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 | A Must-See Documentary if There Ever Was One When genocide occurs in Africa, the international community does nothing or if it acts, it acts too late. As both Rwanda and now Darfur have proven, Western governments, acting alone or acting through the United Nations, can be slow to condemn the actions of authoritarian regimes (especially where strategic natural resources like oil or gas aren’t involved).More |  | A Global Warming Primer Global warming (or, if you prefer a less alarmist phrase, climate change) is real. The question, at least within the scientific community and among environmental activists isn’t whether global warming exists or not, but how long we have before climate change becomes irreversible.More |  | Just One Word: McLovin If the words, "teen", "sex", and "comedy" in the same sentence make you wince, then [b]Superbad[/b], a teen sex comedy produced by writer/director Judd Apatow ([b]Knocked Up[/b], [b]The 40-Year Old Virgin[/b], "Freaks and Geeks") and written by Seth Rogen ([b]Knocked Up[/b], "Freaks and Geeks") and Evan Goldberg isn’t for you. The film promises to deliver the kind of raunchy, vulgar, sex-obsessed comedy that trace their origins back to [b]Porky's[/b] twenty-five years ago and, jumping ahead, to [b]American Pie[/b].More |  | A Satisfying Conclusion to the Series Jason Bourne is very much the anti-Bond in [b]The Bourne Ultimatum[/b], the concluding chapter (or so we’ve been promised) to the series that began five years ago with Doug Liman’s adaptation of Robert Ludlam’s bestselling novel, [b]The Bourne Identity[/b] and continued with [b]The Bourne Supremacy[/b] with Paul Greengrass at the helm. The gritty locales, a cynicism-heavy espionage storyline, small-scale action scenes, and an intense turn from Matt Damon as the reluctant title character all contributed to a positive reception from critics and $500 million dollars combined for the first two films in the series.More |  | Woefully Conceived, Poorly Executed “Comedy” Written by Ken Marino and David Wain (and directed by Wain), [b]The Ten[/b] is an uneven collection of sub-par comedy skits, masquerading as vignettes, centered on the Ten Commandments. As the title suggests, each commandment gets its own standalone vignette, but each story gets introduced by an onscreen narrator, Jeff (Paul Rudd), standing in front of two huge stone slabs carved with the Ten Commandments.More |  | March of the Polar Bears (and the Walruses) Optimistically marketed as the next [b]March of the Penguins[/b], [b]Arctic Tale[/b] is a documentary centered on the polar bears and walruses that make their home in the cold, unforgiving Arctic. Shot over five years by husband-and-wife team Sarah Robertson and Adam Ravetch on high-definition video, [b]Arctic Tale[/b] was developed, at least partly, to convey the consequences global warming has had on the Arctic. That the voice over narration by Queen Latifah was co-written by Kristen “daughter of Al” Gore shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Gore’s anti-global warming, pro-environmentalism advocacy (as evidenced in last yearMore |  | Familiar and Occasionally Satisfying Stop me if this premise sounds familiar: a single, career-oriented (and obsessed) woman becomes her niece’s legal guardian after her sister dies in a tragic accident. Somewhere along the way, the woman meets a suitable member of the opposite sex and, after a few false starts, learns the value of balancing her work life with her newly invigorated personal life. Sounds like a remake of 1988’s [b]Baby Boom[/b] starring Diane Keaton, right? Actually, it’s not.More |  | Stumbling Under Clichés Czech-born filmmaker Milos Forman has directed some of the most critically acclaimed films of the last forty years, including [b]One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest[/b], [b]The People vs. Larry Flynt[/b] and [b]Man on the Moon[/b]. Eight years later, Forman is back with [b]Goya's Ghosts[/b], a period drama about another iconoclast that's sadly undermined by clichéd, soap opera plot turns and unfocused storytelling.More |  | Sci-Fi Film Shines Directed by Danny Boyle ([b]28 Days Later[/b], [b]The Beach[/b], [b]Trainspotting[/b]) and written by Alex Garland ([b]28 Days Later[/b], [b]The Tesseract[/b], [b]The Beach[/b]), [b]Sunshine[/b], a futuristic sci-fi film, is as good as genre filmmaking gets and as good as fans of Boyle’s previous work have come to expect from a director who’s proven adept in working in multiple genres.More |  | Period Musical Scores From screen to Tony Award-winning musical and now back to the big screen, [b]Hairspray[/b], directed and choreographed by Adam Shankman ([b]Cheaper by the Dozen 2[/b], [b]Bringing Down the House[/b], [b]The Wedding Planner[/b]), is everything fans expect a musical to be. It’s bright, it’s cheerful, and features a feelgood message about following your dreams and racial tolerance. Like the best Hollywood musicals, it will leave you humming a song or two and vividly remembering every dance move long moments after leaving the movie theater.More |
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