Screen
‘X-Men’ meets ‘90210’
Imagine the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210 being dropped into Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters from the X-Men movies and you’ll have a sense of the uneven pastiche that is I Am Number Four...
Nostalgic puppets to the rescue
A frisky new film showcasing some old pals made out of felt, charm and some kind of genius, the Disney release The Muppets overcomes a jaded streak reflecting its makers’ nervousness about selling Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and the gang to an audience ...
Comedy, with flashes of Hughes
The ghost of John Hughes smiles upon Easy A, a film that freely and giddily borrows from and pays tribute to Hughes’ famous Holy Trinity of ’80s teen angst comedies...
Only kinda good, fellas
Nothing brings back memories of Sean Penn’s history as a serial domestic abuser like watching him revel in a man being drawn-and-quartered by automobiles. What a weird choice to take a cheesy, scene-chewing, 1940s mob-boss role at this point in his career. Cross-...
High-octane hit
Faster is a throwback to the action films of the 1970s, from the production color schemes to the film stock and camera angles utilized by cinematographer Michael Grady. If you’re not familiar with classics like Shaft, The French Connection, Dirty Harry, Enter the ...
Slop disguised as fun
In its own sweetly bombastic way, the 2008 remake of Journey to the Center of the Earth did the job, the job being a 21st-century 3-D bash starring Brendan Fraser — an actor who gives his all to the green screen, every time — and loosely based on the 19th-century ...
Meta-references are not always good
In the first few minutes of Scream 4, the teenage girls home by themselves on a dark night are watching a DVD and discussing the merits and demerits of the Saw franchise, which one of the girls refers to as “torture porn,” and then brrrrrrrrrrrrp brrrrrrrrrrrrp goes ...
The hidden sounds of Alabama
The section of the Tennessee River that forms the northern border of Muscle Shoals, Ala., didn’t always go by that name. Early Native Americans called it “The Singing River” and believed a river princess sang its soft melody...
Losers, yet fun
Is there something written that good, enjoyable films have to make sense, be internally consistent and not have dumb continuity gaffes? I hope not, because that perfectly describes my reaction to The Losers, yet another Hollywood film based on a graphic novel. This...
When the system fails
The first 15 minutes of Kirby Dick’s new documentary, The Invisible War, contain a staggering opening salvo...
‘Panda’ not going extinct any time soon
It takes somewhat longer for the awesomeness to turn all that awesome. And you can’t really replicate that element of surprise that the first movie had going for it: a fan boy panda that gets to team up with his martial arts heroes...
