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Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon

Highly Recommended

Jack Wrangler was an adult film superstar in a way you don't find anymore these days. He was a phenomenon that slowly enveloped the smut culture, constructing a name for himself through whispers and uncomfortably long, held gazes. When they write that they don't make 'em like they used to, they're talking exclusively about Jack Wrangler.

"Anatomy of an Icon" is a straightforward documentary piecing together an overview of Wrangler's often potent life and his imprint on the glittery, marquee-intensive "Boogie Nights" culture of 1970's pornography. Directed by longtime documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz, the picture is a blazingly-paced injection of information and retro sensations, revealing Wrangler to be a puzzling, intelligent human being who greatly contrasted the perception of the adult movie world, eventually reaching icon status as he conquered the gay porn scene and then, without batting an eye, th...Read the entire review

Hell Ride

Recommended

I've never seen a film directed by a penis before. We came close with 1984's "Hardbodies," but "Hell Ride" appears to have been fully helmed by Larry Bishop's male appendage. Congratulations, Mr. Bishop, I salute this achievement...from a safe and hygienic distance.

A motorcycle gang riding along sweltering southwestern interstates, the Victors are made up of leader Pistolero (Larry Bishop), The Gent (Michael Madsen), and Comanche (Eric Balfour). They're on the hunt for revenge, dealing with numerous double-crosses and the wrath of the Six-Six-Six gang, run by homicidal maniac Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones). As the Victors inch closer to reclaiming their rightful score, their allegiance to each other is tested, with Pistolero finding the only thing more dangerous than his fellow gang members is the trail of discarded women he's left behind.

Frankly, I'm not sure what "Hell Ride" is actually about. This...Read the entire review

What We Do Is Secret

Rent It

If The Germs were a seminal L.A. punk band who truly informed the scene with their destructive energy and subversive lyrics, then "What We Do Is Secret" is a botched representation of their seismic impression. Striving to become the definitive word on an explosion of raw musical and philosophical energy, "Secret" is mostly about lukewarm actors playing dress up, walking around in punk heritage boots they can't stand up straight in.

An intelligent child from a broken home, Jan Paul Beahm (Shane West) took off to the Hollywood punk scene, fueled on the teachings of Nietzsche and craving the chaos of the era. Beahm soon changed his name to Darby Crash and formed The Germs, a band proudly made up of musical amateurs such as Pat Smear (Rick Gonzalez) and Lorna Doom (Bijou Philips). Blending noise and verbal contortions, the band took the scene by storm, using guttural performances to build a name, yet ali...Read the entire review

Pineapple Express

Recommended

David Gordon Green is a fine director capable of extracting inconceivable moments of nuanced human behavior out of his motion pictures. He's best with characters that hold dark secrets near their aching heart, habitually fascinated with the limits of reaction and temperament. I write the above with some confidence, since it's painfully clear Green has no business directing comedies.

A process server with a formidable appetite for marijuana, Dale Denton (Seth Rogan) loves his job, his high school girlfriend (Amber Heard), and his pot dealer, Saul (James Franco). After picking up some of Saul's finest product, the infamous Pineapple Express, Dale heads off to his last legal target of the day, arriving only to accidentally witness a mob hit. Fearing the discarded roach will be traced back to his dealer, Dale and Saul hit the road, trying to evade the murderous wrath of a criminal kingpin (Gary Cole), hi...Read the entire review

Bottle Shock

Rent It

The Judgment of Paris was a 1976 tasting competition that pitted the finest French wines against the latest and greatest from California. It was an event assembled to reinforce the might of the European palate, but what actually occurred during this historic tasting shook the wine industry to its core, and forever changed the reputation of American vintners.

Fearing his wine snobbery is holding him back from wondrous taste sensations, Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) decides to travel to California, to sample the local wine offerings. Once there, Spurrier's mind is blown by the quality of the product, making the vintners (including Bill Pullman, Rachael Taylor, Freddy Rodriguez, and Chris Pine somewhere underneath Hollywood's worst wig effort to date) anxious about Spurrier's ultimate motive with their grapes. With the Judgment of Paris approaching, the Americans are rattled, unable to compute how this...Read the entire review

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

Rent It

Well, it looks like the sisterhood is growing up, since the lead characters spend most of their new adventure trying to get out of their traveling pants instead of reflecting fondly on the significance of them. It's a PG-13 world out there, people, and the sisterhood is finally growing up. It's a shame the sequel's screenwriting isn't showing the same maturity.

Now in college, life is different for the sisterhood, who've kept communication open through the mailing of a miraculous pair of jeans they've adorned with their hopes and dreams. Lena (Alexis Bledel) is spending the summer drawing nude figures, soon falling in love with a model while her Geek paramour leaves her behind for a new life. Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) finds a pregnancy scare frightens her away from her true love. Carmen (America Ferrera) is overwhelmed when her set design internship at a theater company turns into a starring role. And Br...Read the entire review

Pineapple Express

Highly Recommended

We all have nights in our past that have become legendary in their telling, nights out with friends that grow epic the more the story is repeated. Nights where we felt like anything could happen and even though anything might not have, the mythology is that it did. Few of us get to make movies about such nights, however, and now writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have managed to pull off two. First was Superbad, their high school comedy about boys on a quest to get laid; second on deck, the new film Pineapple Express. While a stranger animal than its predecessor, more adult and more all over the place, Pineapple Express proves Rogen and Goldberg have more than one hit in them, and it continues the impressive winning streak of Judd Apatow as a producer.

Pineapple Express hinges on one night, but it's actually more like the longest 48 hours in the life of process serve...Read the entire review

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Skip It

Everybody has their own action movie guilty pleasure that they can't get enough of, ever. Mine just so happens to be Stephen Sommers' 1999 blockbuster remake of The Mummy, a movie I have purchased on the home video format more times than I'd really like to discuss. It's got it all: entertaining-in-doses Brendan Fraser, the endlessly captivating Rachel Weisz, and an attractive chunk of Egyptian components dolled up as a fun-as-hell thrillride. Being that the latter is the strongest driving force, let's chalk The Mummy up to being a guilty pleasure because of its lighthearted play on Egyptian culture.

Now The Mummy Returns, a semi-successful return to the series from returning director Sommers, has an unfair bias working in its favor: charismatic stars and pre-existent momentum built from the original. Sure, it's a far-cry cash grab from The Mummy's enjoyableness, bu...Read the entire review

The Midnight Meat Train

Rent It

Because a foundation formed in blood and guts does not form a respectable Hollywood legacy, Lionsgate decided to unceremoniously dump "The Midnight Meat Train" into a bare-bones release this past weekend, just so, conceivably, the studio can move on to classier, blockbustery affairs of extreme profit and Oscar gold.

Like clockwork, the dismissal of this Clive Barker-inspired romp sent the gorehounds into a tizzy. However, now that "Train" is available to the masses (well, to the major cities), I wonder why horror buffs would spend so much energy trying to protect a film that's pretty much similar to every recent genre production?

A photographer looking for his big break, Leon (Bradley Cooper) snoops around New York City trying to capture its ugly, violent essence to impress a gallery owner (Brooke Shields). During his rounds, Leon spies a menacing man, Mahogany (Vinnie Jones), ending up in t...Read the entire review

Swing Vote

Rent It

"Swing Vote" is a picture of such egregious obviousness, it even seeps into the casting. Kevin Costner as an all-American, beer-swilling loser? Stanley Tucci and Nathan Lane as reptilian political advisers? Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammer as spineless presidential candidates? George Lopez as a Mexican-American stereotype? All that seems to be missing is Mo'Nique as a sassy African-American secretary and Patrick Warburton as a butch CG-animated field mouse.

An unemployed drunk living in the tiny town of Texaco, New Mexico with his precocious pre-teen daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll), Bud (Kevin Costner) hasn't committed to anything in his life since his wife left him years ago. When Bud passes on his chance to vote for the next president, Molly assumes the honor for him, only to find her ballot has malfunctioned. Now with the voting results split evenly between political parties, Bud finds himself t...Read the entire review

[Rec]

Highly Recommended

The simple way to categorize the Spanish horror experience "Rec" (as in the record button on a camera) is to compare it to "Cloverfield" or George Romero's "Diary of the Dead." While the association is not fair to this modest production, it's an accurate placement to describe what exactly the audience is going to witness: a demonic, barnstorming, cinema verite horror experience that pulls few punches, fears no genre taboo, and reaches for the throat with delightful intimidation.

Sent on a reporting assignment to cover the life of the average fire department facility, T.V. personality Angela (Manuela Velasco) is stuck with the mundane details of fireman life. Becoming frustrated with her botched attempts to add some spice into this monotonous story, Angela's fortunes change when a call arrives requesting emergency assistance at an apartment complex. Tagging along with the fire trucks, Angela and her c...Read the entire review

Chris & Don: A Love Story

Highly Recommended

Perhaps best known as the inspiration and co-author of the musical "Cabaret," Christopher Isherwood was a beloved writer and critical fixture of the gay scene in Hollywood, proudly living his dream of artistic and sexual freedom. However, there was a force in his life more powerful than writing, even breathing at times: Don Bachardy.

"Chris & Don" recounts the romance between the two men, following their lives and a relationship only separated by an intimidating divide in age. With a 30-year difference in birthdates, the lovers embarked on a bond that grew to test their patience, yet opened up their diverse lives in remarkable ways, planting seeds of creative growth that would come to define both men and tighten a bond that lasts to this very day, 22 years after Chris's death.

Directed by Tina Mascara and Guido Santi (who sound more like a Vegas magic act), "Chris & Don" is bathed in warm w...Read the entire review

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Skip It

The latest "Mummy" film, coming a full and unforgiving seven years after the last "Mummy" film, is actually not much of a film at all: it's a deafening, blinding department store Blu-ray demo reel that's spun wildly out of control. It takes a herculean effort to be known as the least appetizing entry in the "Mummy" franchise, but then again, a studio isn't exactly fishing for quality when they hire Rob Cohen to direct.

Now retired from their adventuring days, Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn O'Connell (Maria Bello, replacing Rachael Weisz) watch as their son Alex (Luke Ford) continues on their reckless, globe-trotting ways. When Alex uncovers the lost tomb of Emperor Han (Jet Li) and his Terracotta Army, it reawakens the fierce ruler from the afterlife, sending him on a quest for immortality. With a new mummy on the prowl, Rick, Evelyn, Alex, nightclub owner Jonathan (John Hannah), and a spiritual wa...Read the entire review

The Dark Knight

DVD Talk Collector Series

Three years ago, Christopher Nolan assembled a well-written, exciting, and beautifully photographed film about how a spoon-fed millionaire could become a protector of injustice -- while dressed up as an oversized bat. Paired with a phenomenal cast, including a bizarrely perfect choice in Christian Bale to fill some rather difficult boots, Batman Begins arose as a sensation among a diverse audience. Little did moviegoers know that Begins was an exercise in acclimation for the brilliance to come.

Note: Photos in this review were taken from the Sneak Peak Dark Knight disc included in the recent Batman Begins Gift Set.

Step Brothers

Rent It

I have to give Step Brothers one thing - it's bold. I don't mean the movie itself is bold, although at times it does seem to step into uncomfortable territory with hilarious results. It takes a premise that has great promise, runs pretty much unopposed to any other comedies at this point in the summer, and opens a week after The Dark Knight. Bold might even be an understatement here.

Step Brothers on the outside has a fairly simple premise. Two forty year old, unemployed men, are brought together and forced to sleep in the same room with one another, when their parents fall in love and get married. This happens occasionally in the real world to real people, but the lack of work has left these men completely co-dependent on their parents. What we have are a couple of grown-ups that end up bickering over their territory like they're twelve years old.

Watching ...Read the entire review

American Teen

Skip It

I don't know what to be more frightened of: the plight of the average Midwestern teenager or the state of documentary films. "American Teen" yearns to expose the aching heart of high schoolers, but comes up short in rather impressive fashion, taking cues from MTV's "The Hills" to manufacture a documentary that doesn't appear to contain a living, breathing moment of reality.

In a small Indiana suburb, four teenagers are embarking on their senior year. Hannah is steadfastly independent, with filmmaking dreams and boy troubles; Colin is a star of the basketball team, feeling the pressure to perform and take his gifts to the college level; Jake is the band geek who desperately wants love, but can't quite overcome his severe social limitations; and Megan is the popular girl (kinda) who is dying to get into Notre Dame to impress her family, losing her circle of friends in the process.

It's easy to become...Read the entire review

Man on Wire

Highly Recommended

Philippe Petit was a man who thrived on adventure, or at least the composition of it. Petit was a gifted street performer, great on a unicycle and able to awe crowds with his sleight of hand, but he always had his eye on a bigger impression: an act that would merge the beauty of his skills with the publicity befitting a king. It was a calling that drove him to undertake a harrowing act of physical dexterity that would forever solidify his place in New York City popular culture: in 1974, Petit attempted to cross between the World Trade Center towers on a tightrope.

"Man on Wire" is an odd, enchanting documentary chronicling Petit's history, training, and attempt at this incredible feat of patience and foot-first skill. Directed by James Marsh ("The King"), "Man" bridges together news footage, Petit's own home movies, modern-day interviews, and dramatic recreations to explore this event and find a suff...Read the entire review

Brideshead Revisited

Highly Recommended

"Brideshead Revisited" is a museum piece, perhaps the most famous tale of isolation and stunted emotion around. It's a fragile story that requires attentive direction, for any false move in interpretation will result in a complete dramatic malfunction. Facing incredible odds against it, this pass at conquering "Brideshead" is a worthy offering to the period-piece gods, presenting British aristocracy with the perfect edge of contempt and illicit sexual behavior shaped with the true angle of guilt.

Away from his stuffy, loveless home for the first time, Charles (Matthew Goode) is off to Oxford, where he encounters all sorts of eccentric, intellectual types, including Sebastian (Ben Whishaw). Accepting Sebastian's invitation to visit his family's estate, "Brideshead," Charles is immediately taken with the ornate, cathedral-like castle, and even more so with Sebastian's sister Julia (Hayley ...Read the entire review

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Highly Recommended

Hard to believe, but it's been a full decade since the last "X-Files" picture, "Fight the Future," hit the big screen to enthusiastic response, plunging the then-running television series even further into ferocious alien disturbances and its own vast sci-fi mythmaking quest. It's a different world for the "X-Files" brand these days, and "I Want to Believe" reflects the change of pop culture weather, turning inward to produce a spooky drama for the fans this time around, not multiplex mass acceptance.

When an F.B.I. agent goes missing after a violent attack, the bureau (including Amanda Peet and Xzibit) turns to Father Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly), a convicted pedophile with psychic abilities who can sniff out the body parts left behind by the unknown assailant. Finding a dead end in the case, attention is focused on Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), the former "X-Files" believer turned recluse after ...Read the entire review

Step Brothers

Recommended

"Step Brothers" is a terrifically amusing movie, but it never reaches pulse-quickening hilarity. It's a confusing misfire, considering this is the new Will Ferrell film, reteaming with longtime collaborators John C. Reilly and director Adam McKay, and plays with a story that requires the star to act like a huffy child for 90 minutes. Seriously, it's damn strange that "Brothers" isn't funnier.

When their parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins) marry after a whirlwind courtship, 40-year-old slackers Dale (John C. Reilly) and Brennan (Will Ferrell) are forced to become step brothers. At first, the men hate each other, irritated that their easygoing lives have been disrupted by mandatory interaction. However, when Dale stands up to Brennan's bullying younger brother Derek (Adam Scott, nailing his antagonist role superbly), the men bond immediately, kicking off a relationship that threatens to dest...Read the entire review

The Wackness

Rent It

Many question marks appear while watching "The Wackness." Who are these characters? Why should we care about their miserable lives? Why did this story have to be told in a 1994 setting? A natural curiosity is missing from the hackneyed picture, making the viewing experience stagnant and unrewarding.

Luke (Josh Peck, "Drake and Josh") is a hip-hop loving marijuana dealer working the sweltering streets of New York the summer of his high school graduation. One of his best customers is Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), a therapist who trades couch time for Luke's drugs. The two become unlikely friends, with both men unable to process their failing lives and distressed familial situations. When Luke falls for Squires's step-daughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby, "Juno"), he finds the rewarding sexual relationship he's been desperate for, but there's a price to be paid for such lust, leaving Luke and Dr. Squires at...Read the entire review

Lost Boys: The Tribe

Skip It

While monumentally dated in nearly every facet of production, 1987's "The Lost Boys" has held on to become a beloved cult film and the widely recognized starter pistol for the whole "Corey" phenomenon. Joel Schumacher's ode to vampires, red camera filters, and hetero Rob Lowe worship still beguiles to this day; a horror/comedy with real genre teeth, outstanding performances, and a flavorful, haunting soundtrack.

So, nothing makes more sense than to remake it over 20 years later with an intolerable cast, rotten visuals, and a soundtrack that will make you hate the very concept of music. Slap a pseudo-sequel title on it and the fans are sure to lap it up!

Off to make a life for themselves in the surf town of Luna Bay, siblings Chris (Tad Hilgenbrink, the Steve Guttenberg of DTV productions) and Nicole Emerson (Autumn Reeser) are hoping to start over after the death of their parents. A former surf p...Read the entire review

Death Defying Acts

Recommended

After the contact high that Christopher Nolan's brooding magician yarn "The Prestige" cooked up a few years back, it's absurdly disappointing to watch Gillian Armstrong's "Death Defying Acts" fail to match the same beat. This is a romantic film, not antagonistic, but let's be truthful here: if its period and presents acts of staged deception, it hard to top Nolan's whirlwind thriller.

Trying to make ends meet in Scotland during the 1920s, Mary (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her daughter Benji (Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement") work as Dickensian con artists, passing themselves off as psychics of atypical ability. Learning of Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) and his contest that will reward $10,000 to anyone who can determine the last words of his dead mother, Mary makes it her mission to find out the answer by getting close to Houdini when he arrives for a tour. Beguiled by her beauty and psychic skill, Houdini make...Read the entire review

Baghead

Rent It

"Baghead" is a picture where intent and execution are so blurred, I'm not even sure how to properly process it. Purportedly a member of the DIY "mumblecore" movement of cinema (a.k.a. "discreetly unprofessional"), "Baghead" is much too slipshod to be labeled anything but a forgettable, tiresome pass at evoking horror and comedy, tarted up under the tent of sleepy independent film obviousness.

Frustrated with their acting careers, Matt (Ross Partridge) and Chad (Steve Zissis) decide to take a few female companions, Michelle (Greta Gerwig) and Catherine (Elise Muller), up to a remote cabin where they can hammer out a horror screenplay for themselves, while also working out some tricky relationship issues. The weekend involves a serious amount of drinking, arguing, and sexual shenanigans, but that comes to an end when the killer of their script, the "Baghead," turns out to be a real creation, showing up...Read the entire review

The Dark Knight

DVD Talk Collector Series

Early in the third act of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated follow-up to his successful franchise revamp Batman Begins, the Joker (played to despicably decadent perfection by the late Heath Ledger) compares his criminal plans to that of a dog chasing a car - doing for the sake of doing, with no real plan, no real idea of what to do once the "goal" has been achieved. Yet the Joker's sentiments ring true for more than just his diabolical plan - namely the typical summer fair. Most films do for the sake of doing, piling one action on top of another, yet never knowing fully what to do once they reach the end. The Dark Knight, however, has no such problem. Every last bit of this film (which, at nearly 2 and a half hours, is quite a lot) is orchestrated so fluidly that it manages to almost entirely avoid the pratfalls that befall movies of this sort.

Read the entire review

The Dark Knight

Highly Recommended

You might not think it possible for a character that is pushing 80 years-old to have as much energy in his old bones as Batman does in his latest screen epic, The Dark Knight, but that is just not the case. In his follow-up the franchise re-energizing Batman Begins, director Christopher Nolan takes the Caped Crusader to places never before explored in film, and seldom touched upon even within the comics. The result is a superhero film unlike most other superhero films--a grim, often unrelenting tale of moral ambiguity about men driven by convictions so intense it compromises their sanity.

With masked vigilante Batman (Christian Bale) striking fear into the hearts of criminal throughout Gotham City, it looks like there may actually be hope for t...Read the entire review

The Dark Knight

DVD Talk Collector Series

It's been three lengthy years since "Batman Begins" clobbered the big screen, and the wait for the next chapter in this saga has been interminable. What director Christopher Nolan achieved with "Begins" was superhero tonality on an inspired, chilling scale; it was cartoon vigilantism turned into a mesmerizing metropolitan dirge, masterfully executed in a manner that made previous attempts to bring Batman to life seem juvenile and insincere.

Well, "The Dark Knight" eats "Begins" for breakfast.

As Batman (Christian Bale) lords over Gotham City, he watches his efforts to curb crime, with the help of Lieutenant Gordon (a quite reserved and quite marvelous Gary Oldman), finally bearing fruit. Into his path walks Joker (Heath Ledger), a madman who wants to rule the local crime syndic...Read the entire review

Up the Yangtze

Highly Recommended

A searing lament for China and the eradication of its historic farming culture, "Up the Yangtze" is a stunning documentary that details every gut-churning step of inevitability.

The longest river in Asia, the Yangtze has nurtured China's countryside since time began; a flowing fingerprint that has come to define the hard-working inhabitants. The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric project intended to generate valuable power to the land, at the cost of repurposing the natural flow of the river. It's a contentious construction undertaking, but the real cost is found with the underprivileged citizens who live along the Yangtze. With over two million residents forced to relocate away from the rising dam waters, it's left the county perplexed and resentful, now only able to rely only on themselves while the government looks away.

Directed by Yung Chang, "Yangtze" aims to unfold a larger story of anxiety...Read the entire review

Mamma Mia!

Highly Recommended

It was only a year ago when I suffered utter disdain for "Hairspray," a shrill, over-directed musical comedy that I found merciless in its unpleasantness. Turns out all it was missing was the music of ABBA; "Mamma Mia!" is the same vintage of shrill, over-directed musical comedy, yet it breaks free of self-conscious bondage to kick off a suitably electrifying big-screen pajama party of dancing, singing, and devotion to all things Europop.

Working herself into a stupor trying to hold her idyllic Greek island hotel together, Donna (Meryl Streep) is preparing for the wedding of her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), inviting her old friends (Christine Baranski and Julie Walters) down for the celebration. However, Sophie has plans of her own, sending invitations to three of her mother's past lovers (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard) to find out which man is her real father...Read the entire review

The Dark Knight

Highly Recommended

"

A new standard has been set for superhero action movies. While one billionaire, the industrialist Tony Stark, has so far owned the summer, it's time the mustachioed playboy step aside and let the his much richer colleague take the stage. Iron Man was an example of pure entertainment done well, but Christopher Nolan's second Batman picture, The Dark Knight, is entertainment as high art. It's as close as you're likely to get to a perfect genre film, and a few moldy one-liners not withstanding, it barely flubs a note.

As a reviewer, there is not much left for me to say at this point. Given the hype and the near universal praise The Dark Knight has already received, I'm not sure what one more voice in the chorus is really going to do. Yes, this movie is as goo...Read the entire review

Diminished Capacity

Recommended

"Diminished Capacity" is actor Terry Kinney's feature-film directing debut, and it handles like the work of someone who's just getting the feel for his storytelling dimension. A gentle, agreeable dramedy, "Capacity" reveals that Kinney has a unique hold on tone and shares a palpable charm with his actors.

After suffering a head injury, Cooper (Matthew Broderick) has been left with a sketchy memory, losing loved ones and his job to his inability to concentrate. Traveling to rural Illinois at the behest of his mother to look after his mentally questionable Uncle Rollie (Alan Alda), Cooper finds a mess at home and his old love Charlotte (Virginia Madsen), who is newly single. When Rollie discloses he's the owner of a rare Frank Schulte baseball card with a desire to sell, the gang heads to Chicago to a card collectors convention to price the prize out. Looking for easy cash, Cooper instead finds increas...Read the entire review

Space Chimps

Rent It

"Space Chimps" is many things, but the one advantage it lacks is a sizable budget. If you're a respectable production that wants to be taken seriously and can't even scrounge up the coin to license Yello's 1985 hit "Oh Yeah," instead electing to use a tinny sound-alike...that should be the first clue that something is seriously awry with the movie.

Grandson to a famous simian who long ago heroically launched into space, Ham (voiced by Andy Samberg) is stuck in the circus, shot out of a cannon nightly to painful results. Recruited by the government to take part in a new space mission, Ham is thrown together with fellow chimps Luna (Cheryl Hines) and Titan (Patrick Warburton) and sent into training. Their mission is to travel into deep space, enter a wormhole, and explore an alien world. Once arrived, the situation swiftly unravels, forcing the hairy explorers to band together to battle Zartog (Jeff Da...Read the entire review

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Recommended

2004's "Hellboy" was a sprawling, mysterious, comical, slimy, and idiosyncratic monster movie. "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" has all of those qualities and one more: restraint. Well, at least a newfound sense of limitation; this sequel overdoses in a big way on fantasy tangents, yet, unlike the earlier picture, it clicks together with a greater, more direct geek panache.

On orders to keep his crimson mug out of the public eye, facing the domestic wrath of pyro-ready girlfriend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), and trying to console amphibious friend Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, in both body and voice this time out) as he explores love for the first time, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) has a full dance card of problems. When ancient royalty Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) rises up to seize control of a magical crown that controls the all-powerful robotic Golden Army, it's up to Hellboy and the BPRD to stop him. However, as the h...Read the entire review

Meet Dave

Recommended

Once the king of comedy, it's been a disheartening journey for Eddie Murphy recently; he's failed to remind audiences what once made him such a hot comedy commodity, only to see his mojo dissipate through a series of bad script choices and forgettable kid film diversions. I wouldn't label "Meet Dave" a reputation-revitalizing turn for the actor, but the picture is admirably competent, delightfully silly, and absent a majority of repulsions typically associated with an Eddie Murphy family film.

Sent to Earth to retrieve a planet-killing device the size of a small rock, a crew of Lilliputian aliens man a human-sized spaceship that goes by the name of Dave (Eddie Murphy). The Dave crew soon meets up with single mom Gina (Elizabeth Banks, working wonders with a thankless role) and her son Josh (Austin Lynd Myers), who has found the rock, only to lose possession of the crucial device to a school bully. No...Read the entire review