Last Reviews
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) Movie Review
Give this much to Oliver Stone: His movies are never boring.
And, somewhere within the overstuffed blend of agitprop and melodrama that is “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” there lies a lean cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked capitalism – as if the reality of the actual Wall Street weren’t example enough.
But Stone is never content to just make one movie; he always makes several, then squeezes them all together into one engorged package, chockablock with… Read more
The American (2010)
George Clooney returns, setting aside the warm and witty persona that his fans love, and giving them instead one of his darkest and most unsympathetic characters: an ice-cold professional killer marooned in loneliness and fear. The director is Anton Corbijn – the former photographer who made his brilliant feature debut with Control, a biopic of Joy Division's frontman, Ian Curtis – working from a screenplay by Rowan Joffe. It is adapted from the 1991 novel A Very Private Gentleman by… Read more
The Switch (2010)
When I heard about The Switch, a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston as a Manhattan singleton who decides to get pregnant on her own, I confess that I had no desire to see it. I'd already been through Jennifer Lopez in The Back-Up Plan, and frankly, one screwball sperm-donor chick flick per year seemed more than enough. But The Switch is a pleasant surprise. It's a by-the-numbers movie, but the dots that get connected feel new. Aniston, playing a forward-thinking… Read more
Despicable Me (2010)
In the gadget-fond super-villain ’toon Despicable Me, he plays a meanie so mean that he’ll fashion balloon animals to console distraught children, only to pop them with a pin and walk off with maniacal satisfaction. What Carell brings to this cruel mastermind, actually the hero, is a mad Russian accent, lugubrious timing, and a general air of knowing exactly what he’s doing — one not wholly shared by the movie around him.
The picture is a first venture into 3D… Read more
Knight and Day (2010)
Early reports about Knight And Day, a film that’s been in development hell for ages, suggested another flop after Lions for Lambs and Valkyrie. Cruise’s enduring success — and the intensity with which he has clung to it — has always been the most fascinating thing about him: what’s left when the halo slips?
Knight and Day, directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) from a script by Patrick O’Neill, goes out of its way to avoid… Read more
