Any film aimed squarely at the pre-teen set that uses the word “pinniped” at the outset, and with a delightful insouciance, is a film that I want to get behind, even if it’s to recommend it strictly to that pre-teen set. For them, it will be an animated film with big songs, perfunctory plot, and… Read More »
JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT BUMMER SUMMER
JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT BUMMER SUMMER is a diverting flick, full of bright colors and lively animation, that is calibrated to synch up with, and only with, the attention span of smaller children. The characters are of the stock variety, but, in the spirit, if not the strict interpretation, of the Cammedia dellArte, they… Read More »
THE GURU
THE GURU is a fluffy confection that mixes the exuberance of Bollywood with measured lunacy of 30s screwball comedies and adds just a dash of The Joy of Sex to leaven the mixture with a millennial sensibility. Our hero is Ramu, an Indian dance teacher who was marked as a child by seeing John Travolta… Read More »
GRAY MATTERS
GRAY MATTERS, alas, doesn’t. At least not when it comes to making a comedy about the heartbreak of love. It is, rather, a collection of fragments of ideas that fail to coalesce in any meaningful way. The result is dull, contrived, obvious, and at 96 minutes, seemingly endless. Heather Graham and Thomas Cavanagh play Sam… Read More »
AT ANY PRICE
The genius of Ramin Bahrani’s AT ANY PRICE is the way it talks about things without actually talking about them. This is a story of cause-and-effect, with the failings of a father reflecting the corruption of the American Dream. Though it takes place in the heartland, on that most homespun and wholesome of enterprises, the… Read More »