Archive for June, 2008

Broderick and Snow are both doing their best to turn their characters into real people, but both, Amanda particularly, exist mostly as types to keep the story, such as it is, in motion. For a movie that wants to be about an emotional journey, thats no good. Though IFinding AmandaIs story reaches a reasonably satisfying conclusion, the empty characters at its center make the whole thing feel like a waste.

“Thoda Pyaar, Thoda Magic” (“A Little Love, a Little Magic”) has a buoyancy and optimism that trump the predictability of its story.

“Wall-E” breaks new ground in giving us a G-rated, computer-generated cartoon vision of our own potential extinction.

Once upon a time, in the faraway kingdom of Dor, there was magic in the air, laughter aplenty and gallons of mouthwatering soup. But an accident left the King broken-hearted, the Princess filled with longing and the townsfolk without their soup. Sunlight disappeared. The world became gray. All hope was lost in this landuntil Despereaux Tilling was born. brbr

In “The Last Mistress,” the director Catherine Breillat’s explorations of desire are so far from the antiseptic world of most screen depictions as to seem far out.

“Wanted” shows life in the killing lane with lots of zippy effects, action and exploding heads.

It’s not the water that menaces in “Wicked Lake,” an inept, nasty and absolutely irredeemable entry in the stale torture-porn subgenre of horror.

An eye-popper and brain-boggler, “Razzle Dazzle” is also, remarkably, a thing to stir the soul.

Pixar may have outdone itself in the weird-premises department with “Wall-E,” a $180 million post-apocalyptic, near-silent robot love story.

Nolans no action director, and while IBeginsI captured the style and tone Bat-fans were looking for it wasnt much to look at as an action movie. Give the guy a break, he was used to movies about memory lost, not films about karate kicking men in leather pants. My hope is that hell have learned a thing or two during his IBeginsI experience, and wise-up enough to toss out the shaky cam and give us some decent action sequences mixed in with all that gritty atmosphere.