“NINE,” the film version of the Broadway interpretation of Fellini’s “8 ½,” has the elements of a perfect TEN, but receives an 8 ½ in the end. The film’s issues can be tied to both the recent writers’ strike and the death of original scribe, Anthony Minghella. For even though there are no quibbles about the production values, the performances, and the exquisite musical numbers, the film as a whole doesn’t gel, has slow stretches, and feels an hour longer than its actual running time. Jonas At The Movies Review >>
The test of a perfect Quentin Tarantino film is how many times you want to sit through it. I’ve seen “Pulp Fiction” eight times and the “Kill Bill” Chronicles at least six. His latest, “Inglourious Basterds,” has some moments of glory, but ultimately misses the mark due to overindulgence. For me, once is enough .Basterds
There’s something rewarding about a new discovery. Though Carey Mulligan has made a stir on British Television’s “Doctor Who”, “An Education” is a star-making role, and Mulligan is a revelation as the school girl who learns about love and loss in early 60s England.16-year-old Jenny (Mulligan) has one goal in life: to get into Oxford University. Jonas At The Movies Read The Review >>
“Colin Firth Shares his Pain”
Colin Firth gives a devastating portrayal in “A Single Man,” as a day in the life of a gay professor in the 1960s who chooses for it to be his last day. It’s a landmark performance, heart-tearing without being maudlin. Unfortunately, his writer/director, Tom Ford, has only style on his mind.
Jonas At The Movies Review >>
A surprisingly clever and beautifully animated film, “Disney’s ‘A Christmas Carol’” is a three-dimensional delight with detailed visuals and a performance by Jim Carrey that, shock of shocks, is subdued and layered.
“Up In The Air” has been getting much buzz and early awards. Complex and heartfelt, this winning comedy deserves all the accolades. George Clooney gives his most layered performance, and Jason Reitman proves once again to be an insightful director with an ability to deal with weighty issues in witty comedies.
“’Zombieland,’ An Uproarious One-Way Ticket to Hell”
Gonzo filmmaking at its best, “Zombieland” is a fast, loud and messy apocalyptic spoof of the subgenre George Romero invented with “Night Of the Living Dead.”. Jonas At The Movies Read The Review >>
Drew Barrymore “Whips It” Up
With “Whip It”, debut director Drew Barrymore wrangles around every cliché in both the sports and coming of age genres and without actually avoiding them, she still presents them with such earnestness that they come off as fresh and original. Jonas At The Movies Read The Review >>
Director Spike Jonze sneaks into the recesses of an adolescent’s soul and capture the frustration and defiance a nine-year-old feels when he has no control over his surroundings. “Where The Wild Things Are” is an energetically shot love story between a boy and his only friend, his imagination. Jonas At The Movies Read The Review >>
“Confession of a Shopaholic” is idiotic yet intoxicating. If you can get past the many character inconstancies, this is the ultimate date movie, warm and funny, and Isla Fisher’s coming out party as Amer...
There’s something so intangible about chemistry. Two very special people, with great interests, glowing personalities, and hearts so precious they could explode at any moment, can still have no rhythm together....
2008 was a year of triumph (a new president) and disappointments (an economy that continues to drop). And though it wasn’t a banner year for films, there have been some surprise hits, some charming comedies and...
“Revolutionary Road” is a very sad film, filled with people dying inside, but with a talented cast and a thoughtful script by Justin Haythe, Director Sam Mendes prevents it from being a ...
The film “Milk” chronicles the last eight years of Gay Activist Harvey Milk, from his move to San Francisco till the day he was assassinated along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. Sean Penn’s extraordin...
We meet our champion: glib, powerful and able to divert punches, and the challenger, out of his league, a deer in the headlights when being pummeled. The first round is an immediate KO, w...
The cast of “Rachel Getting Married” brought their “A” Game to the set, but their director Jonathan Demme lets the drama deflate with erratic camerawork and editing that borders on sluggish. It’...
Director Danny Boyle's latest drama turns an Indian drama of class division into a speedy, invigorating rush. With fine performances, a thrilling score by A.R. Rahman, and slick editing, "Slumdog Millionaire" ...
How does Pixar do it? Last time they got us not to cringe at the thought of a rat (not even a cuddly mouse, but a RAT) cooking delectable cuisine in a fancy French restaurant. Now, with “Wall-E,” they've taken a mos...
Peter Tolan, creator of the raunchy TV series “Rescue Me” makes his feature directing debut with “Finding Amanda,” a dark comedy about addiction and familial bonds. With a breakout performance by Brittany Sno...
The Judd Apatow factory has returned to theaters with a new comedy, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” and though this crude comedy is filled with a cornucopia of laughs, it’s a bit predictable. Under th...
Almost a filmed version of the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” the Oscar edition, “Definitely, Maybe” walks a line between charming and schmaltzy and due to the cast, manages to not slip i...
Dreams defy logic. When we're embroiled in these mini-dramas, everything seems completely realistic. Eventually we awake from REM and realize we had webbed feet throughout the events, or our children we...
“There Will Be Blood,” the new, nearly three-hour epic by Paul Thomas Anderson begins with no dialogue, fifteen minutes of no dialogue. This is a clever metaphor since one character loses hi...
Director Joe Wright (“Pride and Prejudice”) works with some weighty themes in “Atonement”; how perception can cloud our abilities to make calculated decisions and how fiction can act as a healer for...
The filmed version of “Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street” would have made a perfect silent movie, for director Tim Burton has crafted a grand looking film, dark, angular,...
Veteran director Sidney Lumet aptly blends two genres rarely brought together, the caper gone awry thriller and family melodrama. “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead” is Jules Dassin’s “Rififi” m...
“Juno,” a glorious character study of a loopy pregnant adolescent, features Award-worthy performance by Ellen Page (“Hard Candy”) and Allison Janney (Multi-Emmy winner for “The West Wing”). If its studio Fo...
A long, complex, but rewarding character study, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” investigates the price of fame, and how you can get away with murder as long as you ...
Director Frank Darabont once again brings a Stephen King’s novella to the screen with “The Mist”. Through most of the film, Darabont conjures up a shocking horror show, with grotesque effects and...
“We Come In Peace”
“Martian Child” should not be a good film. It definitely should not be a great film. Director Menno Meyjes and writers Seth Bass and Jonathan Tolins follow the clichés like blueprints. HOWEVER, and I mean that ...
Savage Love
Death is inevitable. Despite the difference in opinions as to what happens next, it is incontrovertible that death comes to everyone. There’s something Zen in the unavoidable. Now dying, particularly of old age, is a c...
“A Beguiling ‘Sleuth’”
Director Kenneth Branagh and Nobel Prize-winning writer Harold Pinter have re-imagined the classic thriller “Sleuth” into a psychosexual thriller with a slick, cold production design and two actors in perf...
Julie Taylor, responsible for reinventing America theater with the revolutionary “The Lion King” on Broadway, has brought her anarchic influence to the musical film genre, and taps into a ...
“Stardust,” a fanciful fairy tale with impressive special effects and a jaunty cast, is glorious. Combining mythology, British gallows humor, computer generated virtual realities and a heart that glows literally and...
“It’s The End Of The World As We Know It…And I Feel Gassy.”
Acclaimed Production Designer Chris Gorak (“The Man Who Wasn’t There,” “Fight Club”) launches a writing/directing career with “Right At Your Door,” an nihilistic thriller a...
Like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is a collision between chocolate and peanut butter, “Superbad” is a demolition of the Farrelly Brothers’ gross-out comedies of the 90s, John Hughes teen romances of the 80s an...
“Delirious”, the latest film from Tom DiCillo is odd, I'd like to call it quirky, but odd just fits better. That is not to say the film is not enjoyable or that its jagged rhythm doesn’t work for it; but unli...
Michael Myers, the shadowy super villain who stalks babysitters in the Halloween movies can be shot, burned, stabbed with sewing sheers and blown up to bits, yet he never dies. Since in natur...
Devout fanatics have waited patiently for years for Matt Groening, James L Brooks and their writing staff to devise “The Simpsons Movie.” That day has finally arrived and though there are many laughs piled into the 8...
“Sunshine,” the new thriller by Danny Boyle (“Shallow Grave,” 28 Days Later”), hopes to pay homage to the definitive space tales (“Alien, “2001: A Space Odyssey”) but instead turns into a derivative, confusing h...
Famed photographer Sean Ellis expands his Oscar-nominated short “Cashback” into a delightfully quirky full length feature. Cult members of the American comedy “Office Space” will appreciate this British attack on w...
“’Hairspray’ Makes Your Hair Stand Straight, With Glee”
Now in its third incarnation, “Hairspray,” the movie musical, is an even bigger winner than the sleeper 1988 film or smash Broadway musical. With a dream cast including Queen ...
Movie audiences have witnessed many examples of deranged love. We’ve seen a boy who loved his mother so much that he murdered her, stuffed her corpse in the basement, and butchered young women while dressed as her (...
“Knocked Up,” by the gang responsible for the runaway hit “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” has all the makings of a hit: a striking heroine, a dorky protagonist with whom audiences can identify, and a hair-raising situa...
In 1969, novelist William Goldman published a comprehensive dissection of the 1967-1968 Broadway season in “The Season.” For theater lovers, it was a delectable background tour of the Great White Way durin...
There are more laughs in the 121 minutes of “Hot Fuzz,” than in the entire filmographies of Will Farrell and Adam Sandler combined. I counted three minutes that didn’t have me crying from extreme laughter. It ...
Like the cavalcade of Disney sports movies that arrive almost every January (“Remember The Titans,” “Miracle,” “Glory Road”), the new movie “Pride” follows the formula, pours on the schmaltz and even contains a chant one would f...
After 30 mind-numbing minutes into “Shooter,” I wanted to punch myself unconscious. But then something odd occurs. Thirty-five minutes in, the clichés stop pounding over our heads; the acting stops causing guffaws; the film b...
As an unpublished novelist myself, I empathized with the browbeaten Clifford Irving in the beginning of “The Hoax” for his publisher’s shabby treatment of his novel. Heralded then disposed o...
In 2006, I chose the noir thriller “Brick” as my favorite film of the year. Besides the genius of the filmmakers, it represents the mounting talent of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, an actor whose stret...
After slumming it in Hollywood for 20 years, Paul Verhoeven returns to form in “Zwartboek” (“Black Book”) a thought-provoking, controversial, and energetically paced thriller in the vein of his award winning Dutch clas...
Since her debut as Cher’s aqua-obsessed daughter in “Mermaids,” Christina Ricci, the thinking man’s nymphet, has intrigued audiences with her oddball portrayals such as Wednesday Addams in “The Addams Family” ...
Factory Girl
There are those who are lost by the myth of Andy Warhol, the artist and the filmmaker. “Factory Girl,” the new film about Andy and his famous protégé Edie Sedgwick, reminds me of what the artist’s critics have said ...
“This ‘Alpha Dog’ Has No Bite, Despite Justin Timberlake’s Strong Teeth”
It’s been hypothesized that January is the Hollywood dumping ground, where the studios put out films they presume won’t be successful. On the basis...
Biggest disappointments of 2006
Before getting dirty in the muck of 2006 film drudgery, I caught a brilliant film after publishing the best of 2006 last week. “The Lives Of Others,” a Golden Globe nominee for Foreign Language from...
Best Films of 2006
For a film critic, presents, birthday cakes and rainbows are not as cherished as the joy I feel compiling my top ten favorite lists each year. It gives a film critic an opportunity to dish about his beloved m...
“Peter Rabbit’s Best Friend”
A truly enchanted movie about love and artistic passion, “Miss Potter” will inspire people, young and old, to take charge of their lives and explore their own creativity. Charming performances from Ren...
“You Won’t Want To Wake From This Dream”
There has been a buzz surrounding the movie version of the 80’s hit musical “Dreamgirls” since the twenty-minute presentation at Cannes earlier this year. The film sparkles with talent, ver...
“James Bland No More; This Man Sizzles”
There were rumors that Daniel Craig would be the worst James Bond ever, shoddier than George Lazenby (“On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”), more insipid than Timothy Dalton (“License To Kill”...
“Oscar Nominees Abound”
As we creep upon December, Oscar season is in full bloom. Here are some performances that may find gold this February.
1. Judi Dench not only holds James Bond on a short leash, she beguiling...
Pedro Almodovar has managed to combine the impossible: the lush soap operas of 1950s American director Douglas Sirk with the earthy, no holds barred neo-realism of 1940s directors Vittorio DeSica and Roberto Rossellini. While pumping wild situations...
After the success of writer Charlie Kaufman’s “Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind” and “Being John Malkovich,” Hollywood has finally realized that gold can be spun from off-kilter, existential comedies with non-linear narration. Now they are inves...
“Runaway with Scissors”
Watching “Running with Scissors” is a trying experience. Filled with talented actors working at the top of the craft, this film should have been movie magic. However, like watching Lance Armstrong bike ride through swamp w...
“Who’s Watching The Children?”
“Little Children,” the new film by “In the Bedroom” director, Todd Field, deals with compulsion in Middle America. While one person, a pedophile, can not contain his compulsion and is trapped by his ...
For Jane Austen fans around the world, hear me when I say — you will NOT be disappointed in the latest adaptation of Pride & Prejudice staring an enchanting Keira Knightley as the Lizzie Bennet and a dashing Matthew MacFadyen, as Mr. Darcy. Reviewed
Wes Craven, the man responsible for reinventing the gore genre three times with “Last House On The Left,” “A Nightmare On Elm Street,” and “Scream” has piloted a less-gruesome gem towards the thriller terminal. “Red-Eye,” his only non R-Rated thriller (unless you consider Meryl Streep’s sappy “Music of the Heart” hair-raising), keeps the adrenalin racing, even without his usual violent tendencies. Review
Brothers Are Grimm For Way Too Long
There appear to be two faces of director Terry Gilliam working today. The first crafted the Rubik’s cube of a mystery “12 Monkeys” and the perplexing masterpiece “ Brazil .” The other wandered around the vast set of “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” leaving us with a listless, elephant of an epic. With references to fairy tales and melding of fact and fiction, I prayed the first Terry Gilliam had directed “The Brother’s Grimm.” Unfortunately we instead have received another creaky, slow, humorless comedy in ancient times from Mr. Gilliam. Review
Bad News Bears
Only Richard Linkletter (“Before Sunrise,” “School of Rock”) could remake the 1976 hit comedy “The Bad News Bears” virtually line for line and still manage to hit the ball out of the park more
Must Love Dogs Review
Have you ever been on a date with a very nice person: someone conscientious, attractive, who can carry a conversation, yet you don't connect at all? You stare at the clock, you chew on ice, and you tap your feet on the floor because the evening has become eternal. “Must Love Dogs” more
