Archive for November, 2007

RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE)The Mist: Horror. Starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden and Andre Braugher. Directed by Frank Darabont. (R. 127 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) One of the first images you'll see in "The Mist" is a movie poster of John Carpenter's "...

RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE) Enchanted: Fantasy comedy. Starring Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Rachel Covey, Timothy Spall, Idina Menzel and Susan Sarandon. Directed by Kevin Lima. (PG. 108 minutes. At Bay Area theaters. See complete movie listings...

RATING: (SNOOZING VIEWER)August Rush: Drama. With Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Directed by Kirsten Sheridan. (PG. 113 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) Music is everywhere, "in the wind, in the air, in the light," insists 11-year-old...

RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE) Romance & Cigarettes: Starring James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet and Christopher Walken. Directed by John Turturro. (R. 105 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) The make-or-break point in "Romance & Cigarettes" comes near the...

RATING: (ALERT VIEWER) Hitman: Action. Starring Timothy Olyphant, Dougray Scott, Olga Kurylenko and Henry Ian Cusick. Directed by Xavier Gens. (R. 100 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) "Hitman" is one of the best movies ever made from a video game, which doesn'...

RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE)Margot at the Wedding: Comedy-drama. Starring Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black. Directed by Noah Baumbach. (R. 91 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.) Writer-director Noah Baumbach likes to cast a wide net. He throws a...

Once upon a time Disney was renowned for making cinematic story-telling masterpieces that became instant classics. Lately all theyve been known for is regurgitating those classics in the form of shameless sequels and ridiculous remakes. With iEnchantedi theyre still rehashing the past, but this time theyve gone and done something we havent seen them do in a very long time: show a little imagination. And not a second too soon, either. Poor Walts corpse could use a break from all that turning over in its grave.

Crispin Hellion Glover’s planned trilogy of blatant weirdness continues with a second installment, “It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.”

“This Christmas” includes more family melodrama than all the holiday-homecoming flicks from the past decade combined.

Filmed in real time during the freezing winter of 2000, “Yiddish Theater: A Love Story” tracks eight days in the failing life of the Yiddish Public Theater.