Movie Reviews

"Moon" does something extraordinary: It seems familiar and derivative, yet it upends your expectations about science fiction and surprises you over and over.

Woody Allen has aged into that grandpa you hate taking out to eat because you never know what he might say. He's still got the occasional Oscar-worthy bit of wit in him.

Derivative in most ways, "The Proposal" marks itself as original in one regard: It presents a 44-year-old woman as a potential romantic option for a 32-year-old man without branding her A) a cougar, B) a sugar mama or C) that acronym applied to friends' mothers who inspire slow-mo fantasies of summer wear, soap buckets and dirty Toyota Camrys.

Israeli Arab actress Hiam Abbass has become a cinematic force of nature. U.S. moviegoers know her as the mother in "The Visitor," but her best recent role was probably as the bride's older sister in 2004's "The Syrian Bride," coping with the ruinous surrealism of national identity.

With last year's record attendance cementing its status as the area's premier film event, the Sacramento French Film Festival probably shouldn't have stirred things up this year.

"Year One" is this summer's "The Love Guru," this weekend's "Land of the Lost." It's a throwback to the "star comedy," the days when hit movies were outlandish farces built around larger-than-life comics playing broad characters.

"Away We Go" is a self-satisfied film about insecure people, a quirky and episodic comic drama that squanders its assets and ends up not as special as it tries to be.

The words "Eddie Murphy family comedy" are enough to send shivers down the spine of any self-respecting film lover.

How's this for creepy?

Denzel Washington and John Travolta always have shown exorbitant amounts of charisma, even as movie stars go.

Contemporary uber-babe Jessica Biel steps into the snappy banter of Noel Coward's roaring '20s in "Easy Virtue," and it's an awkward fit.

"The Girlfriend Experience," Steven Soderbergh's study of a high-priced Manhattan call girl through the prism of the economic crisis, is meta enough to intrigue yet too removed to truly engage.

Editor's note: This film was completed and this review was written before the May 26 death of Mike Tyson's 4-year-old daughter Exodus after an accident in her home.

There are exactly two funny bits in "Land of the Lost," and they stand out because they come at the very beginning and the very end.

On Nov. 23, 1968, the cardinal headlines of the year had already been written: the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the police riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

"The Hangover," a blackout comedy about a derailed bachelor party, hits and misses with its gags. But it distinguishes itself from other what-happens-in-Vegas comedies (practically a subgenre at this point) by setting an especially vivid scene and telling an actual story instead of pasting together random shenanigans the way many modern comedies do.

The adorable Nia Vardalos makes an obvious choice for a movie she hopes will recapture a bit of her "Big Fat Greek Wedding" mojo from 2002.

Rarely allowing substance to interfere with style, filmmaker Rian Johnson occasionally amuses but mostly frustrates with his con-job fantasia "The Brothers Bloom."

"Every Little Step" doesn't do anything unexpected, and it doesn't have to.

With "Ratatouille," "WALL-E" and now "Up," Pixar Animation Studios has graduated from moviedom's finest animation house to its most consistent producer of great cinematic art, period.

"Outrage" is a title that demands to be broken into two parts: "out" and "rage." A powerful and disturbing documentary by Kirby Dick, it examines one of the most unexpected dynamics in contemporary American politics: the existence of family-values conservative Republicans who are alleged to be closeted gays themselves.

Who says you can't go home again? In "Drag Me to Hell," director Sam Raimi revisits the gloriously gore-splattered, teasingly tongue-in-check mini-genre that he invented in the 1980s with movies like "The Evil Dead" and "Evil Dead II."

Paint drying. Photosynthesis. Rush-hour traffic.

"Shall We Kiss?" is a sensational date movie.

"Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" throws everything – history, high jinks, lots of famous faces in supporting roles – at the museum walls to see what sticks. Happily, much of it does.

Christian Bale should have taken a vacation instead.

There's something very special about the pairing of Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, who starred together in the wonderful "Y Tu Mamá También" and reunite in "Rudo y Cursi."

"Angels & Demons" might cause controversy among viewers who like their Tom Hanks films to be of some substance.

One of the most cheering cinematic trends of late is the blossoming of a style that could be called "American postindustrial neorealism."

Director JJ Abrams, in exploring the beginnings of the Starship Enterprise, blasts the "Star Trek" franchise back into relevance.

Like most sports movies, "Sugar" ends with a game. Not the typical big game with everything on the line and slo-mo heroics. We don't even know the score.

There's no honor among thieves in "Next Day Air," a dopey, bloody and downbeat "Black Pineapple Express."

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Because, as always, those French can never seem to find a balance.

Humiliation is a daily fact of life if you're a 50-year-old headbanger whose band never made it big. You attract 174 fans to an arena that holds 10,000.

Hugh Jackman gets so fully into character in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" that he risks bursting blood vessels when Wolverine shows the full force of his rage.

There is so much wrong with "Battle for Terra" that it's hard to decide where to start.

The Internet hatefest for Matthew McConaughey reached its nadir this past week, with one blogger going so far as to call the goofy-go-lucky dude "Satan."

Occasionally wistful, often melancholy but always charming, "Is Anybody There?" is a coming-of-age comedy about old age. This wise but slight film is best appreciated for another winning Michael Caine turn as the old boy conjures a winning performance out of a gossamer-thin role.

Randy Crawford's 1970s cover of "Street" blasts from the soundtrack and "Fighting" director Dito Montiel ("A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints") fills the screen with precisely that – a grungy, hustling "Midnight Cowboy" New York.

Editor's note: This review first appeared in 2007 when the film originally was released.

The Italian fashion designer Valentino has an aristocratic soul.

Combining mental illness, homelessness, journalism, cello music and a directing style that veers toward the epic, "The Soloist" encounters some trouble in maintaining a tone.

Thanks to Brett Easton Ellis, nobody can ever tell you "you had to be there" when talking about the '80s. Ellis lets us relive those halcyon days of cheap coke, "Miami Vice" fashions and the rise of AIDS.

A very southern modern Western, the Spanish-language "Sin Nombre" offers a treacherous frontier, a conflicted outlaw and fine performances by actors with whom the camera clearly is besotted.

You would never know it from her flamboyant fashion sense and wild acting roles that Bai Ling spent her early years growing up in China with a paralyzing fear of people.

"17 Again" is one of those movies that requires you to suspend all disbelief and assume that someone who looks like Zac Efron could, in 20 years, turn into someone who looks like Matthew Perry.

Remember when every Russell Crowe movie was an event?

Muddling through Steven Soderbergh's nearly 4 1/2-hour "Che" is often as much of a struggle as spreading revolution throughout Latin America.

"Hannah Montana: The Movie" shouldn't be analyzed from an adult perspective – which, frankly, is irrelevant.