Baby Mama
Frequently funny but morally problematic romantic comedy about a hard-driving grocery chain executive (Tina Fey) who, incapable of bearing a child, hires an unpolished woman (Amy Poehler) to be a surrogate mother, subsequently becoming her roommate when the latter splits from her deadbeat common-law husband (Dax Shepard) while herself becoming attached ...
|
Baby Mama (CNS)
Babylon A.D.
Pointless futuristic action outing in which a mobster (Gerard Depardieu) hires a mercenary (Vin Diesel) to escort a mysteriously gifted young woman (Melanie Thierry) and her guardian (Michelle Yeoh) from Mongolia to New York and deliver her to the minions of her cult's high priestess (Charlotte Rampling). Though not excessively violent, ...
|
Babylon A.D. (CNS)
Bad Boys II
Mindlessly violent action flick in which Miami narcotics cops (Will Smith and Martin Lawrence) must bring down a Cuban drug lord (Jordi Molla) smuggling millions of dollars worth of ecstasy pills into the United States while protecting an undercover DEA agent (Gabrielle Union) in over her head. Director Michael Bay's protracted ...
|
Bad Boys II (CNS)
Bad Company
Inconsistent comedy-drama in which a streetwise bookie (Chris Rock) is convinced by a top CIA agent (Anthony Hopkins) to take the place of his twin brother, an agent killed during a secret operation, in order to seize a suitcase-sized nuclear weapon before it falls into the hands of fanatical terrorists. Despite ...
|
Bad Company (CNS)
Bad Education
Triangular drama set in Spain about a young, gay filmmaker (Fele Martinez) who, after encountering a former classmate (Gael Garcia Bernal) -- now a struggling actor -- whom he had once been enamored with, decides to make a movie about their youthful experiences as students at a strict, all-boys Catholic boarding ...
|
Bad Education (CNS)
Bad News Bears
Bawdy, albeit entertaining, remake of the 1976 kiddie sports comedy about a boozing ex-big leaguer (Billy Bob Thornton in the Walter Matthau role) hired to coach a bungling team of Little League misfits and ends up turning their season and his own life around. Directed by Richard Linklater, the new version ...
|
Bad News Bears (CNS)
Bad Santa
Abrasive black comedy about a self-loathing safecracker (Billy Bob Thornton) who, along with his dwarf accomplice (Tony Cox), poses as a department store Santa to rob shopping malls of their holiday loot -- that is, until a friendless overweight boy (Brett Kelly) stirs his booze-soaked conscience. Director Terry Zwigoff should expect ...
|
Bad Santa (CNS)
Bad Teacher
In keeping with the trend of building film comedies around unsympathetic protagonists, "Bad Teacher" (Columbia) celebrates the immoral behavior of a loathsome middle-school educator.
What differentiates the low-grade movie—without at all rescuing it from the depths of coarseness—is that the title character is female, purposefully incompetent, and fully cognizant of being ...
|
Bad Teacher (CNS)
Ballad of Jack and Rose, The
Offbeat, slow-moving film about a nonconformist with a bad heart condition (Daniel Day-Lewis) who lives alone with his teenage daughter (Camilla Belle) on a former island commune "off the East Coast of the United States," but then brings the woman he has been dating into the house (Catherine Keener), along with ...
|
Ballad of Jack and Rose, The (CNS)
Balls of Fury
Exhausting comedy about a washed-up pingpong prodigy (Dan Fogler) who is asked by an FBI agent (George Lopez) to help catch a mysterious crime lord (Christopher Walken). Along the way the former champ turns to a blind pingpong master (James Hong) to regain his skills, falls in love with the master's ...
|
Balls of Fury (CNS)
Bandslam
Residents of Lodi,
N.J., will likely be pleased with the plot of
"Bandslam" (Summit/Walden); the citizens of Cincinnati not so much. That's because the
teenage hero of this genial comedy with music finds social success in the
former burg after being bullied and harassed by his peers in the latter, the
Queen City.
When ...
|
Bandslam (CNS)
Banger Sisters, The
Disagreeable comedy in which two legendary rock 'n' roll groupies from the 1960s, one a down-and-out middle-aged bartender (Goldie Hawn) and the other an uptight socialite ashamed of her past (Susan Sarandon), reconnect after decades, trying to understand each other's now-differing lifestyles. With hackneyed characterizations, writer-director Bob Dolman's clunky, forced narrative ...
|
Banger Sisters, The (CNS)
Bangkok Dangerous
Grim shoot-'em-up about a solitary hit man (Nicolas Cage) who travels to the titular city to carry out four contract killings for a local crime boss (Nirattisai Kaljareuk), but finds his emotional isolation thawed by his friendship with the petty thief (Shahkrit Yamnarm) he hires as an assistant and his feelings ...
|
Bangkok Dangerous (CNS)
Bank Job, The
Stylish but lurid fact-based tale, set in 1971 London, about a car dealer and small-time criminal (Jason Statham) who, tipped off by an old friend (Saffron Burrows), organizes a gang (Stephen Campbell Moore, Daniel Mays and James Faulkner among others) to rob the safe deposit boxes of an upscale bank, only ...
|
Bank Job, The (CNS)
Barbarian Invasions, The
Morally hollow drama about an estranged son (Stephane Rousseau) who returns home to Quebec in order to visit his ailing father (Remy Gerard), an unrepentant womanizer dying of cancer, and, in trying to brighten up his final days, organizes a reunion of his father's highbrow hedonistic friends and former mistresses. In ...
|
Barbarian Invasions, The (CNS)
Barbershop 2: Back In Business
Raucous and irreverent sequel which finds the owner (Ice Cube) of the titular storefront being squeezed by a slick businessman (Harry Lennix) bent on putting him out of business by opening a trendy super-salon directly across the street. Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan maintains the politically incorrect tone of the original, but ...
|
Barbershop 2: Back In Business (CNS)
Barnyard
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Barnyard (SAM)
Barnyard
Clumsy if colorful computer-animated tale set on a farm where, unbeknownst to the farmer, the animals can walk and talk like people, and centers on a callow young cow (voiced by Kevin James), who must grow up quickly, reluctantly assuming leadership to stand up to a marauding gang of coyotes after ...
|
Barnyard (CNS)
Basic
Unsatisfying military thriller in which an ex-Army Ranger (John Travolta) and a prickly Army captain (Connie Nielsen) must try to unravel the truth behind the Panama jungle deaths of a hated Special Forces sergeant (Samuel L. Jackson) and four trainees under him while two survivors spin an elaborate series of stories ...
|
Basic (CNS)
Basic Instinct 2
Sequel to the 1992 erotic thriller which finds that film's manipulative vamp character (Sharon Stone) relocated to London, where, implicated in the murder of a soccer star, she matches wits with a criminal psychiatrist (David Morrissey), leading him down a path of seduction, deception and murder. With its femme-fatale protagonist and ...
|
Basic Instinct 2 (CNS)
Batman Begins
Dark and brooding prequel that explains how Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) became the costumed crimefighter and reveals the "hidden years," detailing his training as a member of a clandestine order of ninja-like vigilantes, leading up to his donning the cape and cowl to become Gotham City's self-appointed guardian. Director Christopher Nolan ...
|
Batman Begins (CNS)
Batman Begins
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Batman Begins (SAM)
Battle for Terra
Ambitious animated parable, set on a distant planet that's being invaded by aggressive refugees from earth, in which a downed human airman (voice of Luke Wilson) finds his loyalties divided when he's befriended by one of the peace-loving, tadpole-shaped locals (voice of Evan Rachel Wood) his warmongering commander (voice of Brian ...
|
Battle for Terra (CNS)
Battle in Seattle
Engrossing docudrama (including some archival footage) about the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, as thousands of protesters, decrying the agency's globalization policies—involving issues like environmentalism, fair trade and employment—clashed violently with police, turning the city into a virtual war zone and leading to the collapse of the ...
|
Battle in Seattle (CNS)
Battle of Shaker Heights, The
Flat coming-of-age dramedy about a high-school WWII buff (Shia LaBeouf) who finds himself emotionally flanked by a strained relationship with his ex-junkie father (William Sadler) and an epic teen-age crush for a friend's older, soon-to-be-wed sister (Amy Smart). Though imparting a sketchy message about family and forgiveness, the movie, which awkwardly ...
|
Battle of Shaker Heights, The (CNS)
Battle: Los Angeles
There's a delicious irony in a major Hollywood studio making a film that effectively lays waste its host city. But that's what happens in the aptly titled "Battle: Los Angeles" (Columbia) in which seemingly no neighborhood of the City of Angels escapes destruction, either from invading aliens or our own military ...
|
Battle: Los Angeles (CNS)
Battleship
The great 18th-century lexicographer and sage Samuel Johnson once observed that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
He was referring, of course, not to genuine love of country, but to the kind of frantic, chauvinistic flag-waving meant to divert attention from faults, scandals and hidden agendas.
Such jingoism can ...
|
Battleship (CNS)
Be Cool
Flat follow-up to the 1994 comedy "Get Shorty" in which mobster-turned-movie producer Chili Palmer (John Travolta) -- having grown disenchanted with the film industry -- sets his streetwise sights on the music business, and agrees to manage a promising young singer (Christina Milian) who is tied in with shady record producers ...
|
Be Cool (CNS)
Be Kind Rewind
Zany, warmhearted comedy about a New Jersey video store worker (Mos Def) who comes up with a scheme to create amateur video versions of classic films when his bungling friend (Jack Black) accidentally erases all the tapes after the manager (Danny Glover) leaves town to investigate saving the building from demolition. ...
|
Be Kind Rewind (CNS)
Beautiful Creatures
On its surface, the gothic romance "Beautiful Creatures" (Warner Bros.) comprises a passable if pretentious, blend of supernatural elements reminiscent of the "Twilight" franchise and a lush setting straight out of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation.
But a mixed religious outlook makes the occult elements underlying writer-director Richard LaGravenese's screen version of ...
|
Beautiful Creatures (CNS)
Beautiful Mind, A
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Beautiful Mind, A (SAM)
Beautiful Mind, A
Click title to see this Every Day Catholic movie review.
|
Beautiful Mind, A (EDC)
Beauty Shop
Amiable comedy about a widowed mother (Queen Latifah) working as a hairdresser who, after a falling-out with the shop's owner, flamboyant Jorge (scene-stealing Kevin Bacon), opens her own establishment in the ghetto and, thanks to her styling prowess and warm-hearted people skills, overcomes myriad obstacles to succeed. Bille Woodruff's engaging film ...
|
Beauty Shop (CNS)
The Beaver
Walter Black (Mel Gibson) is depressed. Ever since taking over management of his father’s toy company two years previously, he can barely get out of bed. His wife Meredith (Jodi Foster) finally asks him to leave their home. His eldest son Porter (Anton Yelchin) notes every undesirable trait of his father ...
|
The Beaver (SRR)
Because I Said So
Mediocre and unfunny comedy about an overbearing mother (Diane Keaton) who tries to match up her single daughter (Mandy Moore) with a shallow architect (Tom Everett Scott), while the daughter is more sensibly drawn to a decent single father (Gabriel Macht), but nonetheless engages in a sexual relationship with both. Director ...
|
Because I Said So (CNS)
Because of Winn-Dixie
Click title to see this Every Day Catholic movie review.
|
Because of Winn-Dixie (EDC)
Because of Winn-Dixie
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Because of Winn-Dixie (SAM)
Becoming Jane
Interesting speculative drama, based on only a few known facts, about the bittersweet romance between writer Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) and an Irish lawyer (James McAvoy), and how the experience might have influenced her writings. Julian Jarrold directs with an authentic 18th-century feel, performances are good (with American Hathaway holding her ...
|
Becoming Jane (CNS)
Bed of Roses
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bed of Roses (SAM)
Bedtime Stories
The fanciful yarns a hotel handyman (Adam Sandler) spins about his own life while baby-sitting his niece and nephew (Laura Ann Kesling and Jonathan Morgan Heit) start to come true, affecting his competition with the hostelry's toadying manager (Guy Pearce) for their boss' (Richard Griffiths) favor, and shifting his romantic interest ...
|
Bedtime Stories (CNS)
Bee Movie
Generally delightful animated feature about a scrappy bee (voice of Jerry Seinfeld) who decides to sue the human race for stealing the honey manufactured by his hard-working bee brethren and brings the case to court, with the help of a sympathetic florist (Renee Zellweger). An often very funny script (by Seinfeld ...
|
Bee Movie (CNS)
Bee Season
Gently involving drama about a sixth-grade spelling prodigy (Flora Cross) whose father (Richard Gere), an academic who believes that words and letters "hold the secrets of the universe," obsessively tutors her for a national spelling bee to the detriment of his mentally unstable wife (Juliette Binoche) and religiously rebellious teenage son ...
|
Bee Season (CNS)
Beerfest
Mindless and crude comedy about two brothers (Erik Stolhanske and Paul Soter) who, together with some beer-guzzling friends (Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme and Jay Chandrasekhar, who also directs) travel to Germany to compete in an underground beer-drinking Olympics against a German team consisting of a rival branch of their family. The ...
|
Beerfest (CNS)
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Grimly powerful, hypnotic drama about a robbery that goes horribly awry, and the tragic after-effects on two brothers (Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and their families (Albert Finney and Marisa Tomei, among them). Veteran director Sidney Lumet has lost none of his prowess, and this film -- heavily imbued with ...
|
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (CNS)
Being Julia
A few bright spots in an otherwise tedious adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel, "Theatre," about a larger-than-life English stage actress (Annette Bening) who has an open marriage with her producer husband (Jeremy Irons), and takes up with an earnest young American accountant (Shaun Evans) in her husband's employ. Hungarian director ...
|
Being Julia (CNS)
Believer, The
Interesting drama about the tumultuous journey of a self-loathing young Jewish New Yorker (Ryan Gosling) who joins a neo-Nazi organization and becomes a powerful figure in the white supremacy movement, but his carefully constructed persona is jeopardized when a news reporter threatens to reveal his origins. The off-putting subject matter in ...
|
Believer, The (CNS)
Bella
Sweetly sentimental story about an unmarried New York waitress (an especially fine Tammy Blanchard) who loses her job after becoming pregnant, and her restaurant's empathetic chef (Mexican soap favorite Eduardo Verastegui) -- an ex-soccer star whose career ended after his car fatally struck a child -- who gives the young woman ...
|
Bella (CNS)
Bella
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bella (SAM)
Below
Waterlogged drama set on board a World War II U.S. submarine whose commanding officer (Bruce Greenwood) rescues a British nurse (Olivia Williams) and two soldiers, after which everything on the sub malfunctions and paranoia takes hold. Directed by David Twohy as if the vessel was a haunted house, the murky proceedings ...
|
Below (CNS)
Benchwarmers, The
Lame comedy about three grown nerds (Rob Schneider, David Spade and Jon Heder) who are recruited by a former geek turned billionaire (Jon Lovitz) into playing against various Little League teams of bullying jocks in a tournament he's sponsoring. By beating them, the trio will win respect for every picked-on kid. ...
|
Benchwarmers, The (CNS)
Bend It Like Beckham
Click title to see this Every Day Catholic movie review.
|
Bend It Like Beckham (EDC)
Bend It Like Beckham
Spirited cross-cultural comedy in which an Anglo-Indian girl (Parminder Nagra) plays on an amateur girls' soccer team and finds herself drawn to its young Irish coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) despite the strong objections her traditional Sikh parents. Director Gurinder Chadha's winning coming-of-age tale treats its characters with appealing generosity while saluting ...
|
Bend It Like Beckham (CNS)
Bend It Like Beckham
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bend It Like Beckham (SAM)
Benji Off the Leash!
Family-friendly drama which finds the eponymous mutt teaming up with a shaggy stray and a young boy (Nick Whitaker) to save an ailing dog from a squalid backyard puppy mill run by a greedy breeder (Chris Kendrick). As directed by "Benji" creator Joe Camp, neither the film's heartwarming message nor its ...
|
Benji Off the Leash! (CNS)
Beowulf
Generally impressive 3-D animated reworking of the Beowulf legend, dramatizing the warrior's (Ray Winstone) vanquishing of the tortured Grendel (Crispin Glover), his encounter with the demon's mother (Angelina Jolie), and his later troubled kingship. Director Robert Zemeckis has taken some dramatic license with the venerable but sketchy original narrative, but writers ...
|
Beowulf (CNS)
Beowulf & Grendel
Grim and tepid, if earnest and ruggedly beautiful, retelling of the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon saga of the Norse hero Beowulf (Gerard Butler) who leads a troop of warriors across the sea to help the long-suffering Danish king Hrothgar (Stellan Skarsgard) rid his lands of a murderous troll, Grendel (Ingvar Sigurdsson), who is ...
|
Beowulf & Grendel (CNS)
A Better Life
Carlos (Demián Bichir) works as a gardener in
East Los Angeles. His boss, Blasco (Joaquin Cosio) is an undocumented worker like
himself, but who has saved enough money to return to Mexico. He convinces
Carlos to borrow money to buy the truck
and his client list. Carlos turns to his sister (Dolores Heredia), who
has legal ...
|
A Better Life (SRR)
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
A pampered pooch (voice of Drew Barrymore) is kidnapped by a Mexican dog-fighting ring while on a junket in the custody of her doting owner's (Jamie Lee Curtis) self-absorbed niece (Piper Perabo), escapes with the help of a protective ex-police dog (voice of Andy Garcia) and discovers life on the streets ...
|
Beverly Hills Chihuahua (CNS)
Bewitched
Amiable retread of the 1960s sitcom, as a washed-up movie actor (Will Ferrell) decides to revive the series (and his career), casting an unknown (Nicole Kidman) to play his wife, not realizing she's an actual witch, leading to romantic complications. Writer-director Nora Ephron's comedy is more pleasantly amusing than outright hilarious, ...
|
Bewitched (CNS)
Beyond Borders
Hollow melodrama about a sheltered American (Angelina Jolie) living in London with her socialite husband (Linus Roache), who has her eyes opened to the suffering of the wider world when she becomes romantically involved with a renegade doctor (Clive Owen) passionately committed to relief efforts in war-torn countries. Despite the sincerity ...
|
Beyond Borders (CNS)
Beyond the Gates
Gripping dramatization about the 1994 siege of a Rwandan secondary school at the height of the genocide, as a dedicated Catholic priest (John Hurt) and an idealistic young British teacher (Hugh Dancy) -- both fictional characters -- attempt to protect some 2,500 Tutsi citizens from the machete-wielding Hutus hovering just outside ...
|
Beyond the Gates (CNS)
Beyond the Sea
Entertaining -- if dramatically uneven -- biopic about Bobby Darin (Kevin Spacey, who also directed) which traces the singer's life from sickly child in the Bronx, where his bout with rheumatic fever had doctors predicting he wouldn't make it to his 15th birthday, through his early rise to fame, marriage to ...
|
Beyond the Sea (CNS)
Big Bounce, The
Insipid caper comedy about a petty thief (Owen Wilson) who is lured by a well-connected judge (Morgan Freeman) and a sultry island seductress (Sara Foster) into robbing a wealthy Hawaiian real estate developer, but his payday turns sour when the scam leads to double-crossings and murder. The film is based on ...
|
Big Bounce, The (CNS)
Big Fish
Click title to see this Every Day Catholic movie review.
|
Big Fish (EDC)
Big Fish
Enchanting fable about an estranged son (Billy Crudup) who returns home to reconnect with his dying father (Albert Finney), a compulsive storyteller, and discovers that the tall tales he was told as a youngster hold the key to unlocking his father's elusive past. Blending fantasy and reality, director Tim Burton's delightful ...
|
Big Fish (CNS)
Big Fish
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Big Fish (SAM)
Big Lebowski, The
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Big Lebowski, The (SAM)
Big Momma's House 2
Stale sequel to the 2000 comedy in which FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence), while posing as a plus-size nanny to investigate a software designer tagged with compromising national security, winds up bringing the suspected man's family closer together. Directed by John Whitesell, this only fitfully funny and unnecessarily crude second ...
|
Big Momma's House 2 (CNS)
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
Put Martin Lawrence in a dress and, it seems, you can take him literally anywhere.
Decades from now, scholars will, no doubt, pore over his films and write dissertations on "Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son" (Fox)—the third installment in the "Big Momma" franchise that began with 2000's "Big Momma's House"—debating ...
|
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (CNS)
Big Night
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Big Night (SAM)
Big Question, The
Curious documentary in which filmmakers Francesco Cabras and Alberto Molinari pose several direct questions to fellow cast and crew members on the set of "The Passion of the Christ" -- Mel Gibson among them -- about their personal religious beliefs, eliciting responses both poignant and pretentious from a diversity of creeds ...
|
Big Question, The (CNS)
The Big Year
The warmhearted seriocomedy "The Big Year" (Fox 2000) takes its title from a real-life competition in which birdwatchers across the country vie to spot the greatest number of different species between one New Year's Day and the next.
Huh, who knew?
Taking up this challenge on screen, each for his own ...
|
The Big Year (CNS)
Biker Boyz
High-octane foray into the world of Southern California's underground motorcycle scene. Despite action-packed race sequences and a solid cast, director Reggie Rock Blythewood's contrived story about an aging street racer (Laurence Fishburne) and a brash contender (Derek Luke) gunning for his title hits more than a few narrative speed bumps, never ...
|
Biker Boyz (CNS)
Billy Elliot
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Billy Elliot (SAM)
Birdcage, The
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Birdcage, The (SAM)
Birth
Unconventional love story about a New York widow (Nicole Kidman) who comes to believe that her dead husband has been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy (Cameron Bright), much to the dismay of her new fiance (Danny Huston). Director Jonathan Glazer has crafted an elegiac meditation on love, loss and mortality, buttressed ...
|
Birth (CNS)
Birth
Unconventional love story about a New York widow (Nicole Kidman) who comes to believe that her dead husband has been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy (Cameron Bright), much to the dismay of her new fiance (Danny Huston). Director Jonathan Glazer has crafted an elegiac meditation on love, loss and mortality, buttressed ...
|
Birth (CNS)
The Black Balloon
Moving Australian film about a teenager (Rhys Wakefield) settling into a new neighborhood with his pregnant mother (Toni Collette) and army officer father (Erik Thomson) and caring for his autistic brother (Luke Ward) with the help of a sympathetic girlfriend (Gemma Ward). First-time feature director Elissa Down's semiautobiographical story is well-acted ...
|
The Black Balloon (CNS)
Black Book
Glossy, well-acted World War II saga set in Holland about a Jewish singer (a compelling Carice van Houten) who, after her family is gunned down by the Nazis, joins the Dutch Resistance who ask her to romance and spy on the local Gestapo chief (Sebastian Koch) with whom she then genuinely ...
|
Black Book (CNS)
Black Dahlia, The
Adaptation of James Ellroy's novel built around the never-solved, true-life case of a young Hollywood hopeful (Mia Kirshner) -- whose mutilated body was found in a vacant lot in 1947 -- focusing on two L.A. cops (Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart) who are involved in the case. The Hartnett character finds ...
|
Black Dahlia, The (CNS)
Black Hawk Down
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Black Hawk Down (SAM)
Black Snake Moan
Extremely lurid, but ultimately redemptive, melodrama set in rural Tennessee about an aging blues singer (Samuel L. Jackson) who nurses a badly beaten nymphomaniac (Christina Ricci) back to health, and gets her to overcome her drug and sexual addictions, conquering his own inner demons in the process. Writer-director Craig Brewer pulls ...
|
Black Snake Moan (CNS)
Black Swan
"The road of excess," claimed the poet William Blake, "leads to the palace of wisdom." For the main character in "Black Swan" (Fox Searchlight) -- director Darren Aronofsky's nightmarish, morally muddled drama set in the highly demanding world of classical ballet -- that well-worn path leads to a very different destination.
|
Black Swan (CNS)
Blade: Trinity
Violent and vacuous fantasy action sequel, based on the titular Marvel Comics' character, a brooding half-mortal, half-vampire slayer (Wesley Snipes), who in this third go-round must join forces with a team of vampire-hunters (Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds) and battle an army of bloodsuckers (led by Parker Posey) bent on resurrecting ...
|
Blade: Trinity (CNS)
Blades of Glory
Fitfully amusing buddy comedy about rival skating champions -- a macho ladies' man (Will Ferrell) and a former child prodigy (Jon Heder) -- banned from the world championships after fighting on the ice, who reluctantly become a team when they learn it's the only way they'll be allowed back to compete, ...
|
Blades of Glory (CNS)
Blair Witch Project, The
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Blair Witch Project, The (SAM)
The Blind Side
An inscription over the entry gate of the Memphis, Tenn., school where some of the early scenes of the inspirational family drama "The Blind Side" (Warner Bros.) are set reads: "With God all things are possible" (Mt 19:26). That Bible verse aptly characterizes the remarkable series of real-life events first recounted ...
|
The Blind Side (CNS)
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary
Talking-head documentary in which octogenarian Traudl Junge, a private secretary to Hitler from 1942 until his suicide, recalls their mundane daily life in the bunker where a failed assassination attempt on him was followed by the realization they were losing the war. As directed by Andre Heller and Othmar Schmiderer, the ...
|
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary (CNS)
Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, The
Stylish but gory revenge tale set in 19th-century Japan about a wandering, blind blade-master (Beat Takeshi) who uses his lethal sword skills to rid a small farming village of a gang of ruthless bandits. Incorporating cross-genre elements as diverse as vaudevillian slapstick and hip-hop dance, Takeshi -- who also wrote and ...
|
Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, The (CNS)
Blindness
Chilling parable in which an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) becomes an early victim in an epidemic of instant blindness and, voluntarily accompanied by his still-sighted wife (Julianne Moore), is forcibly quarantined in a dilapidated mental hospital where conditions, both physical and moral, rapidly deteriorate as the number of inmates (including Danny ...
|
Blindness (CNS)
Blood and Chocolate
Disposable tale about an American comic book artist (Hugh Dancy) researching folklore in Romania where he romances an alluring expatriate chocolatier (Agnes Bruckner) who turns out to be a werewolf, provoking the ire of her shape-shifting clan, especially her insolent cousin (Bryan Dick) and the feral leader of the pack (Olivier ...
|
Blood and Chocolate (CNS)
Blood Diamond
Compelling action-adventure set in Africa's Sierra Leone as a mercenary (a superb Leonardo DiCaprio), a crusading U.S. reporter (Jennifer Connelly) and a frantic African fisherman (Djimon Hounsou) who's been separated from his family join forces against a backdrop of bloody civil war and plundering of the country's natural resources. Director Edward ...
|
Blood Diamond (CNS)
Blood Simple
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Blood Simple (SAM)
Blood Work
A crack FBI profiler (Clint Eastwood) comes out of medically required retirement to hunt down a serial killer who has chosen specific victims in order to lure his former profiler back into a hunter vs. hunted relationship. Also produced and directed by Eastwood, the unexceptional thriller looks as tired as Eastwood ...
|
Blood Work (CNS)
Blood Work
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Blood Work (SAM)
Blow
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Blow (SAM)
Blue Car
Emotionally complex drama about a gifted high school student (Agnes Bruckner) who becomes involved in an increasingly problematic relationship with her poetry teacher (David Strathairn). Directed by Karen Moncrieff, the textured narrative, echoing Nabokov's "Lolita" and buttressed by strong performances, explores people's hunger for authentic love and its unavoidable obstruction by ...
|
Blue Car (CNS)
Blue Crush
Average story about a young woman (Kate Bosworth) training to win the prestigious Pipe Masters surf competition who falls for a professional quarterback (Matthew Davis) staying at the hotel where she and her friends (Michelle Rodriguez, Sanoe Lake) are chambermaids, forcing her to reevaluate her lifelong goals. As directed by John ...
|
Blue Crush (CNS)
Boat Trip
Exceedingly crass comedy in which a heartbroken man (Cuba Gooding Jr.) recently dumped by his girlfriend (Vivica A. Fox) is mistakenly booked on a gay cruise where he falls for the gorgeous Latin dance instructor (Roselyn Sanchez). Writer-director Mort Nathan uniformly presents homosexual men as promiscuous airheads while objectifying women in ...
|
Boat Trip (CNS)
Bobby
Fact and fiction are deftly blended in a multistoried drama about the intertwining lives of guests and workers at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles -- played by an all-star cast including William H. Macy, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, Laurence Fishburne, Demi Moore and many more -- leading up to Robert ...
|
Bobby (CNS)
Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius
Handsomely crafted biopic set in the 1920s about the life of legendary golfer Bobby Jones (Jim Caviezel), who, though getting off to a sickly start, defied the odds, overcoming physical hardships and personal demons, to rise to the pinnacle of the sports world. Though the unfocused narrative spends too much time ...
|
Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius (CNS)
Body of Lies
Taut and engrossing Mideast thriller about a conscientious U.S. intelligence agent (Leonardo DiCaprio) who—in an environment of deception and betrayals—seeks out an Osama-like terrorist leader while taking orders from his longtime colleague, a hard-nosed CIA chief (Russell Crowe) back in Virginia. Director Ridley Scott maintains a good pace, and there are ...
|
Body of Lies (CNS)
Bogus
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bogus (SAM)
Bollywood/Hollywood
Strained tale of a westernized Indian Canadian (Rahul Khanna) under pressure to present a traditional Indian woman as his fiancee so he hires someone he believes is Spanish (Lisa Ray) to pass as Indian, with budding romance complicating matters. Writer-director Deepa Mehta colorfully satirizes Bollywood-genre films but stereotypical characters, some hammy ...
|
Bollywood/Hollywood (CNS)
Bolt
The canine star of a TV show (voice of John Travolta), raised to believe he has superpowers and that the program on which he continually rescues his beloved owner (voice of Miley Cyrus) is real, is accidentally shipped cross-country and must make his way back with the help of a streetwise ...
|
Bolt (CNS)
Bonhoeffer
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bonhoeffer (SAM)
Bonhoeffer
Compelling documentary about the conflicted life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the courageous Lutheran theologian executed by the Nazis for his involvement in plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Interlacing archival footage and personal photos with interviews of surviving family and former students, filmmaker Martin Doblmeier's textured portrait of the martyred churchman speaks eloquently ...
|
Bonhoeffer (CNS)
Bonneville
Touching story of a widow (Jessica Lange) who treks by car from Idaho to California with her two girlfriends (Kathy Bates and Joan Allen) to turn over her late husband's ashes to her grown stepdaughter (Christine Baranski), who demands them in return for not evicting her stepmother from her home. First-time ...
|
Bonneville (CNS)
Boogeyman
Hokey horror flick about a young man (Barry Watson) who has been haunted all his life by memories of a traumatic incident he "witnessed" in his bedroom as a boy -- he is convinced the eponymous evil specter snatched his father -- and who is advised by his psychologist that in ...
|
Boogeyman (CNS)
The Book of Eli
More contemplative and lyrical than advertised, the first big action movie of 2010 incorporates religious faith and Judeo-Christian principles to a surprising degree.
Directed by twin brothers Albert and Allen Hughes, "The Book of Eli" (Warner Bros.) prompts the question whether, assuming a minimum level of respect, the attempt to ...
|
The Book of Eli (CNS)
Borat! Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Juvenile mock documentary about a clueless journalist (Sacha Baron Cohen) from Kazakhstan who travels to the United States to report on the American way of life and embarks on a cross-country odyssey to meet actress Pamela Anderson with whom he becomes infatuated after seeing her on television. Some of the outrageous ...
|
Borat! Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (CNS)
Bordertown
Worthy but bleak investigative drama in which, at the behest of her editor (Martin Sheen), a Chicago reporter (Jennifer Lopez) travels to Juarez, Mexico, to uncover the truth about a series of rapes and murders committed against female factory workers and, uniting with a former colleague and old flame (Antonio Banderas) ...
|
Bordertown (CNS)
The Bounty Hunter
The mean-spirited proceedings that occupy most of the running time of "The Bounty Hunter" (Columbia/Relativity)—a muddled, easily forgettable mix of romantic comedy and crime story—begin when Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler), a washed-up former cop who's now the fugitive tracker of the title, gets the delightful news that his latest target is ...
|
The Bounty Hunter (CNS)
A Bouquet of Roses
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
A Bouquet of Roses (SAM)
Bourne Identity, The
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bourne Identity, The (SAM)
Bourne Identity, The
Well-crafted thriller in which a highly trained CIA agent (Matt Damon) suffering from amnesia after a botched secret operation must figure out who he is and why fierce assassins are after him as he is aided by a German woman (Franka Potente) whom he has taken into his confidence. Based on ...
|
Bourne Identity, The (CNS)
The Bourne Legacy
Can the Bourne franchise continue without Matt Damon's Jason Bourne? If the mediocre extension "The Bourne Legacy" (Universal) is all we have to go on, perhaps the answer is: Yes, but with considerably diminished results.
Based on a series of novels by Robert Ludlum, the popular—albeit frequently violent—trilogy that began with ...
|
The Bourne Legacy (CNS)
Bourne Supremacy, The
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bourne Supremacy, The (SAM)
Bourne Supremacy, The
Frenetic follow-up to "The Bourne Identity," about Jason Bourne the CIA amnesiac assassin (Matt Damon), pursued around Europe by CIA operatives and a Russian hit man, while struggling with disturbing memories of a violent incident in which he may have played a part. Fine performances by Damon and a supporting cast ...
|
Bourne Supremacy, The (CNS)
Bourne Ultimatum, The
This lightning-paced, globe-trotting follow-up to "The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy" wraps up Bourne's (Matt Damon) quest to discover his true name and history even as CIA project head (David Strathairn) orders his immediate termination, but is continually stymied by Bourne's lethal skills at evasion and unexpected help from female ...
|
Bourne Ultimatum, The (CNS)
Bowfinger
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bowfinger (SAM)
Bowling for Columbine
Specious documentary in which producer-writer-director-interviewer Michael Moore uses guerrilla video journalism techniques to ridicule and blame the National Rifle Association and an American mindset for the Columbine High School massacre and other shootings. Although his film is thought-provoking, Moore tosses in a racially charged minicartoon and a grab bag of unrelated ...
|
Bowling for Columbine (CNS)
Bowling For Columbine
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bowling For Columbine (SAM)
The Box
Horror and science fiction writer Richard Matheson's
1970 short story "Button, Button"—already adapted for television as
an episode of "The Twilight Zone" in the mid-1980s—comes to the big
screen as "The Box" (Warner Bros.).
But writer-director Richard Kelly's intelligently challenging,
if over-elaborate, reflection on ethical choices and consequences is
suitable only for spiritually well-grounded adult ...
|
The Box (CNS)
Boxer, The
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Boxer, The (SAM)
Boy A
Achingly sad and touching story of a sensitive young man (stunning work by Andrew Garfield) – released from prison after 14 years for a dreadful crime in which he took part as a child – who, with the help of a concerned caseworker (Peter Mullan), tries to start anew with an ...
|
Boy A (CNS)
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The 8-year-old son (Asa Butterfield) of a Nazi concentration camp commander (David Thewlis) befriends a captive Jewish boy (Jack Scanlon) and is gradually exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust. Writer-director Mark Herman's luminous screen version of John Boyne's award-winning novel for both children and adults contrasts its protagonist's innocence with ...
|
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (CNS)
Boynton Beach Club
Touching story about widowed and divorced seniors in Florida adult community who meet in a bereavement group and come to learn that life is far from over, as they forge friendships and romantic relationships. Director and co-writer Susan Seidelman has gathered a first-rate cast including Joe Bologna, Dyan Cannon, Len Cariou, ...
|
Boynton Beach Club (CNS)
The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story
Poignant biography of Walt Disney Studios' most famous songwriter team—Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman—whose cheery songs for such films as "Mary Poppins" and "The Jungle Book" belied a fractious personal relationship. Directed by their sons, Jeffrey C. Sherman and Gregory V. Sherman, the well-crafted documentary (unobjectionable though probably not for the ...
|
The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story (CNS)
Bratz
The sleazily dressed Bratz line of fashion dolls come to life in a fluffy, live-action movie about four empowered Southern California high-schoolers who are good to their parents and classmates, do well in school, follow their dreams, and stand up to the rigid and authority-abusing student body president, all while dressed ...
|
Bratz (CNS)
Brave One, The
Finely wrought but ultimately troubling tale of a radio personality (Jodie Foster) who gradually becomes a vigilante after her fiance (Naveen Andrews) is killed and she herself grievously wounded in an attack in New York's Central Park, and of her complex relationship with a police detective (Terrence Howard) who is determined ...
|
Brave One, The (CNS)
Breach
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Breach (SAM)
Breach
Click title to see this Every Day Catholic movie review.
|
Breach (EDC)
Breach
Interesting though, by its nature, downbeat dramatization about the case of FBI agent Robert Hanssen (a compelling Chris Cooper) who was revealed to be a spy for the Russians, called the worst breach in the history of U.S. intelligence, and how he was entrapped by young undercover agent Eric O'Neill (Ryan ...
|
Breach (CNS)
Bread, My Sweet, The
Pleasant romance in which an Italian-American businessman (Scott Baio) torn between his professional ambitions and his love for making biscotti in his bakery proposes to the prodigal daughter (Kristin Minter) of his neighbor, a dying elderly woman, to fulfill her wish of seeing her daughter married. Written and directed by Melissa ...
|
Bread, My Sweet, The (CNS)
Breakdown
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Breakdown (SAM)
Breakin' All the Rules
Lukewarm romantic comedy about a magazine executive (Jamie Foxx) who writes a best-selling guide to breaking up after getting dumped by his fiancee, only to wind up in an awkward affair with his cousin's (Morris Chestnut) girlfriend (Gabrielle Union). Fueled by moldy mistaken-identity plot twists, the formulaic farce directed by Daniel ...
|
Breakin' All the Rules (CNS)
Breaking and Entering
So-so drama about a London architect (Jude Law) -- living with a Swedish-American divorcee (Robin Wright Penn) and her autistic 13-year-old daughter -- who has an affair with the widowed Bosnian mother (Juliette Binoche) of a troubled boy who has broken into the architect's inner-city office, prompting a re-evaluation of his ...
|
Breaking and Entering (CNS)
Breaking Dawn
SPOLIER ALERT!
Last year I reviewed the “Twilight” film franchise
(“Twilight”, “New Moon” and “Eclipse”) as a whole in “The Tidings” as “basically
a love story.” http://www2.the-tidings.com/2010/071610/movies.htm.
I wrote about the influence of author Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism and did not
think there was evidence of much, especially to anyone unfamiliar with the
tenants of ...
|
Breaking Dawn (CNS)
Break-Up, The
Tepid but fitfully affable romantic comedy charting the deterioration of the relationship of an art gallery assistant (Jennifer Aniston) and a loutish Chicago tour bus operator (Vince Vaughn) who ultimately learns to be a more considerate person. Director Peyton Reed draws good work from the stars, especially the effortlessly appealing Aniston ...
|
Break-Up, The (CNS)
Brick
Gritty low-budget murder mystery set in Southern California about a high school loner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) whose obsessive search for his missing ex-girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin) leads to danger and deception, with a list of suspects that includes her junkie boyfriend (Noah Segan), a manipulative socialite (Nora Zehetner), a drug dealer (Lukas ...
|
Brick (CNS)
Bride & Prejudice
Daffy, but likable, updated subversion of "Pride & Prejudice" -- with leading man Darcy (Martin Henderson) now an American hotel magnate, and the Bennet girls now the Bakshis, a genteel lower middle-class Indian clan -- but most of the Jane Austen plot elements are more or less intact, including the duplicitous ...
|
Bride & Prejudice (CNS)
Bride and Prejudice
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bride and Prejudice (SAM)
Bride Wars
Amiable if predictable romantic bauble about longtime devoted pals (Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, both in good comic form), who have dreamt since childhood of June weddings at New York's Plaza Hotel, but then, as adults, have a falling-out just before their much-anticipated nuptials there, after which each sets out to ...
|
Bride Wars (CNS)
Brideshead Revisited
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Brideshead Revisited (SAM)
Brideshead Revisited
Well acted and lushly outfitted, but substantially re-imagined, screen version of Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel about a middle-class 1920s Oxford University student (Matthew Goode) who becomes entangled with an aristocratic Catholic dynasty through his almost romantic friendship with its younger son (Ben Whishaw), subsequently clashing with its misguided matriarch (Emma Thompson) ...
|
Brideshead Revisited (CNS)
Bridesmaids
Those who watched the seemingly flawless nuptials uniting Britain's newly minted Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will find a very different wedding experience awaiting them with the arrival on the big screen of the ill-tempered comedy "Bridesmaids" (Universal).
As written by Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig, director Paul Feig's stumble toward ...
|
Bridesmaids (CNS)
Bridesmaids
Annie (Kristen Wiig) is a
down-on-her-luck friend and maid of honor to Lillian (Maya Rudolph). Annie also
has relationship issues and the man (Jon Hamm) she is sleeping with has no
intention of making a commitment.
Problems start when Helen (Rose
Byrne) becomes part of the bridal party. She is wealthy, unhappy, and lonely ...
|
Bridesmaids (SRR)
Bridge to Terabithia
Coming-of-age fantasy based on Katherine Paterson's children's novel about a young loner (Josh Hutcherson) who befriends a new girl in school (AnnaSophia Robb), who's also an outcast, and together they create a magical world -- Terabithia -- where they can escape their real-life troubles. The young leads are charming and the ...
|
Bridge to Terabithia (CNS)
Bridge to Terabithia
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bridge to Terabithia (SAM)
Bridge to Terabithia
Click title to see this Every Day Catholic movie review.
|
Bridge to Terabithia (EDC)
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Retread sequel to 2001's "Bridget Jones' Diary," which finds the plump, romantically challenged Brit once again navigating a minefield of jealousies and insecurities, while waffling between sincere affection for her dashing but strait-laced lawyer boyfriend (Colin Firth) and the temptation of her caddish ex-boss and former lover (Hugh Grant). It may ...
|
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (CNS)
Bridget Jones's Diary
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bridget Jones's Diary (SAM)
Bright Young Things
Overly frenetic but generally successful adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Vile Bodies," a morality tale about hedonistic Jazz Age sophisticates who party their lives away in wild abandon until they're caught short by reality. Actor-writer Stephen Fry, making his directorial debut, shows an overfondness for rapid camera pans, and lays on the ...
|
Bright Young Things (CNS)
Brighton Rock
Evoking both visceral menace and moral dread, "Brighton Rock" (IFC) is a violent British crime thriller adorned with metaphysical flourishes.
Based on Graham Greene's 1939 novel, also adapted for the screen in 1947, the story revolves around depraved 17-year-old hoodlum Pinkie Brown (Sam Riley), who manipulates a naive waitress to avoid ...
|
Brighton Rock (CNS)
Bringing Down the House
Passable comedy in which a dull tax attorney (Steve Martin) mistakenly gets involved with a boisterous escaped con (Queen Latifah) who coaches him on how to win back his estranged wife (Jean Smart) and kids while insisting he can get her exonerated. Director Adam Shankman milks exaggerated racial stereotypes for occasional ...
|
Bringing Down the House (CNS)
Bringing Out the Dead
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bringing Out the Dead (SAM)
Brokeback Mountain
Over-the-years love story between two emotionally fragile cowboys (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) who begin an intimate relationship during a solitary sheepherding assignment. Though shortly after, they try to go their separate ways, with one marrying his fiancee (Michelle Williams) and the other a former prom queen (Anne Hathaway), they continue ...
|
Brokeback Mountain (CNS)
Broken City
Scandal, intrigue and a surfeit of bad language combine to form "Broken City" (Fox). This thriller with political overtones is strictly for those who can withstand actors growling their lines, downing two shots of whiskey in one go and dropping a payload worth of F-bombs.
Seven years after being acquitted in ...
|
Broken City (CNS)
Broken Flowers
World-weary womanizer (Bill Murray), deserted by his latest amour (Julie Delpy), receives an anonymous letter from a long-ago flame informing him he has a 19-year-old son, leading his neighbor (Jeffrey Wright) to suggest he look up ex-girlfriends (Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Tilda Swinton, Jessica Lange) and determine which one might have ...
|
Broken Flowers (CNS)
Brooklyn Rules
A coming-of-age comedy-drama about three lifelong Catholic friends (Scott Caan, Jerry Ferrara and Freddie Prinze Jr.) facing young adulthood in 1980s New York and trying to resist the influence of a local Mafia lieutenant (Alec Baldwin). While nicely observed, with a focus on how friendships can transcend time and circumstances, director ...
|
Brooklyn Rules (CNS)
Brooklyn's Finest
Catholic imagery pervades director Antoine Fuqua's seamy New York police drama "Brooklyn's Finest" (Overture).
But faith provides no meaningful guidance to the conflicted cops who populate this grim journey through Gotham's criminal underworld. Instead, characters cross all manner of legal and moral boundaries as the obscenity laden-script lurches from bloodshed ...
|
Brooklyn's Finest (CNS)
Brother Bear
Delightful animated fable set in the prehistoric Pacific Northwest about a Native American warrior (voiced by Joaquin Phoenix) who vows to hunt down the bear responsible for killing his older brother but, after slaying the animal, is transformed into a bear himself in order to learn about the interconnectedness of all ...
|
Brother Bear (CNS)
Brother Sun Sister Moon
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Brother Sun Sister Moon (SAM)
Brothers
Though it offers a timely exploration of the dehumanizing effects of violence and the often difficult-to-bridge gulf between combat and civilian life, the war drama "Brothers" (Lionsgate/Relativity)—director Jim Sheridan's adaptation of Susanne Bier's 2004 Danish film "Brodre"—is left flatfooted by David Benioff's cliche-ridden and simplistic script.
This is all the ...
|
Brothers (CNS)
Brothers Grimm, The
Visually inventive, highly atmospheric adult fantasy that presents the fairy-tale authors -- Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm (Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, with credible English accents) -- as con-artist characters in a story as fantastical as anything they might have written, incorporating familiar elements of many of their stories, as an autocratic ...
|
Brothers Grimm, The (CNS)
Brothers Solomon, The
Excruciatingly dull comedy in the clueless-protagonist vein, in which two brothers (Will Forte, who scripted, and Will Arnett) must become fathers to come into an inheritance from comatose father Lee Majors, and they pay a woman they've met online (Kristin Wiig) to be artificially inseminated. Director Bob Odenkirk's slow pacing fails ...
|
Brothers Solomon, The (CNS)
Bruce Almighty
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bruce Almighty (SAM)
Bruce Almighty
Be-careful-what-you-wish-for comedy about a frustrated TV news correspondent (Jim Carrey) whose life is changed when God (Morgan Freeman) entrusts him with divine power after the reporter angrily accuses the Almighty of being asleep at the wheel. Despite its lighthearted irreverence, director Tom Shadyac uses humor to explore such issues as free ...
|
Bruce Almighty (CNS)
Bruno
Wild social satire follows the exploits of a hyper-gay Austrian fashion reporter (Sacha Baron Cohen) as he travels to America in search of fame, and flaunts his proclivities—and eccentricities—to the discomfiture of many. As directed by Larry Charles, provocateur Cohen scores a few points at the expense of clueless celebrities and ...
|
Bruno (CNS)
Buck
When Nicholas Evans went looking for someone on which to
model the horse trainer and healer Tom Booker for his 1995 best selling novel
“The Horse Whisperer” he found Buck Brannaman. Then Robert Redford hired Buck
as an equine technical advisor for the film version, and according to this new
documentary, Buck was his double ...
|
Buck (SRR)
Bucket List, The
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bucket List, The (SAM)
Bucket List, The
Unremarkable, formulaic, only mildly entertaining story of two cancer patients -- a wealthy, womanizing tycoon (Jack Nicholson) and a middle-class garage mechanic (Morgan Freeman) -- who decide to hit the road and experience all their wildest dreams in the time they have left, that is, until they "kick the bucket." We've ...
|
Bucket List, The (CNS)
Buffalo Soldiers
Pitch-black satire about a sly Army supply clerk (Joaquin Phoenix) who runs scams on a U.S. Army base in West Germany until he gets a taste of his own medicine when a new officer (Scott Glenn) arrives to clean house. Director Gregor Jordan misfires with this skewed take on military honor, ...
|
Buffalo Soldiers (CNS)
Bugs
Intense and ultimately repelling tale of a depressed cocktail waitress (Ashley Judd) who takes in an apparently gentle drifter (Michael Shannon) to her motel room while living in fear of her ex-con former husband (Harry Connick Jr.) and is soon persuaded by the stranger's increasingly hysterical conviction that their room is ...
|
Bugs (CNS)
Bulletproof Monk
Superpowered martial artist (Chow Yun-Fat) and his young apprentice (Seann William Scott) battle an army of evil neo-Nazis who are searching for an ancient scroll which they have sworn to protect in director Paul Hunter's high-flying, but flawed chopsocky actioner. While boasting impressive acrobatics, the script is so hackneyed at times ...
|
Bulletproof Monk (CNS)
Bully
With the poignant documentary "Bully" (Weinstein), filmmaker Lee Hirsch sheds light on a widespread and tenacious social problem and provides a valuable — though not unproblematic — starting point for important family discussions.
Hirsch reveals the victimization of a trio of teens from different parts of the country who have endured ...
|
Bully (CNS)
Bulworth
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Bulworth (SAM)
Burlesque
Though it features impressive singing from the hearty pipes of Christina Aguilera, the initially pleasant musical "Burlesque" (Screen Gems) ultimately mixes a few decadent set-pieces in the titular performing style with an implicit endorsement of contemporary mores offstage. The result, unfortunately, is an entertainment too sordid for recommendation.
Aguilera plays ...
|
Burlesque (CNS)
Burn After Reading
Witty dark caper comedy about hapless Washington-based gym employees (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt) who find the memoirs of a fired CIA analyst (John Malkovich) on a computer disc and believe they're in possession of classified information they can sell to the Russians. Joel and Ethan Coen have written an extremely ...
|
Burn After Reading (CNS)
Burn After Reading
Click title to see this St. Anthony Messenger movie review.
|
Burn After Reading (SAM)
Butterfly Effect, The
Self-inflated thriller about a psychology major (Ashton Kutcher) who learns that the daily journals he has been keeping since an early age hold the key to unlocking repressed memories of traumatic boyhood events, as well as opening the door to the past, allowing him to travel back in time and rewrite ...
|
Butterfly Effect, The (CNS)
Butterfly, The
Click title to see this Every Day Catholic movie review.
|
Butterfly, The (EDC)
Butterfly, The
Entrancing French tale of a neglected 8-year-old Parisian (Claire Bouanich) who hides in the car of her crusty elderly neighbor (Michel Serrault) headed to the Alps in search of a rare butterfly, a trip which brings the lonely twosome unexpected emotional dividends. Writer-director Philippe Muyl delicately explores the discovery of nature ...
|
Butterfly, The (CNS)
|
