The Matador (plus 'Tristan & Isolde') -- A good matador and a good hit man have something in common: Both can kill efficiently without making a mess. That's something we learn in The Matador, a slight, but amusing character-driven buddy comedy about the unlikely friendship that develops between a burned-out hired assassin (Pierce Brosnan) and a milquetoast businessman (Greg Kinnear).
~more: review (Chuck O'Leary)

BloodRayne (and Grandma's Boy) -- If Peter Jackson is the favorite director of most fanboys, then German director Uwe Boll is the most despised. After just two universally-hated movies (2003's House of the Dead and 2005's Alone in the Dark), Boll has attained a reputation bad enough that some have compared him to a modern-day Ed Wood, but with less talent. And some call him "Toilet" Boll -- I don't think a German's gotten this many bad notices since Hitler. Boll's latest, BloodRayne, is his most tolerable to date, but it's still nothing more than an ordinary, formulaic sword-and-sorcery flick. For Boll, though, that's progress.
~more: review (Chuck O'Leary)

DVD Roundup - Grizzly Man, Dark Water, More... -- Top Pick: “Grizzly Man”



An interesting nature documentary in that it shows not only the nature of animals, but of humans as well. Timothy Treadwell was a wildlife preservationist who lived among the grizzlies in Alaska for over a decade — despite the words on his video diaries, his actions proved he got too complacent around these dangerous animals and he paid the ultimate price. ...
~more: review (Staci Layne Wilson)

Fun with Dick and Jane -- Fun with Dick and Jane is a remake of the 1977 George Segal/Jane Fonda farce. In this slapstick incarnation, the film desperately tries to employ Jim Carrey’s prodigious skills in physical comedy to satirize the employee victimizing corporate scandals of recent years. It fails. The worst thing about this particular comedy is the worst thing you can say about any comedy. It’s boring. The small handful of genuinely funny moments could perhaps fill out a Saturday Night Live skit, but not a 90 minute film.
~more: review (Ron Morales)

Pretty Persuasion -- If you enjoy dark comedies like Election, Heathers, Jawbreaker or Mean Girls, then Pretty Persuasion should fit nicely into your DVD collection. It’s the story of beautiful, talented, and self-centered Kimberly Joyce (Evan Rachel Wood), a bulimic student at Roxbury Academy of Beverly Hills, CA., with a genius IQ.



Only the rich and privileged can afford to attend, so when a new student — Middle-Eastern transfer Randa (Adi Schnall) — comes on board, Kimberly takes it upon herself to shepherd the girl through her first American experiences. Along for the guided tour is Kimberly’s blonde best friend, Brittany Wells (Elisabeth Harnois), who is ...
~more: review (Staci Layne Wilson)

The Family Stone -- The Family Stone is a funny and moving film about family. The brood it focuses on is led by mom (the always amazing, Diane Keaton) and dad (Craig T. Nelson, showing more heart than usual). Their five diversely different children are coming home for the holidays. One of them (Mulroney) is bringing his girlfriend, Meredith (Parker) to meet his kin. Uptight Meredith is an instant failure in impressing the free-thinking Stones.



Devastated by her lack of acceptance, Meredith invites her sister Julie (Danes) to stay with them and have at least have one ally....
~more: review (Joyce Picker)

King Kong -- At its finest moments, Peter Jackson’s King Kong is a breathtaking masterpiece, an instant classic, and ode to everything about cinema that cinephiles love. There are scenes, shots and sequences in this film that will rank as some of the greatest in film history. If only Jackson could have curbed his self-indulgent impulses and presented a tighter film and edited out some of the more sluggish parts, this could have been not only the year’s best film but a truly great one for the ages. As it stands, it’s “only” very good to excellent.
~more: review (Ron Morales)

King Kong -- King Kong is a spectacular spectacle of a movie. I think the best way to describe it in one word is- BIG. The images within will leave you awestruck.

Jack Black plays the tenacious (had to) movie producer who gets this wacky idea to seek an uncharted isle to add fresh nuance to his film. Sure, it's dangerous, and if the movie weren't set in the 1930's, the Screen Actors Guild and Teamsters' Union would be so on his butt. It's all in the name of fame and art, right? ...
~more: review (Joyce Picker)

King Kong -- Arriving amid a plethora of hype and sky-high expectations, Peter Jackson's $207-million, 187-minute King Kong turns out to be a good, not great, remake that doesn't justify its three-hour length. The original 1933 version of King Kong runs 103 minutes while the 1976 remake extends things to 134 minutes. Judging from the obvious overlength of Jackson's version, 134 minutes is about as far as this material can comfortably be stretched. I have a feeling most people will like Jackson's Kong, but will come away thinking it would have been far more effective had at least 30 minutes been cut. Jackson's competent remake is certainly worth a look, but it's ultimately a Kong too long and too much.
~more: review (Chuck O'Leary)

Brokeback Mountain -- Brokeback Mountain is Ang Lee’s treatment of Annie Proulx’s New Yorker short story of the romantic relationship between two gay cowboys, a bond stretching from the 1960s to the 1980s. The film is less a love story as it is a study of how two young men come to terms with sexual impulses that run roughshod over the stereotypes of cowboy culture. The films’ points about the gay experience in homophobic cultures are important to make, but there’s only so much said about them. In the end, the story is relatively simple, albeit beautifully presented and exceptionally well made, which is what we’ve come to expect from an Ang Lee film (his clumsy Hulk being a notable exception).
~more: review (Ron Morales)

Syriana -- The convoluted, disjointed and extremely dull Syriana is a shockingly bad political thriller that juggles several subplots and numerous characters, but nobody or nothing is even slightly defined. Character after character is introduced, and no background information is offered, leaving the audience to guess in vain. As a result, the film amounts to a bunch of ciphers having esoteric conversations about who knows what. Syriana surpasses another pet project of George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck, as the most ridiculously overpraised boring movie of the year.
~more: review (Chuck O'Leary)

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe -- C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (there are seven slim volumes) are the stuff of childhood dreams: Being able to slip from your controlled, kiddy existence through a portal into a magical world in which you are revered and empowered. When you’re 10, the stories are pure fantasy, replete with pint-sized human heroes and a gloriously-maned lion king who will protect you from all evil. It’s only as you get a bit older that you see the Christian metaphors: Aslan the self-sacrificing lion is a stand-in for Christ, and the Pevensie children are clearly a microcosm of mankind (referred to in the books and movie as “sons of Adam and daughters of Eve”). C.S. Lewis was a renowned Oxford-educated theologian, and a close friend of fellow author J.R.R. Tolkien. ...
~more: review (Staci Layne Wilson)

Click here to see the movie review archive.