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BRETT MICHEL
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Patricia Riggen's adolescent dramedy
As rites of passage go, Girl in Progress is a step backward for the genre.
Bess Kargman's documentary
While not the most probing look at rising stars, Bess Kargman's documentary focuses on six aspiring contestants preparing for the prestigious Youth America Grand Prix competition (a proven entry point into the world of professional ballet) who demonstrate dazzling talent.
A pleasant diversion
Filled with Indian (and British) clichés, it is nonetheless a pleasant diversion that doesn't involve special effects or 3D glasses.
Out of tune
A faith-based film directed by Christian recording artist Steve Taylor, adapted by Taylor and Donald Miller from the latter's 2003 memoir, this micro-budgeted indie tries to appeal to everyone by not offending anyone . . . except those who like movies.
A quest to sushi chefdom
Eighty-five-year-old Jiro, with his unchanging expression and bald pate, resembles a wizened turtle. Leaving home at age 9 and forced to fend for himself, he would become the world's greatest sushi chef.
Johnnie To's latest film
Johnnie To's latest opens as Chinese police arrive at a crime scene, portending his usual slice of bloody action.
The latest opus from auteur Brian Robbins
"What happens when all the leaves fall off?" celebrity guru Dr. Sinja (Cliff Curtis) asks Jack McCall (Eddie Murphy) after a Bodhi tree has magically sprouted in Jack's backyard.
Adult Swim 's cult comedy duo
It's standard sitcom stuff, and if homeopathic remedies by way of coprophilia aren't your idea of comedy, you'd best steer clear of this shit.
Perry's latest melodrama
Tyler Perry is no Douglas Sirk. In his latest melodrama, his uptight exec, San Francisco software company CEO Wesley Deeds, is no Madea, either. Hell, Deeds doesn't even know who he is himself.
Michael R. Roskam's debut feature
What this cattle farmer at the center of talented writer/director Michael R. Roskam's debut feature – Belgium's foreign-language Oscar nominee – lacks, he tries to make up for with steroids.
Spy vs. Spy territory
What promises to be a modern Jules and Jim (until you realize it's directed by a 43-year-old who calls himself "McG") quickly devolves into Spy vs. Spy territory, only with incompetently staged and edited action and little of that ol' Mad magazine zing.
Run and gun
Made for a modest budget of $17 million — and feeling like it (who needs convincing explosions in an action movie?), Dante Lam's latest still gets the job done from a run-and-gun standpoint.
An extremely exploitative and incredibly bad tale
Too soon? For Stephen Daldry's 9/11 drama, the right time is "never."
The horrors of human nature
Many a teleplay for The Twilight Zone threatened atomic Armageddon, and though Frontier(s) director Xavier Gens nukes New York in the opening shots of his latest thriller, he finds more inspiration in the horrors of human nature as seen in the old TV show's episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."
Worthy of an IMAX screen
Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) returns to the screen in dramatic fashion as new teammate Jane (Paula Patton) and the returning Benji (Simon Pegg) break him out of a Russian prison.
Cameron Crowe's film version of Benjamin Mee's memoir
Matt Damon plays Mee, a journalist who decides that he and his daughter (a precocious Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and sullen teenage son (Colin Ford) need a new start after the death of his wife, so he spends his life savings on a house in the country.
Guy Ritchie's return to the world of Sherlock Holmes
A new game is afoot in director Guy Ritchie's return to the world of Sherlock Holmes, but Robert Downey Jr.'s first outing as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed sleuth puts Shadows in the shade.
Tale of a Robitussin-addicted man-child
David Gordon Green's latest finds him working in the scruffy comic realm that's shrouded his past couple of pictures in a pot-smoke haze.
Easily Sandler's worst film
Director Dennis Dugan's second Adam Sandler vehicle of the year turns out to be even worse than Just Go with It.
A generic riff on the Crazy Heart template
Borrowing the name of a Clash song with which it has nothing in common, this generic riff on the Crazy Heart template by writer/director David M. Rosenthal ( Falling Up ) also cribs from Sofia Coppola's Somewhere .
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