraught with failure
Up until their remake of The Heartbreak Kid, two of the unfunniest hours ever, Peter and Bobby Farrelly could be counted on to provide a few fine rude laughs even when their films wobbled...
Out with the old, please
Two years ago, with the world economy about to be credit-defaultswapped right in the kisser, the first Sex and the City feature made $415 million worldwide. Its pre-sold fan base, already nostalgic for Cosmopolitans, heaved a collective, economically envious sigh: ...
Mama, have mercy
Horror films are often peppered with moments in which you wish your protagonists were just a little more bright or had planned things out a little better — “Don’t go into that basement” and “Don’t open that door.” Even the beloved Shining leaves moments of, “Damn it...
Partly sunny
To steal from Mother Goose (don’t worry, she’s dead): When Cloud Atlas is good, it’s very, very good; when it’s bad, Hugo Weaving is doing a drag impression of Nurse Ratched. The ambition of writers/directors Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Twyker, working from David...
Reel to reel | Week of June 21, 2012
17 GIRLS Based on a 2008 headline-grabbing news story about an alleged pregnancy pact among 17 high school girls in the fishing town of Gloucester, Mass. — an act at once unexpected and incomprehensible to adults and boys in their world. At Denver FilmCenter/Colfax...
The burden of actual Christianity
Most praise for writer/director Jesse Moss’s documentary, The Overnighters, has rightly been focused on its Steinbeckian nature and explosive revelations about struggling workers in North Dakota. That wasn’t the big takeaway for me. The big takeaway for me was how ...
Reel to reel | Week of November 21, 2013
About Time A father explains to his son that all men in the family can time-travel. So the son goes back in time to find a girlfriend, which turns out to be harder than he thought. Rated R. At Century and Colony Square. AKA Doc Pomus Paralyzed with polio as a ...