Search for 2006

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is a great title with a great premise for a not so great film. The comedy of Albert Brooks is delicate stuff - self-deprecating one-liners that need the perfect context to generate laughter. Films like Mothe...

Lucky Number Slevin is a fascinating case study of what might result if Quentin Tarantino directed a script written for Alfred Hitchcock. From a screenwriting perspective, this is pure suspense, with twists that would appeal to The Master, includi...

Talk about a movie with an identity problem! Man of the Year doesn't know what it wants to be and, because of this indecision calls to mind a well-worn phrase: "Jack of all trades, master of none." The film contains elements of a comedy, a thrille...

Three adjectives spring to mind when describing Marie Antoinette: odd, irritating, and tedious. (The last in that list could be replaced by "boring.") This is a movie that never gets to the point, perhaps because it doesn't recognize what the point...

The two best words to describe the 2006 motion picture Miami Vice are "stylish" and "intense." One of those descriptors without the other could lead one to suspect a pretentious bore or a pointless exercise in action but, by pairing them, writer/d...

Beatrix Potter may not be as well-known a name today as Harry Potter, but what child doesn't show recognition at the mention of "Peter Rabbit?" Miss Potter's most lasting contribution to the pantheon of characters from children's literature, Peter...

Mission: Impossible III provides lots of action, but too little excitement. It generates lots of pyrotechnics, but too little heat. And it offers lots of Tom Cruise, but too little Ethan Hunt. In short, if you're yearning for a flashy, leave-you...

Monster House is, to the best of my knowledge, the first animated haunted house movie, and quite possibly the first family film to recall, at various times, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Amityville Horror. (Parents, don't worry - th...

I once wrote that the only thing as necessary to a superhero movie as a nasty villain is a love interest. With My Super Ex-Girlfriend, director Ivan Reitman has shifted the focus away from the former and onto the latter. The twist here is that th...

When a movie tries to be intentionally campy, it follows a difficult road. Most films that attempt this fail because the artifice of the situation drains the humor from it. Genuine camp is the child of earnestness and ineptitude, and is only foun...