Film

Jolie in a shot from the new Whitesnake videoYou are going to have to set aside common sense to enjoy this movie. It'll be no fun if you question the logistics of Wanted, with its dopey dialogue and ridiculous plot. Better to sit back and enjoy the ride while this flick delivers a ton of exhilarating, jaw-dropping action scenes.
The plot unfolds with a quick voice-over narrative biography explaining the lame existence of one Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), a stressed out accountant, stagnating in his measly meek life. People abuse and take advantage of him on a daily basis. Oh, if only he could grow a pair… Enter Fox (a tattooed ultra sleek Angelina Jolie) who literally whisks Gibson away to employ his unknown talents for an underground assassin club called the Fraternity. Sound farfetched so far? You betcha. But who cares? Right when you think the film will get long and uninteresting, Wanted pumps in the adrenaline-beginning with some Matrix-effect flying bullets.

The wrath of KhanAs Kazakstan's first entry into the Academy Awards (2008 nominee for Best Foreign Language Film), the epic historical drama, Mongol, will enthrall horse devotees, history aficionados (who can argue afterwards about its authenticity), or anyone else interested in a visually incredible depiction of life on the steppes of 12th century Central Asia.

Who gave the Rock a gun?Get Smart attempts a big-screen adaptation of a small-screen show, trying hard to stay somewhat reverent to the original. The film was the brainchild of Buck Henry and Mel Brooks, (credited as consultants) but this remake somehow lost the duo's slapstick wit and brainy innuendoes. In fact, the entire movie smacks of lackluster performances and tedious plot-fillers. What was once wacky spy stuff alongside the goofiness of Mad magazine, is now an almost risk-free and gutless remake.
 
The opening music wanders in schmaltz land until the credits arrive at the credits with the familiar multiple doors closing shut to the sound of the original TV theme song. The simplistic plot is that KAOS (the evil organization) wants to wreak havoc on the planet by bombing select cities starting with Los Angeles. CONTROL (the good guys) has to stop them.
Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86, takes on the Don Adams role in a weirdly subtle performance. Carell is a really good choice, but whereas Don Adams had this kind of pestering suave bravado, Carell comes off as more of a wimp with surprises. The original 86, due to his boasting and know-it-all attitude, brought everything on himself and he got what he deserved. In 2008, we get a pathetic 86 begging you to feel sorry for him-it's just not right. On the other hand, Anne Hathaway is extremely sexy, replacing Barbara Feldon as Agent 99. And that's no small feat. Who didn't have a crush on Feldon's 99? Max's rapport with 99, however, is only sometimes bearable.

Smoking isn’t supposed to look this cool.French actress Audrey Tatou (Amelie), with a personality as effervescent as a flute of Taittinger champagne, takes us on an escapade along the French Riviera in the romantic comedy, Priceless. As Irene, she teaches a naïve bartender, as well as the audience, the finer points of seduction while digging for gold in the form of wealthy single men. She likes expensive things and knows how to get rich, older men to buy them for her; but she pays a high personal price for her hedonistic habits.
 
The film opens with a witty sequence involving a lowly hotel bartender/valet walking dogs at an elite seaside resort for wealthy patrons who speak to their dogs as if they're spoiled children. Jean (Gad Elmaleh, The Valet) serves the every whim of these mavens who, from evidence of their overly tanned skin which is as dark and wrinkled as brown paper bags, seem to have spent most of their lives basking on chaise lounges.
Fate and risk intertwine late that night in the hotel bar, allowing Jean to spend the night with-and subsequently fall for-the irresistible Irene, who has become bored with her older benefactor/boyfriend. Irene, having mistaken Jean for a potential suitor, soon discovers that he's an imposter, and even worse, a hotel employee. She sets out to teach him a lesson and, unsuccessfully, shake him off. What she thinks is most important in life is exactly what he is willing to give up. Even though we can predict the outcome with a high degree of probability, director Pierre Salvador ensures that what happens along the way surprises and entertains.

mark Wahlberg and the world’s largest bowling bag on tour. M. Night doesn't make horror movies; he makes long Twilight Zone episodes.
Shyamalan is known for his narrative twist and turns and surprise endings, but he can't conjure his way out of The Happening's poorly executed script. Most of M's tricks are here but the gimmicks are starting to resemble an aging genre hack. Even his obligatory Hitchcock-esque cameo isn't onscreen-the credits are the only place you'll find him.
Unfortunately right when the film gets eerie, it also gets stupid. Underdeveloped characters are complemented by dismal performances from the actors. The initial scene with Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) and Julian (John Leguizamo) is about as phony as movie dialogue gets. And Elliot's marriage to Alma (Zooey Deschanel) isn't remotely convincing. Soap opera dialogue runs rampant with idiotic attempts at tension-releasing comedic banter. The relationship between the two leads is so cute and demeaning that I almost left the theater. Wahlberg plays a guy who keeps it together in the face of doom, but his wimp voice and crybaby attitude dominate the entire evacuation sojourn. He more or less just walks through the role. He had a few chances to chew up the scene. Instead he's a perpetual one-note grimace. Deschanel just runs around batting her baby blues like some kind of coma victim showing us vapidity gone wild. Responding to the theory that terrorists have devised a toxin to make people kill themselves, Alma utters the ridiculous line, "Just when you think no more evil could be invented…"

all this just for a free blood pressure test?Edward Norton finally gets to play a Hollywood hunk, albeit a large green one. The actor's usual cool demeanor gets ripped in this film as fast as his muscles do, morphing from the research scientist Bruce Banner into Marvel Comics' super-conflicted-hero character, The Incredible Hulk. Not to be confused with director Ang Lee's 2003 take on the comic book character, this rendition is not a sequel; it's an entirely new version of the story. In what quickly evolves into a fast-paced paced political thriller, the first half of which bears resemblance to The Bourne Ultimatum, Norton's acting undergoes its own transformation. Not that he'll be an Oscar contender for this roll, but as Banner the actor's intelligence is infused with as much passion, wonder and determination as a film about a super hero will allow. While reinventing the Hulk, though, he's just kick-ass strong.
 
Following a secret US military science project gone awry in the nation's capitol, the action jumps to Brazil where Banner's earnest character draws us into what appears to be the life of an adventurous, backpack toting post-grad student. He hides out in a color-faded hovel with his loyal dog, while learning Portuguese, meditating for anger control, and working among the natives in a bottling company. I found this part of the film much more interesting-particularly visually-than I had expected. Like Jason Bourne, Banner is a fugitive trying to avoid the US government's radar, and eventually he's forced into a chase scene on foot, only instead of Bourne's Tangiers, we follow our man breathlessly as he races through a ramshackle barrio of Rio de Janeiro.

One of the many graphic rape scenesI can't say that this movie is boring. Let's just say it's longer than it should be. It's the kind of documentary you can watch on the History Channel and be glad there are commercials so you can take a well-deserved break.
There are, however, a ton of interesting facts. In fact, I wrote down a lot of them just so I could feel smarter. But the gist of this movie is pretty simple: Hitler stole or destroyed a bunch of artwork. Some items are lost forever. Some were found and restored. There are debates on who gets them after they are rediscovered. The End.
Rape of Europa provides a fairly detailed history lesson on the rise and fall of the Third Reich, introducing a theory that most cities were targeted due to the artwork they housed to accommodate Hitler's desire to build the ultimate Nazi art museum. There was a hit list of cities to be plundered and pillaged for masterpieces he deemed Third Reich-worthy. The film suggests, for example, that Russia's Leningrad was bombed for its Armitage museum. On the other hand, Warsaw was almost annihilated because like the Jews, the Nazis considered Poles a vile race and their art degenerate. That's right, the film suggests that Warsaw was virtually destroyed because its residents had bad taste. Soon, cities got wise to the fact that museums were obliterated and/or looted. There were massive evacuation relocation plans from the Louvre and other museums, moving the precious treasures to remote castles miles away. Oddly, Hitler spared Paris, because he wanted it to be a mere shadow next to his uber museum.

Sandler stars in Teen Wolf IIWho knew that cutting hair could be so gross? Or that co-authors Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow (seemingly in a professional freefall from triumphs such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The 40-Year-Old Virgin) could create any relationship at all between a Mossad agent and the gyrating hair stylist in New York City he morphs into? If you think the previews look bad, the movie proves downright nasty. Director Dennis Dugan (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry) delivers a movie that even made a grown guy sitting next to me cover his eyes more than once.
Sandler combines every disgusting pelvic gesture imaginable with sticky, icky hair crèmes, as he pours, squirts, and spurts various liquids on the manes of middle-to-older aged women in a hair salon. And unfortunately those aren't the only things spurting in this film. For some reason, he then feels compelled to escort these by now willingly wanton women, fairly panting into the back room in order to facilitate their youthful imaginings. Uck. Whatever happened to just bestowing an exaggerated compliment, like "Boy Mrs. Wilson, you look at least thirty years younger with those new gold highlights and spikes?"

Tribal fisherman have suffered along with the salmon on the columbia river. Who says all fish-talk is boring? River Ways proves the opposite in a documentary about four controversial Snake Rivers dams. Set against the backdrop of the collapse of a once unrivaled salmon fishery on the Columbia River and a campaign to have four dams that have contributed to that decline removed, River Ways finds there are no easy solutions, or easy villains in this story.
River follows three essential characters-Frank Sutterlict, a Yakama tribal fisherman, Ben Branston, a wheat farmer, and Mark Ihander, a commercial fisherman. It keeps most interviews short and to the point, highlighting viewpoints from both sides of the river debate. The other perspectives include conservationists, protesters, board members, biologists and river advocates. The big river draws in a huge spectrum of interests, both economic and environmental, and there is plenty of acrimony between the extremes. One scene shows gun-toting, racist fishermen making a stand at what they consider "their river" when a Native American tries to fish the same stream.

refuses to clean up her room. The Strangers will piss off a lot of people, but probably not for the same reasons as me. It has its moments as it's an odd twist of a film. It's all about a victimizing, murderous act and any substance beyond that is all but lost. Relying only on scare tactics, the film has virtually no plot. This can be a good thing, but in this case it leads to an unredeemable finale with a supremely uncalled for ending.
 
The beginning has that good ol' horror movie promise with narration and "inspired by true events" facts straight out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Strangers keeps the suspense up and will undeniably creep you out. (The sound of a knock on a door might never be the same for you again.)
Kristin (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) are back from a party early because Kristen has re-buffed James' marriage proposal and they're in a sad quandary as to what to do next. Staying at his folks' remotely situated house, they receive a knock at the door from a seemingly lost girl. They send her on her way and the trouble begins. Knocks turn into pounds, windows break, and masked figures begin to appear. (Props go to the creepiest masks ever: doll-face and pillow-head.)