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There's a rule in Hollywood: spring is for baseball films; fall is for football films. It's a time-honored tradition that makes sense when one considers the seasonal popularity of the sports, but Leatherheads flouts it. This is a football-themed ...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-04-04
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Sexual Situations, Profanity, Violence)
Genre: COMEDY
Director: George Clooney
Cast: George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, Jonathan Pryce, ...
Let it Rain, a French film that has taken two years to reach North American theaters (a testimony to how poor the market is these days even for well-made, high-profile foreign fare), makes the case that simplicity in a motion picture can be a good ...
U.S. Release Date: 2010-07-02
MPAA Rating: "NR"
Genre: DRAMA/COMEDY
Director: Agnès Jaoui
Cast: Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jamel Debbouze, Agnès Jaoui, ...
Note: There are minor spoilers throughout and final paragraph contains a somewhat more substantive, but oblique, spoiler. The "danger area" for the latter is marked. As Let the Right One In opens in a suburb of Stockholm during the 1980s, 12-ye...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-11-14
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity, Nudity)
Genre: HORROR/DRAMA
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Cast: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson
The Life Before Her Eyes is an examination of survivor guilt. It uses as its backdrop a Columbine-like school shooting and flashes back and forth between a girl as she is at the time of the incident and the woman she will be fifteen years later. ...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-04-18
MPAA Rating: "R" (Profanity, Violence, Sexual Situations)
Genre: DRAMA
Director: Vadim Perelman
Cast: Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, Eva Amurri, ...
To some, Mike Myers is Wayne. To others, he is Austin Powers or the voice of Shrek. It's doubtful that he will be Guru Pitka to many. The Love Guru, Myers' latest film and his most recent live-action endeavor since The Cat in the Hat, is as unmem...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-06-20
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Sexual Situations, Profanity, Violence)
Genre: COMEDY
Director: Marco Schnabel
Cast: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, ...
If one was to apply loose definitions, The Lucky Ones could be considered a "war movie." In reality, however, this is less about how the characters react under fire than how they react when removed from it. The Lucky Ones is a road movie and, in ...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-09-26
MPAA Rating: "R" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Situations)
Genre: DRAMA
Director: Neil Burger
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins, Michael Peña
Mad Money is a comedy caper where the caper's not interesting and the comedy's not funny. Take away those elements and all that's left is a tepid female buddy movie and, like its male counterparts, we've had enough of those to choke a critic. It'...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-01-18
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Profanity, Sexual Situations)
Genre: COMEDY
Director: Callie Khouri
Cast: Diane Keaton, Queen Latifa, Katie Holmes, ...
One reason to lament the existence of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (which will hereafter be referred to merely as Madagascar 2) is too bemoan the considerable amount of talent that was tied up developing this uninspired sequel when it could have bee...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-11-07
MPAA Rating: "PG"
Genre: ANIMATED
Director: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath
Cast: (voices) Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, ...
Romantic comedies sell fantasy. Ultimately, that's their reason for being - to make even the most cynical heart crave true love. Some romantic comedies, this one included, fail because of an inability to convince the audience that the protagonists...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-05-02
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Sexual Situations, Profanity)
Genre: ROMANTIC COMEDY
Director: Paul Weiland
Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin McKidd, ...
Mamma Mia! delivers exactly what one can reasonably expect from it. It's a faithful adaptation of the stage play of the same name but, more importantly, it's a repository for ABBA songs - nearly two dozen in total. Considering that the average ru...
U.S. Release Date: 2008-07-18
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Sexual Situations)
Genre: MUSICAL
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Cast: Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, ...