Lemons

Maybe Al Pacino is losing his satanic touch. As much as his latest corruption-of-the-innocent-boy movie sets up for the same pattern as his previous corruption-of-the-innocent-boy movies, it actually goes somewhere else. That is, it leaves the devil redeemed.

This probably sounds more complicated than it is. Two for the Money is nothing if not reductive. It opens on the ostensible victim, a sports-loving kid named... continue

"Love. At any cost."

But as they say, it sometimes takes more than love to make it work and though there was certainly love for this project, it never truly came through.

The Constant Gardener stars Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient) as Justin Quayle, a low-level British diplomat who meets and falls for world advocate... continue

In Broken Flowers, Bill Murray stars as more or less the same humourless, middle-aged son-of-a-bitch that he's played in movies like The Royal Tenenbaums, Lost in Translation and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
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Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), Angel (Tyrese), Jeremiah (Andre 3000) and Jack (Garrett Hedlund) are four brothers who are reunited under trying circumstances when their foster mother Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan) is murdered in what seems to be your everyday Detroit convenience store hold-up. The brothers decide... continue

I Came to Drop Bombs

Tired before it begins, Martin Lawrence's entrance into the lucrative kiddie flick arena never figures how to handle his vibrant spacticity. As arrogant, bling-obsessed college basketball coach Roy McCormick, Lawrence is contained by cliches. Rebound starts with a scene that seems familiar even if you've never seen it before: Roy's big black Escalade rolls up into the university arena... continue

Fans of the short-lived Fox series Firefly will not be disappointed with Serenity, the big-screen version of Joss Whedon's science-fiction show.

And fans of space operas in general will enjoy this rousing adventure that is laced with acerbic humor.

Writer-director Joss Whedon has structured the movie so that even if you never watched the series, you can easily pick up what is going on, and who is who among the crew of the cargo ship, Serenity.

The story is set in the future and centers around the Universal Alliance, which... continue

For a crowd-pleasing R-rated summer comedy that doesn't treat its audience like sniveling idiots, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is head and shoulders above the recent grossly overpraised "Wedding Crashers." Directed by Judd Apatow (TV's "Freaks and Geeks"), this equal parts outrageous and sweet trifle garners its fair share of laughs from expert comedic timing and by basing most of the humor in a hardened reality that doesn't seem very over-the-top at all. At nearly two hours in length, however, the film loses some of its luster by taking way too long to get to the point. A leaner, more discriminating editor could have turned a pretty good movie into a great one.
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Boogie Fever

Bow Wow on roller skates: what more do you need to know? In Malcolm D. Lee's sentimental, mostly joyful look-back at the summer of 1978, the long-limbed, charming young actor/rapper plays X (short for Xavier), introduced as he's struggling to come to terms with the recent death of his mother. This involves some predictable conflicts with his dad Curtis (Chi McBride), who's having his own troubles (he's lost his job as well as his beloved wife), and the major... continue

With Clint Eastwood's knockout Million Dollar Baby cleaning up at the Oscars®-not to mention the box office-earlier this year it should come as no surprise to anyone to see another boxing picture primed for summer's primetime. That time is officially here, of course, and so too is Ron Howard's Cinderella... continue

Fantastic Four is the comic book adaptation based on the story of a group (that includes astronauts, scientists and an entrepreneur) who head off to space to investigate some sort of cosmic rays that apparently may be beneficial to mankind. Unfortunately, the group is unexpectedly zapped by cosmic radiation and they return to earth with superhuman powers.

Reed Richards (Ioan Guffudd) can stretch his body parts in ways that the human... continue