‘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 [...]

The complex morality of loving Polanski

Though many would cite the knife-to-nostril scene in Chinatown as the obvious contender, I think the moment that best dramatizes Roman Polanski’s difficult relationship with the wide audience of cinema and humanity occurs in The Tenant. It’s hard to resist reading this creepy, campy 1976 psycho-thriller/comedy as a dark joke [...]

‘Mamma Mia!’ entertains, but lacks in the Dept. of Gay Kisses
My expectations for the ABBA musical Mamma Mia! were low. Very low. My expectations were so low that they dug a hole all the way to China and were walking around upside down asking for a fork (my expectations never learned how to use chopsticks).
But [...]

‘The Dark Knight’: No ‘Godfather II’, but good nonetheless

Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins was The Godfather of superhero movies. It didn’t go in for the silliness of other comic book-to-film adaptations. The plot was complex and adult, and the cast treated the material with respect; it left almost everyone with stratospheric hopes for its inevitable sequel, [...]

‘Tell No One’: Better than a lot of other French stuff you’ve seen recently
This has been a particularly crappy summer movie season, so it’s no surprise that critics are rolling out the hosannas for young French actor-director Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One. But this time, they’re at least somewhat justified: Canet’s adaptation of an American [...]

Sir Ben Kingsley and former Nickelodeon poster by Josh Peck herald ‘The Wackness’

In Jonathan Levine’s sharp little movie, the baby-faced Josh Peck stars as Luke Shapiro, a low-level pot dealer whose life is fraying around him. Having just graduated from high school with near-anonymity intact, Luke spends his days peddling weed to regular clients, and [...]

‘Hancock’: Rarely has a dumb movie struggled to be so weighty

Hancock’s high concept—it’s Super-Hobo!—is a fun one, though it’s already been done in the 1983 Alan Arkin musical The Return of Captain Invincible. And the trailers, with Will Smith as a drunken misanthrope flying into buildings and tossing whales around with impunity, suggested the kind [...]