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 | A Compelling, if Flawed, Western Despite the sporadic, often misguided efforts by Hollywood to revitalize the Western genre, the Western has all but disappeared from multiplexes over the last fifteen years. From the sixties onwards, fewer and fewer westerns were made and those that fit squarely into the "revisionist" mold, were increasingly violent, skeptical and cynical about the nation’s foundational myths.More |  | A Latin Riff on Ocean’s 11 A Spanish-language feature made in the United States for Latino-American moviegoers and, to a lesser extent, aficionados of foreign films, [b]Ladrón que roba a ladrón[/b] (roughly translated as “thief who steals from a thief”), is a surprisingly entertaining, if no less formulaic riff on the heist genre. Think of [b]Ladrón que roba a ladrón[/b] as a Latin-American [b]Ocean’s 11[/b] on a modest budget.More |  | Enter the Randy What can you say about a film that spoofs Bruce Lee’s martial arts classic, [b]Enter the Dragon[/b], segues into a spoof of [b]The Karate Kid[/b] and is centered on the unsanctioned, underground world of extreme table tennis (a.k.a. ping-pong)? Well, for one, you can say that it’s almost as consistently hilarious as the television commercials suggest.More |  | A Lackluster End for a Beloved Character British comedian Rowan Atkinson ([b]Johnny English[/b], [b]Black Adder[/b]) first essayed one of his most well known characters, Mr. Bean, in 1990 for a limited half-hour television series that ran on British television for five years. Often described as a "child in a man's body," Mr. Bean is the genial, clueless, walking disaster whose addled antics usually leave innocent bystanders worse -- much, much worse -- for wear, but had all-ages laughing at his outrageous behavior.More |  | A Promising Debut Written, directed by, and starring Julie Delpy, [b]2 Days in Paris[/b], a romantic comedy/drama set in (where else) Paris, is a surprisingly effective, insightful exploration of romantic relationships, cultural differences, and how the two, when mixed together, can cause serious problems.More |  | 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 |
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