Life is bleak in Lafleur’s Quebec. Maryse (Fanny Mallette) enters a state of malaise after a man’s arm is cut off accidentally at the factory where she works; the first of three “accidents” punctuating the film. Maryse’s brother, Benoit (Francis La Haye) can’t get his act together and lives at home with their widowed father. […]
Molly Segal
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Terri
Azazel Jacobs has crafted a bittersweet comedy about a high school misfit, Terri (Jacob Wysocki), and his friendship with the school’s vice principal, Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly). Fitzgerald takes the pajama-clad, rotund Terri under his wing as one of the school’s misfits—“good-hearted” people, according to the VP—his parents are inexplicably absent and Wysocki cares […]
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A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas is a gift to fans
For Harold and Kumar fans, this is a welcome third installment, written by the same duo as the first two movies, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. TV director Todd Strauss-Schulson (new to the franchise) didn’t have to use 3D, but puts it to good use with self-conscious cheekiness: smoke rings swirl in the air and […]
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Tower Heist a limp caper
(image-1) A big-budget, mindless blockbuster entertainment, Brett Ratner’s (Rush Hour, The Red Dragon) Tower Heist doesn’t quite hit the mark. When businessman Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) defrauds the employees of the swanky high-rise he calls home, ex-building manager Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) leads a robbery of Shaw’s apartment with the aid of a team of […]
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Both Anonymous and forgettable
The Day After Tomorrow director Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous is a melodramatic exploration into William Shakespeare’s true identity. It opens and closes as a modern play and in between we travel to Shakespeare’s time and then jump chaotically within a 45-year period. The gist of the spiraling plot is simple: the Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans) […]
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Puss in Boots is feline fun
The badass Puss (Antonio Banderas) of Shrek 2 is back as a leading feline: an outlaw seeking to clear his name. We’re privy to Puss’ backstory when Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) reappears—they were “brothers” in a Spanish orphanage. They pursue the magic beans (a dream they’ve shared since childhood), which they must steal from a […]
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Sharp blades but dull wit of The Three Musketeers
Once upon a time, we didn’t need CGI to be lured into theatres. It’s now a staple of any action flick, including Paul W.S. Anderson’s (Resident Evil) iteration of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel. It does a good job pretending it’s part of the Pirates franchise—befuddled plot, sword fights and Orlando Bloom included—only in Louis XIII’s […]
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Atkinson shines as Johnny English Reborn
Rowan Atkinson doesn’t need a gargantuan budget to be funny. (Remember Mr. Bean or the Blackadder series?) Oliver Parker’s Johnny English Reborn, the sequel to Peter Howitt’s 2003 English debut, reinstates English as an MI7 agent after his five-year retreat as a Tibetan monk. His mission: to stop Vortex, a CIA-MI7-KGB assassination trio, from killing […]
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Sentimentality ruins The Big Year
Pick a hobby—from watching Star Trek to knitting—take it to the extreme, and it’s ripe with comedic potential (think of Christopher Guest’s dog show “mockumentary” Best in Show). But director David Frankel (Marley and Me) gets lost in sentimentality en route to comedy land. Funny guys Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black are birders […]
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The Maiden Danced to Death is clumsy
With a heavy-handed (and heavy-footed) touch, director-writer-actor Endre Hules parades his Hungarian folk dance drama onto the screen. Hules, who fled communist Hungary, returns to the homeland, his brother (Zsolt Làzslò), his brother’s wife (Bea Melkvi) and the dance company he abandoned. Montages punctuate choppy camera work—including Hules, Làzslò and Melkvi prancing like buffoons through […]
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Everyone’s a critic
The summer movie season is over, and though critics hated The Smurfs and Transformers, they were big hits. In response, Team Coast sounds off on movies they love that (almost) no one else does. Ishtar It’s telling that four of the five movies on this list are comedies; what’s funny is the most subjective thing. […]
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Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark lighter than it should be
Horror fans, beware: Troy Nixley’s re-invention of the 1973 TV movie won’t have you burrowing your face in the shoulder the person next to you. Little Sally (Bailee Madison), is sent to live with her dad (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend (Katie Holmes), architectural conservationists, in their current project, a spooky mansion in Rhode Island. […]
