Movies playing in town

Movies playing in town21 (PG-13, 123 minutes) Inspired by the book Bringing Down the House, this fact-based (let’s not go all the way to “true”) story introduces us to hotshot young M.I.T. student Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess, Across the Universe). Our boy Ben’s a math wizard, but he’s too poor to afford tuition. Enter evil […]

Baby on board

Success has many parents, but failure is an orphan. Given that truism, it’s easy to trace the lineage of Baby Mama back to today’s reigning queens of comedy, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Some things are better left to the stork: UVA grad Tina Fey (left) and Amy Poehler play the Gallant and Goofus of […]

Movies playing in town

Movies playing in town21 (PG-13, 123 minutes) Inspired by the book Bringing Down the House, this fact-based (let’s not go all the way to “true”) story introduces us to hotshot young M.I.T. student Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess, Across the Universe). Our boy Ben’s a math wizard, but he’s too poor to afford tuition. Enter evil […]

Apa-told you once…

“From the guys who brought you The 40-Year-Old Virgin” is getting to be like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for comedy films. Judd Apatow has only directed one movie since The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but his name has been attached in one way or another to nine films since then, from Talladega Nights: The Ballad […]

Movies playing in town

Movies playing in town21 (PG-13, 123 minutes) Inspired by the book Bringing Down the House, this fact-based (let’s not go all the way to “true”) story introduces us to hotshot young M.I.T. student Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess, Across the Universe). Our boy Ben’s a math wizard, but he’s too poor to afford tuition. Enter evil […]

Numbered days

If someone started out by telling you that 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a bleak drama about abortion, shot in Romania and set during the Communist era, you’d probably avoid it like the plague. So, instead, I’ll start out by telling you that 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days captured the […]

Movies playing in town

Movies playing in town88 Minutes (R, 108 minutes) Al Pacino plays a college professor who is given 88 minutes to solve his own murder. That’s pretty much the same plot as the 1988 remake of D.O.A. with a tighter timeframe, but we’ll let it slide. This time. Apparently, our man Al’s testimony helped send a […]

At last! Clooney in Leather!

George Clooney is often compared to Cary Grant. Yet, despite the similarities in style, Clooney has rarely ventured into the sort of screwball romantic comedies that made Grant such an icon. His closest effort was Intolerable Cruelty, which failed to capture an audience, as most viewers mistook the Coen brothers’ over-the-top style for outright mockery. […]

Movies playing in town

Movies playing in town10,000 B.C. (PG-13, 109 minutes) Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Independence Day) directs this big-budget SPFX extravaganza. It’s, well, 10,000 B.C., and a hairy, mammoth-hunting hero (unknown Steven Strait) is prevailed upon to rescue his tribe from a civilization of pyramid-dwelling slavers. Omar Sharif is in there, doing his best prehistoric work since The […]

Red hot poker

America loves to play cards. Hollywood loves to gamble. Over the years, and with increasing frequency, the movie industry has tried to exploit this by giving us films about card-playing: The Cincinnati Kid, California Split, Maverick, Rounders, The Cooler, Lucky You. Hell, even the last James Bond film managed to shoehorn in a pivotal Texas […]