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by Matt Brunson

Making a weepie for mass audiences can’t be that hard: Just place a person in a tragic situation and steer clear of the resultant flood. But making a weepie that doesn’t feel manipulative, exploitive or sloppily sentimental is another matter altogether. With My Sister’s Keeper, an adaptation of Jodi Picoult’s novel, director-cowriter Nick Cassavetes largely succeeds in respecting both his subject matter and his audience.

For the full review, click here.

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by Matt Brunson

One of the best films of 2008, director Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road offered a powerful and penetrating study of a bickering couple trapped by the conformity they felt defined — and controlled — their lives. Mendes’ latest picture takes a different tack, examining a loving pair who forge their own path in an attempt to find their place in the world. It’s a nice about-face for the director, even if the results prove to be wildly uneven.

For the full review, click here.

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By Matt Brunson

Michelle Pfeiffer has been excellent in all manner of movies, but in such period pieces as The Age of Innocence and Dangerous Liaisons, she has proven to be especially memorable, ably portraying passionate yet stifled women who find themselves as constricted by the mores of society as by the corsets they don under their dresses. In Cheri, the movie itself is the corset, strangling the actress and everything surrounding her until all the breath has been driven out of the material.

For the full review, click here.

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By Matt Brunson

Biblical times were milked for raunchy but riotous laughs in Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I and Monty Python’s Life of Brian, but the well seems to have run dry when it comes to Year One, a disastrous comedy that’s the cinematic equivalent of an old-fashioned flogging.

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As the struggle for power in Iran continues, street protests have remained steady. Here are some clips of protests that have taken place since the disputed elections on the 12th of June.

The final clip is a video that has been making headlines, as the victim, Neda, has become a symbol of solidarity for Iranian reformists.

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By Matt Brunson

As far as documentaries go, Tyson is a crock. Director James Toback is an acknowledged friend of former boxing great Mike Tyson, so for 90 minutes, he turns on his camera and allows the man to speak at length about his troubled life, both in and out of the ring. There are no other participants, no other voices to support or oppose whatever Tyson says — even Toback himself refuses to ask any pressing questions.

For the full review, click here.

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One of the many delights tied to the 1974 drama The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is that it’s a New York picture down to its Big Apple core. Between a principal cast comprised almost exclusively by NYC natives (apparently, birth certificates were required at the auditions), screenwriter Peter Stone capturing the colorful colloquialism without lapsing into parody, and director Joseph Sargent never downplaying the grit and grime that defined the city during its most notorious decade, this film-buff favorite benefits as much from its pungency as from its nifty plot in which four men hijack a subway car and holds its passengers for ransom.

For Matt Brunson’s full review, click here.

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By Matt Brunson

The surprising thing about Land of the Lost isn’t that it contains several hearty laughs; the surprising thing is that it contains any laughs at all. After all, Will Ferrell vehicles are increasingly becoming known for their inability to generate honestly earned guffaws, as the comedian generally calls it a day after establishing a slight variation on his idiotic man-child routine and then throwing a couple of on-screen tantrums. Yet the reason this new picture works on occasion is precisely because it isn’t a Will Ferrell movie; rather, it’s a movie that just happens to star Will Ferrell.

For the full review, click here.

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It’s what’s known as putting matters in perspective. Folks who regularly bash Judd Apatow for his various endeavors need only catch The Hangover to see that it’s unfair to dismiss the former’s pictures simply because they refuse to always toe the politically correct line. What’s more, the majority of Apatow’s films benefit from fluid plot developments, interesting characterizations, and gags that remain funny even in retrospect — conditions not enjoyed by this slapdash effort from the director of the similarly idling Old School.

For Matt Brunson’s full review, click here.

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