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Starring: Kevin James, Jayma Mays, Keir O'Donnell, Bobby Cannavale, Stephen... Review: Shoot me now! It's bad enough that this laugh-free farce featuring Kevin James' bumbling Blart saving a mall from thieves on skates (what a concept!) has shot this hackjob comedy to box office nirvana (a 10-day total of $64.8 million). Now there are plans for a sequel. I guess Blart (blart/fart — very droll!) will continue to stuff his face, live with his mom (Shirley Knight) and daughter (Raini Rodriguez), and pine for sex until his next feat of heroism turns babes into chubby chasers. What a year at the movies this 2009 has been so far. Bride Wars, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Inkheart, Hotel for Dogs and now this! WATCH: At the Movies with Peter Travers — "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" Rating: 1 Stars |
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Starring: Francois Begaudeau Review: Richly deserving of the Oscar nomination it recently received as Best Foreign-Language film, Laurent Cantet's scrappy mesmerizer of a movie about a life in learning sneaks up and floors you. The film is based on an autobiographical novel by François Bégaudeau, a French schoolteacher who grapples with junior-high students in a racially mixed section of France. Though Cantet shoots the film documentary style, Bégaudeau, as Francois Marin, is actually playing a fictionalized version of himself — and doing it superbly by the way. The actors are actual students playing at being themselves — also doing it superbly. Using mobile high-definition cameras that prowl around the classroom like proverbial flies on the wall, Cantet achieves a rare immediacy. There... Rating: 3 Stars |
