‘In Search of a Midnight Kiss’ oozes charm
This little indie movie, exquisitely filmed in black and white digital by Robert Murphy (who also has a small part as a needy, violent hick), is notable primarily for its attempt to see Los Angeles from a pedestrian’s point of view. The climax of the movie is a [...]

‘Traitor’ is strictly TV movie fare

When watching Traitor, the viewer is overcome by the weirdest urge: You want to will the movie to become better than it really is. The story, conceived by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin)—taking a “cop undercover in the mob” movie and shifting it to the FBI [...]

‘The Rocker’ does not totally suck
As the lights dimmed before The Rocker, a kid behind me—trying to scare his sister—moaned, “The Reapah’s heeah! THE REEEAPAAAH!” Good one, kid behind me. That joke was both funnier and more metal than the movie that was to come.
Robert “Fish” Fishman (Rainn Wilson, in his first leading role) is [...]

All hail Steve Coogan in ‘Hamlet 2′

Join me, fellow BBC America junkies, in singing the praises of Steve Coogan, that lizardy, poker-faced mimic who specializes (especially through his long-running character Alan Partridge) in taking fringe celebrity narcissism to new levels of squicky, squirmy bliss. Hamlet 2, Coogan’s debut as an American lead, stands as an [...]

Dear Woody Allen: Dump Scarlett, please
I do hope that this is the last time Woody Allen will cast Scarlett Johansson in anything, because in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, she’s approaching pure trollop. As Cristina, an anything-goes sexpot who entertains artistic pretensions, Johansson could be Brigitte Bardot dubbed with a flat American accent. If you entertain the [...]

The thrills never melt in ‘Frozen River’

A house on a truck keeps pulling up to a falling-down trailer, but then it is driven away. The house is supposed to replace the trailer, but the tough single mother who ordered it and said she’d pay up can’t. So the house keeps leaving again. It’s a tormenting [...]

‘Bottle Shock’ flirts with racism
Bottle Shock is a shameless grab at the yuppie audience that flocked to the similarly themed Sideways. But it doesn’t take much longer than the opening credits—as the camera drools embarrassingly over acres of sun-dappled vineyards—to realize that there isn’t anything subtle or winning about the newest mash note to Napa. [...]

‘Pineapple Express’ watches the Judd Apatow train roll on

The Judd Apatow train keeps on a-rollin’ with a different film involving chunky guys in their underpants emerging almost every week. As gratifying as it is to see John C. Reilly get steady work, however, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the improv tangents that once stood out [...]

‘Swing Vote’ dredges up some issues to care about

A series of wildly implausible events in the small town of Texico, New Mexico results in the outcome of a United States presidential election hanging on the revote of one Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner), a lovable but ignorant alcoholic who has just been laid off his job. [...]

The gloss of untruth in ‘American Teen’
Maybe kids are just adept at packaging themselves nowadays—I’m sure these Indiana high-school students all had their own MySpace pages—but I have never seen a more colorful pack of stereotypes in a nonfiction film. American Teen traces a year in the lives of actual teenagers: Megan is a brat [...]